Auditing smart contracts has made me a lot more hesitant about using DeFi and made me wonder how DeFi can be safely used by ordinary people

I'm learning solidity so I can audit smart contracts. I've been a user of smart contracts for awhile and I have a good understanding of the finance aspects of it but I didn't know how to read and understand a smart contract itself.

Now that I've been learning solidity and starting to review smart contracts, I realize how much can go wrong and also that compromises sometimes have to be made. And that things sometimes work in ways you wouldn't expect...to be fair this is also laid out in the docs (with a good protocol anyway) so at least read those even if you aren't able to read smart contracts.

Id always recommend sticking to very well known and big DeFi platforms... Not that that means you won't lose your funds (see exploits of Curve and Yearn eg). But the ones that are constantly popping up that get a shoddy audit and then just acknowledge all the risks but don't fix them should be avoided with a 10 foot pole

Just because a dapp is audited does not mean it's safe. You need to look at the audit itself and see whether and how they addressed the issues raised. And even when they are audited well, things can still be missed.

It makes me wonder how we are gonna get DeFi to a place where ordinary people can safely use it.