First, non-custodial financial services allow participants to exert full control over their funds at any point in time.

Second, the permissionless nature of DeFi allows anyone to interact with financial services without being able to be censored or blocked access by a third party.

Third, DeFi is openly auditable, which means that anyone can audit the state of protocols-e.g., that they are fully collateralized/healthy.

Fourth, financial services can be arbitrarily composed such that new financial products and services can be created similar to how one can conceive new Lego models based on a few basic building blocks.