DeFi
DeFi (Decentralised Finance) refers to the set of financial services - lending, borrowing, swapping, derivatives, insurance - operated through smart contracts on a public blockchain (mostly Ethereum and its Layer 2s), w…
DeFi (Decentralised Finance) refers to the set of financial services - lending, borrowing, swapping, derivatives, insurance - operated through smart contracts on a public blockchain (mostly Ethereum and its Layer 2s), without going through a bank or a centralised intermediary.
The main primitives of DeFi are DEXs (Uniswap, Curve), lending protocols (Aave, Compound), stablecoins (USDC, DAI) and yield aggregators.
DeFi enjoyed spectacular growth between 2020 and 2022, followed by consolidation and increased regulation (notably the European MiCA regulation, in force since 2024).