Vitalik Buterin has highlighted decentralized finance (DeFi) as a crucial component of Ethereum's core value. The Ethereum Foundation (EF) plans to focus on supporting a global financial system that is permissionless, open-source, privacy-first, security-first, and decentralized, enhancing user asset control and reducing centralization risks. Buterin advocates for systemic innovation in DeFi, focusing on risk management and future expenditure hedging, rather than merely improving surface-level products like stablecoins. Buterin also emphasized the importance of protocols having a "walkaway test" capability, ensuring they can operate sustainably even if the original team is no longer active. EF's priorities include enhancing security through audits and standards, introducing AI-assisted formal verification and user-side agents for protection, strengthening oracle security and decentralization, advancing privacy payments, and improving the open-source licensing and forkability of DeFi projects.