DeFi stands for Decentralized Finance and is an emerging financial technlogy. This system and the money within it is not controlled by banks or any other institutions. Positive effects of DeFi are:
- no fees that banks or other financial institutions charge for using their services
- secure store of value on a wallet instead of a centralized bank account
- no barrier to entry, participants of DeFi only need an Internet connection
- no long waiting times - funds get transferred within seconds and minutes
All this is achieved by eliminating intermediaries by allowing participants to conduct transactions with this technologies. DeFi can be accessed with only an Internet connection. Money can be lent, transferred or borrowed and the records are written on the blockchain.
Users regain more control over their own money through personal wallets and trading services.
The biggest projects (as of Feb 2022) within the DeFi sector are:
- Terra ($LUNA)
- Avalanche ($AVAX)
- Wrapped Bitcoin ($WBTC)
- Dai ($DAI)
- Chainlink ($LINK)
- Uniswap ($UNI)
- Fantom ($FTM)
- Tezos ($XTZ)
- Maker ($MKR)
- Aave ($AAVE)