Tan Gera: Why DeFi Could Reshape the Financial System

Traditional finance teaches people to trust the system. Tan Gera says that trust may be misplaced.

In a recent episode of IncomeInsider TV, host Sam Laliberte sat down with Tan Gera, CEO and co-founder of Decentralized Masters, for a wide-ranging conversation about banking, crypto, DeFi, and why he believes the financial system is heading toward a major transition over the rest of this decade.

Gera, who came out of traditional finance and investment banking before moving into decentralized finance education, argued that many people misunderstand how the current system works and how little control they actually have over their money.

Rather than pitching crypto as a speculative shortcut, Tan Gera framed decentralized finance as a structural alternative to legacy banking.

The discussion focused on practical themes: what it means to “become your own bank,” why stablecoins and DeFi yield have attracted interest, where beginners get stuck, how to think about scams and due diligence, and why he believes tokenization will reshape finance in the years ahead.

Watch the full interview here:

Key takeaways from Tan Gera’s IncomeInsider TV appearance

1. Gera says the financial system is built for insiders

Early in the conversation, Gera explained that his time in investment banking gave him both a technical understanding of money management and a front-row seat to what he described as a gatekept system.

He said the system is largely “built for the people who built it,” and argued that financial education is deliberately kept out of reach for many people because knowledge is part of the advantage insiders want to preserve.

That perspective was shaped in part by his personal background. Gera described coming from a lower-middle-class immigrant family in France and said that even after reaching the world of Wall Street and high finance, he felt more aligned with the people left out of the system than with the institutions benefiting from it. He said that realization pushed him to start looking for another path.

2. One of his biggest arguments: most people do not really control their money

One of the clearest parts of the interview came when Gera challenged the common assumption that money in a bank account is fully under the depositor’s control.

He argued that once money is deposited, the bank is able to use it for its own lending activity while paying the saver very little in return. He contrasted low savings yields with the much higher returns banks can generate by re-lending deposited funds, and used that mismatch as a starting point for his case against the traditional model.

His point was not just that banks profit from deposits. It was that many people accept that arrangement without ever stopping to question whether there are viable alternatives.

In Gera’s framing, that lack of awareness is one of the biggest advantages the legacy system still has.

Learn More on Decentralized Masters' Website.

3. “Become your own bank” is really about using DeFi instead of relying entirely on banks

Tan Gera’s central concept in the episode was the idea of “becoming your own bank.” In practical terms, he described a process where someone converts dollars into stablecoins and then uses decentralized finance platforms rather than leaving funds idle in a traditional account or on a centralized exchange.

He said the appeal is that DeFi platforms need liquidity and can pay users for supplying it, which in his view opens the door to higher yields than the average saver is used to receiving from a bank.

He also made a point of distinguishing between centralized platforms like Coinbase and decentralized exchanges, arguing that many beginners stop too early by never moving beyond the centralized layer.

That distinction is important to his overall thesis because, in his telling, the real opportunity is not just buying crypto assets. It is understanding how decentralized financial infrastructure works and how it can be used.

4. His broader case for DeFi is that it removes the middleman

When Sam Laliberte asked what problem DeFi is actually trying to solve, Gera boiled the answer down to one idea: removing the middleman.

He argued that today’s financial system is crowded with intermediaries that collect a disproportionate share of the value in transactions. In contrast, he said DeFi replaces that middle layer with transparent code operating on a public ledger, allowing market participants to interact without depending on the same trust-based institutional structure.

To make the concept more accessible, Tan Gera used an analogy involving a beachfront property. Just as an owner might rent out a property while waiting for it to appreciate, he said DeFi allows money to be put to work by supplying liquidity and earning fees from transaction activity.

Whether a reader agrees with that framing or not, it was one of the clearest explanations he offered for where DeFi yield comes from and why he believes the model is fundamentally different from traditional banking.

