DeFi

DeFi, short for decentralized finance, represents a shift in the financial sector by leveraging blockchain technology, primarily Ethereum, to eliminate traditional financial intermediaries. It enables various financial applications, from simple transactions to complex contracts, through smart contracts that execute automatically under specific conditions. Key DeFi applications include decentralized exchanges (DEXs), stablecoins, lending platforms, and prediction markets. DeFi offers financial services like loans and interest-earning opportunities without traditional identity verification, relying instead on collateral, usually in cryptocurrency. This innovative sector promises increased accessibility and efficiency but comes with risks, such as market volatility and unregulated projects.


Tech

Compound’s Approach to DeFi Governance Starts With Giving Away COMP Tokens

Users of the Compound lending platform will begin earning COMP governance tokens in mid-June.

DEMOCRACY: Ancient Greeks on a 1955 drachma banknote. (Credit: Shutterstock)

Tech

RenBTC Quietly Goes Live in Latest Bid to Bring Bitcoin to Ethereum

RenBTC, the latest implementation of bitcoin on the Ethereum blockchain, quietly went live this week, though the general public can't yet mint thier own tokens.

Winter wren

Videos

A DeFi Deep Dive

DeFi (decentralized finance) exploded to over $1 billion in value deposited in DeFi applications over the last year. Learn why DeFi became the most recognized killer use case for Ethereum and this pandemic has only accelerated the urgency for DeFi. We begin the program with “Defying Traditional Finance” with Ryan Adams of Mythos Capital.

Foundations – Consensus: Distributed

Markets

Why Kyber Network Tokens Tripled to $100M Despite the Coronavirus Recession

Here's why Kyber Network's KNC is this season's hottest token across decentralized cryptocurrency markets.

Kyber Network CEO Loi Luu

Tech

Why $4M Dai Made From WBTC Matters for DeFi's Maturation

Crypto lender Nexo minted $4 million in dai on MakerDAO using synthetic bitcoin token WBTC as collateral. Here's why that matters.

Nexo co-founder Antoni Trenchev speaks at Consensus 2019. (CoinDesk archives)

Tech

UMA Project Creates Its First Synthetic Coin, Matching ETH Against BTC

Want to bet the price of ether is rising relative to the price of bitcoin? There's now a token for precisely that.

Credit: Shutterstock

Markets

Market Wrap: Here's Why Ether's Price Has Jumped 65% So Far This Year

Ether is outperforming bitcoin in 2020 but has lower liquidity and different technical dynamics than the world’s largest cryptocurrency.

Source: CoinDesk BPI

Tech

Uniswap V2 Launches With More Token-Swap Pairs, Oracle Service, Flash Loans

The headline feature of the new Uniswap will be the ability for anyone to create any token pair they want, so long as it exists on Ethereum.

MAGIC: Some tokens are more like amulets. (Credit: Thomas Wyness/Shutterstock)

Tech

Trading Contest on Synthetix Aims to Showcase Speed of New DEX Tech

Synthetix is putting over $40,000 in crypto on the line to entice users to try out the faster beta of its decentralized exchange (DEX).

OpenSwap is an interchain liquidity booster.

Finance

Ledn Launches USDC Stablecoin Savings Accounts With Focus on Latin America

Ledn is now offering USDC stablecoin savings accounts through a partnership with the crypto lending and trading conglomerate Genesis.

Credit: Shutterstock