DeFi: What Is It and How to Get Started

Decentralized Finance or people more conventionally call it as DeFi, has been on the rise since two years ago, even before the pandemic stroke. Many have confirmed that the commencing of the DeFi is a real disruptive endeavor. But for those who are rooting for the new alternative, it is an opportunity for them. The products and services of the DeFi are based on the blockchain technology.

It is not a prototype. In fact, there have been a lot of implementations of the successful DeFi practices in many industries including lending, defi exchange development, insurance, and so on.

If you are like many other people, you might be in the middle between translating it as a disruption or the opportunity to deliver the defi development services in a more effective and relevant way. While the regulation and practices are still in the early phase, you might wonder how to get started to find out whether DeFi is  for you or not.

Baby steps are the best action. Let’s start by defining the DeFi itself.

What is DeFi?

DeFi is the abbreviation of Decentralized finance. It has long been tied with cryptocurrencies because these really obliged the principles of the decentralization system. We can say that DeFi is one of the most renowned financial products which is based on the decentralization principles. Obviously, it is the opposite of centralized finance.

In conventional finance practices, the intermediaries like banks or other financial institutions are the ones who manage and control the money supply in the ecosystem. Meanwhile, decentralized finance eliminates the existence of the bank and the other intermediaries.

However, defi development is a younger system than the centralized one. That’s why it is not surprising to see the numerous rooms for improvement and experiments. There are a lot of new projects which work on the aspects of the DeFi. Although these practices offer tons of opportunities, not all conservative parties are approving the new systems for good reasons. Now, let’s see how the DeFi works.

How does Decentralized Finance work?

The main idea of Decentralized Finance is to use decentralized and non custodial finance products. In this ecosystem, there are no intermediaries who have the control and rights to intervene with the transactions. The practices of the defi smart contract development has automatically removed the middlemen or third party in the financial products such as loans, insurance, and so on.

In this case, there is no one single party who manages your cryptocurrency on your behalf. So, you won’t expect the same thing as saving your fiat money in a bank or other financial institutions. The Decentralized protocols will dictate how the activities are going. And you will always have full control over your digital assets.

The ones who created the protocols are the defi developers who have contributed to the smart contracts so that the members in the community can use it. But then, the decentralized finance development company will declare themselves to be out of power since the users will be the ones who control their cryptocurrency.

Many of the protocols offer great services to the users and additional tokens to the lenders. The tokens have the governance power. Therefore, the users can use these tokens to vote on the proposals to improve and update the networks.

The good thing here is that the participants can also use the tokens in the secondary markets and make profits out of them.

What are some of the leading DeFi Protocols?

As mentioned there are a lot of DeFi protocols which you can find out there. Amongst them, here are the leading DeFi protocols:

YFI

Yearn Finance or YFI is one of the most renowned DeFi projects in the world. It is a platform tokens which offer equitable token transfers. Unlike the other projects, there were no exclusive distributions for the investors and developers. That means the supply was up for liquidity mining kicking off.

For the vosting, YFI uses the 6/9 multi-signature which is conducted by the members. The multi-signature wallet can be helpful for the members to maintain the transparency and security in every transaction.

The system allows the token holders to veto the executive decisions and remove DAO members.

SNX – Synthetix

The SNX system has powerful smart contracts which are hard to penetrate by the responsible party. The owner of the smart contracts is ProtocolDAO. This party is the one which controls the deployments and updates. Initiated with the multisig, it has now evolved to full-fledged DAO.

The other renowned protocols which you’d like to check as well are:

  • Curve – CRV
  • Compound – COMP
  • Aave –  LEND
  • Maker – MKR

How to get started with DeFi

So, you want to get started with the DeFi? It is not as hard as you think. While it is true that it can be strange for some people, you just need to cover all of the basics to get on the right track.

To attain the right defi development services, here are the simple steps to do.

First things first, you could attain a wallet that supports Ethereum. Make sure this wallet can work on the particular defi development protocols through your browser. Chances are you will find a wide array of options there. If you’ve just started your rodeo, you could pick the safest option called MetaMask.

The second thing to do is to get the particular coin for your DeFi protocol that you are planning to utilize.In common projects, DeFi protocols work within Ethereum.

For the coin, you could choose either ETH or ERC-20 to use in the future protocol.

Some people might use BTC because they have been familiar with the particular coin. But if you are not up for it, you could focus on ETH instead. For those who are using Bitcoin, you will later need to exchange it with Wrapped BTC.

The third step is to execute your DeFi plan. There are some ways to do it.

For instance, you can lend out your crypto. As you lend it, you will earn governance tokens because you have become the yield farmer.

Or, you could send your funds on a decentralized exchange website. You can earn profits by becoming the market maker. Uniswap is one of the best places to conduct this strategy.