Decentralized Finance or DeFi for short, is an inclusive and remodelled open finance format that typifies the unification of decentralized technologies (like the blockchain) and traditional banking systems. Simply put, DeFi systems aim to provide substitutes for existing financial services in the aspects of loans, insurance, savings, asset trading and lots more.
DeFi is largely dependent on decentralized applications (Dapps) on the Ethereum blockchain, and to understand its capabilities, the concept of Dapps must be adequately understood.
How Important is DeFi?
The importance of DeFi in the evolution of financial systems as we know them, cannot be overemphasized. This open finance format offers huge prospects for the expansion of global economies, and since 2019, it has been considered one of the most significant and rapid advancements in the cryptosphere by analysts.
Recent reports have also revealed that DeFi tokens are, without cessation, outstripping their compeer, having surged by over 200% since the start of 2020.
DeFi Apps and Crypto
At the moment, DeFi apps have grown in popularity and are already securing businesses, money and time. The emergence of Decentralized Finance platforms has become evident in virtually all parts of the financial sector, inclusive of cryptocurrencies. All DeFi apps are transparent, open-source, interoperable, flexible, and permission-less, as seen in numerous Ethereum-based projects.
In the crypto sector, decentralized exchanges are perceived as the next big thing towards achieving the desired evolution. Decentralized exchanges (DEX) will eliminate the chances of theft and exchange hacks that have plagued centralized systems.
When crypto assets are traded on a decentralized exchange, the transactions are facilitated by smart contracts rather than traditional intermediary systems in centralized exchanges.
Smart contracts protect crypto transactions on the blockchain and ensure that the entirety of the system is not vulnerable to hackers. The DeFi ecosystem isn’t just flourishing, it is quickly changing the business approach of established institutions, while also facilitating the emergence of thousands of crypto projects.
Here are some of the most exciting and interesting projects, in no particular order, and of course, by no means exhaustive.
1inch
Before the emergence of tokens and smart contracts, cryptos were normally traded via exchanges. Due to this, exchanges have enjoyed massive growth and have become major players in the crypto world. The surge in the popularity of Ethereum, created Decentralized Exchanges (DEX), and ever since, more DEX projects have launched on the ETH blockchain.
1inch improves on the existing concept by taking it a little further. To be more explicit, 1inch is a DEX aggregator that scans through all the DEXs on the Ethereum blockchain to obtain the best prices for any asset as desired by the user. 1inch offers a powerful tool, especially for users who are in the market for the best price margins.
One way to get the best of crypto investments is to research and purchase yet to be launched token on major centralized EXs. Being on the ETH network, purchasing 1inch tokens before they debut in large crypto economies, would be an excellent choice.
Curve
Having kickstarted in 2019, Curve is another amazing DeFi application in the cryptosphere. It is an exchange pool built on the ETH blockchain, that utilizes bonding curves, and specifically designed to support and boost the trading of stablecoin (DAI, USDC, USDT and TUSD), while also providing low-risk income fees for liquidity merchants.
With Curve, users do not experience price fluctuations as they normally would on DEXs, when swapping one stablecoin for the another. In the case where assets on other DeFi platforms, especially Compound, are not being traded, Curve lends the assets and return interests to providers of liquidity.
Curve is accessible on mainnet via curve.fi and it supports DAI, USDC, USDT and TUSD. Trading and depositing are facilitated by MetaMask, a web3 wallet.
Compound
At the moment, Compound is a top-rated DeFi project, and it offers users the opportunity to borrow ETH tokens and payback with interests. Liquidity providers could also come into play by providing their token for loan purposes with the aim of receiving loan profit.
This platform offers huge profits, and at a time like this, where savings in traditional banks give little annual interest or lost to inflation, Compound becomes a lucrative option. Compound is intuitive and well-designed and can be accessed via mobile wallets or online channels.
Uniswap
This is an innovative automated market-making DeFi platform with a protocol that enables ultra-swift trade settlement between parties. The Uniswap protocol ensures that, as much as possible, the closing trade value of assets reflect their real market value. You can become a liquidity provider with amazing interest rates provided via a dedicated pooling feature.
Summary
As the major sectors of the global society tend towards decentralization, the demand for DeFi applications will no doubt skyrocket in the nearest future. At the moment, DeFi continues to remarkably disrupt and dictate the pace of today’s business systems, while also dictating new standards.
