Indeed, most individuals spread around the globe still adhere to centralized currencies in their daily lives. Nonetheless, the interest in a decentralized, bankless, and censorship-free financial system is growing, especially with blockchain’s recent exposition on mainstream media. DeFi evolution is real and inevitable and here is how it generates disruptive projects that change the way people interact with finance.
Refined Decentralized Solutions for Next-Level Performance
Undoubtedly, the more centralized an economic system is or tends to be, the more barriers individuals will face before achieving democratic evolution in finance.
Financial systems based on decentralization are designed for end-consumers, eliminating common burdens associated with mechanisms that rely on intermediary individuals or entities.
This way, it is possible to enjoy the benefits of borderless transfers of value, holding assets that are completely immune to inflation, and trading regardless of the existence of banks and other government-related agents.
Additionally, it is crucial to note that DeFi is opening an unprecedented gateway for unbanked and underbanked populations around the world, especially those in countries exposed to daring social and economic conditions.
PrimeDAO
The rise of Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) is an incredible movement, considering six years ago no one would imagine it would achieve the status it enjoys now. However, while DAOs are growing in numbers and capacity, they are still isolated like islands.
In this sense, it is worth noting that isolation is not a problem of DAOs only, but also blockchain ecosystems, protocols, DApps, DEXs, etc. Considering the crypto industry is still in its infancy, there’s a lack of coordination tools to connect everyone involved in the scene.
PrimeDAO wants to solve this issue by creating a next-generation set of tools to allow individuals to get together and natively build their DAOs. Currently, the project has a multi-pronged approach and offers products to cover several aspects of a DAO – Prime Launch, Prime Rating, Prime Pools, and Prime Deals.
The idea is to offer a complete tools’ set including a token offering platform, a permissionless framework for protocol transparency, a sustainable self-governed system of liquidity pools, and an interactive Web3 interface to connect different DAOs.
Amberdata
No one could imagine the impact decentralized finance would cause when Satoshi Nakamoto published his infamous whitepaper in the midst of one of the worst economic crises ever.
The rise of decentralized currency showed there are alternatives to the mainstream financial system. Yet, any economy depends on price calculations, financial data, metrics, and statistics. Founded in 2017, Amberdata is a blockchain-based data company that offers a full set of data-driven tools for individuals or entities.
Further reading: Ways DeFi projects are building finance future
Currently, Amberdata covers twelve major blockchains, more than a hundred exchanges, 400 plus API endpoints, and 67 indicators and signals. The platform’s primary goal is to deliver top-tier coverage of market data with laser-fast speed and superior quality.
Amberdata covers asset price, order books, reference rates, derivatives, DEXs, DeFi TVL (Total Value Locked), stock to flow, volatility levels, fees, valuation models, and much more – astonishingly, the platform actually delivers as promised.
Also, developers can easily integrate Amberdata within their DApps or platforms to display real-time data such as historical balances, asset transactions, and other blockchain-related info.
Eden Network
The Pow vs. PoS debate is still alive in the crypto community while Ethereum is stepping towards its layer 2 scaling process. Indeed, PoW-based networks are still the most popular blockchains in the world (e.g., Bitcoin), but it’s impossible to deny the existing issues.
For example, Ethereum network miners can reorder transactions based on preferences, which causes higher network fees. To solve this particular issue, Eden Network is developing a priority transaction network to protect traders against arbitrary block reordering.
The platform works by precluding frontrunning while aligning incentives for block producers and redistributing MEV (Miner Extractable Value). The network’s team affirms that transactions on the protocol permit traders’ priority within blocks, eliminating tiring and stressful waiting times.
Additionally, transactions made via Eden come with better slippage rates, so users are guaranteed to have the best value in every trade they win. A much-welcome novelty in the pre-Ethereum 2.0 landscape, the project managed to raise more than $17 million in a recent seed funding round led by Multicoin Capital.
Apollo DAO
In 2020, DeFi almost became a synonym of yield farming. Mostly established in the Ethereum ecosystem, the trend became a hit and led millions of crypto lovers to seek ever-growing yields with complex multi-platform strategies.
Still, after the hype is gone, is yield farming dead? For Apollo DAO, it definitely isn’t. Apollo DAO is a Terra-based DeFi protocol focused on creating optimized yield farming strategies within an automated mechanism.
As it’s plain to see, Ethereum’s dominance over DeFi is not as overwhelming as it used to be, considering several new decentralized platforms are building on top of other blockchains.
