Spencer Applebaum, co-head of venture at Multicoin Capital, outlined three competitive moats for DeFi projects in the AI era: distribution capability, capital access, and proprietary data. He argued that while AI has drastically lowered software development costs, financial services remain difficult to commoditize because their core value depends on trust, customer relationships, and underwriting capabilities built over years. Distribution refers to controlling order flow and where capital flows. Hyperliquid secured approximately 90% of reserve yield from Circle through its capital scale, while wallets like MetaMask earn transaction fees far exceeding underlying trading venues. The second moat, capital, involves owning a balance sheet with low cost of funds to provide leverage and backstop risk, exemplified by Hyperliquid's HLP vault and Aave's Umbrella protocol. The third, proprietary data, centers on non-public information and underwriting capability — OnRe charges a 75 basis-point management fee plus 20% profit share by leveraging real-world insurance data, significantly outperforming ordinary DeFi curators. Applebaum noted that Layer 1 and Layer 2 advantages in distribution and capital are being eroded by interoperability, predicting future winners will be applications with direct customer relationships, dedicated capital reserves, or proprietary underwriting data.