It may be time to rethink what we consider the “risk-free” rate of return when it comes to investments, and that may change how we view decentralized finance as well.Thomas Billings was the epitome of caution. An accountant by trade, Billings would check four times before crossing the road, use a virtual private network and store his passwords in a safe, changing them periodically every three months.At work, Billings could be found in the office late into the night, making sure that every ledger entry was accounted for and that every discrepancy was flagged and highlighted.As accountants go, Billings was both favored and feared for his meticulousness.And that attention to detail carried across to his daily life, where his modest stucco home was unadorned by any frivolity, his only indulgence being his pet cat, aptly named Integer, a play on its ginger coat.Billings had the diet that would have driven any average American bonkers.No high fructose corn syrup and no processed foods.No GMO foods and no dairy.So it wasn’t without some degree of irony that Billings went to the doctor’s office on a crisp autumn morning to receive the news that he had been diagnosed with stage four lung cancer.He had months to live.Despite never having smoked a single cigarette his entire life, Billings was now staring death in the face because of a disease more commonly associated with smokers.Having dedicated the better part of his life to avoiding risk, he wondered if there was even a point to all of that.Is there such a thing as “risk-free”?Which is why the belief that there’s such a thing as “risk-free” instruments fools us into thinking that there’s even such a thing — especially when it comes to investing.For the uninitiated, the “risk-free” rate of return is used as a yardstick with…