5. The biggest barrier for newcomers is not curiosity. It is execution

A recurring theme in the interview was that many people are not unwilling to learn. They simply do not know where to start. Gera said one of the main friction points for beginners is the technical hurdle between hearing about DeFi and actually using it correctly.

He described a lack of reliable step-by-step guidance as a major reason people give up before they ever get comfortable navigating the space.

That problem, he said, is what Decentralized Masters was built to address. Rather than relying on hype, he said the company tries to help people bridge the gap between understanding the concept and taking the right practical steps.

He framed education, mentoring, and patient handholding as the core value proposition, especially for people who are not naturally tech-savvy.

Apply Now to Join Decentralized Masters.

6. Decentralized Masters is positioned as an education business, not a profit-sharing scheme

Gera also clarified how the business works. He said Decentralized Masters operates through front-end tuition and membership tiers rather than taking a share of users’ gains.

According to him, the point is to teach members how to navigate the space independently, with many people beginning in a six-month program designed to help them get comfortable before operating on their own.

He emphasized that the company serves people across a wide range of experience levels, from complete beginners to advanced DeFi users. That part of the conversation seemed intended to separate Decentralized Masters from a generic crypto course or newsletter and position it instead as a more hands-on education and community model.

Related: Bri Teresi on Crypto, Precious Metals, and Financial Sovereignty

7. Bad Actors and Crypto Scams

One of the more useful segments of the interview dealt with trust, bad actors, and crypto scams. Laliberte raised the obvious concern that many people hear “crypto” and immediately think of fraud, hype, and blown-up promises.

Gera responded by saying he had made major mistakes himself, including giving back earlier gains and later getting scammed out of $200,000. He presented that experience as one reason he became so focused on education and due diligence.

He argued that prospective members should research the company, review its reputation, and do proper diligence before trusting anyone in the space. That was an important part of the conversation because it kept the interview from becoming purely promotional.

Instead, it acknowledged that skepticism is rational and that anyone exploring DeFi needs to distinguish between serious education and opportunistic marketing.

8. Gera believes the bigger story is tokenization, not just crypto

Late in the episode, the conversation shifted from current-day DeFi to the broader future of finance. Gera said Decentralized Masters is oriented around what he sees as a 2030 “inflection point,” where several major technologies, including AI, robotics, energy innovation, and tokenization, begin converging more forcefully.

His argument was that tokenization will increasingly touch every major asset class, from stocks to real estate to bonds, and that this transition matters far beyond crypto enthusiasts.

That led to one of the interview’s broader claims: that Decentralized Masters is not really teaching people “crypto” so much as teaching them how to position themselves for a financial system that is gradually becoming more digital, more tokenized, and more decentralized.

Whether that prediction proves fully accurate remains to be seen, but it is clearly the lens through which Gera wants audiences to understand what he is building.

Apply Now to Join Decentralized Masters.

9. He sees AI as a force that will accelerate the need for a new financial rail

Another notable part of the interview came when Gera linked DeFi to the rise of AI agents. He argued that if AI becomes increasingly active in the economy, legacy banking rails will struggle to support the speed and efficiency those systems require. In his view, digital, programmable, always-on financial infrastructure is better suited to that world than the slower processes associated with traditional banking.

Sam pushed back with a fair question: if traditional institutions are full of smart people, why could they not simply adapt? Gera’s answer was that many of the biggest institutions probably will adapt, but that the transition will still redistribute opportunity, open the door to new players, and weaken some older parts of the financial system that are less able to compete.

Related: BitIRA Review- Best Platform for Crypto IRAs?

Education is Key

Tan Gera’s appearance on IncomeInsider TV was ultimately less about crypto speculation and more about financial structure. The interview centered on who benefits from the current system, what alternatives decentralized finance is trying to build, and why education may be one of the most valuable assets for people trying to make sense of that shift.

For viewers who are curious about DeFi but wary of the hype, the episode offers a useful window into how one of the space’s education-focused founders explains the opportunity, the risks, and the larger macro case for paying attention now rather than later.