The protocol optimizes yield by facilitating cost-efficient and trusted auto-compounding returns. Apollo DAO facilitates users’ lives by designing complex vault strategies (e.g., UST yield aggregation, LUNA-based multiple vault strategies, etc.) while delivering an automated and optimized yield farming tool.
Nakji Network
One of the aspects that make blockchain technology so unique and special is immutability. While data stored in other systems tend to vanish away, blockchain-based data remains immutable, which opens a gateway of endless possibilities.
As modern-day industries are heading towards Web3, many blockchain projects are developing tools to facilitate and incentivize this transition. DeFi’s ever-growing popularity increases the demand for a robust blockchain data infrastructure, which is where Nakji steps into the game.
Nakji Network is a blockchain-based endeavor focused on transporting data from on-chain to off-chain counterparts, enabling lightning-speed communication between web infrastructures outside and within the blockchain world.
This way, Nakji bridges traditional web infrastructure to the blockchain space, enabling smooth access by data consumers and data producers. Thus, it reunites seamless access to smart-contract activity across different blockchains with rapid refresh rates.
Is DeFi Banking a Reality? – New Projects Showing How It’s Done
Although it’s impossible to think about a “DeFi bank” in the literal sense of the word, DeFi users can lend, borrow, invest, and trade their money in a decentralized and trustless way – all done without a single signature of a bank or financial entity.
This way, decentralized finance offers all tools and services a bank would with all the benefits it may lack. Yet, the industry is still surpassing its infancy, so there’s a lot to evolve in terms of infrastructure, security, and user experience.
Ultimately, the foundation is laid out and the doors for innovation are open, as many projects are demonstrating it’s possible to create a world without banks through DeFi.
Fluency
The overwhelming expansion of cryptocurrencies led several central banks to try and find analog solutions to survive the “new monetary order.” Currently, several banks already developed their own CBDC or Central Bank Digital Currency.
However, would not it be against the core philosophy behind the existence of digital assets, created to enable users to transact peer-to-peer without banks, intermediaries, or any similar entities?
Partially, yes, considering cryptocurrencies controlled by a bank are not the same as a fully decentralized coin/token. However, many projects are already creating solutions to approximate people and CBDC.
In this context, Fluency is creating products focused on the issuance, distribution, and exchange of CBDC, connecting central banks, commercial banks, and individuals. Fluency’s Aureum is a novelty platform created to interconnect national CBDC networks.
Hence, Fluency provides a full set of tools for developers to deploy, configure, and manage custom CBDC networks. Designed to achieve maximum scalability, the platform uses a lightweight consensus mechanism and sharding technology.
In terms of legal compliance, Fluency creates separated-yet-interconnected compliance zones for each CDBC – all done within an instant and highly scalable solution.
X-Margin
Empowered by Zero-Knowledge technology, X-Margin is a data-driven lending solution for multiple pools of capital. The platform functions as an unbiased and privacy-oriented tool, making data such as user trades, positions, and any other unapproved metrics inaccessible by anyone.
The biggest advantage of relying on Zero-Knowledge is removing the necessity for regulated or trusted intermediaries, as would normally occur in other credit platforms.
X-Margin’s team believes in “disintermediation,” so they rely on several applications that encompass zero-knowledge proof, confidential computing, and cryptography to achieve their vision.
Hence, lenders receive real-time portfolio risk metrics, while borrowers preserve the privacy of their sensitive information (trades, positions, etc.). Additionally, borrowers have improved lending terms, as lenders can access real-time reliable risk metrics.
Currently, the platform is available for institutional use only.
CMORQ
DeFi is amazing, but it’s still inaccessible for millions of people. Cmorq is a DeFi-framework that aims to make all the benefits of this unique world of possibilities available and accessible for everyone.
So far, Cmorq offers two main products, the Cmorq App and Cmorq Data. Cmorq’s App is the ultimate thing in terms of accessibility and user experience. In five minutes, anyone with minimal internet knowledge can set up an account and create a wallet.
Once it’s completed, the user can send and receive feeless payments while receiving rewards in crypto. Plus, the app has an exclusive crypto exchange and offers crypto holders the possibility to earn up to 5.5% rewards.
On the other hand, Cmorq Data is focused on providing on-chain data, tracking activity like token issuances, burn, transfers, and DEX activities. Easily integrated by other platforms, the service offers seamless access to real-time transactional info.
The Non-Fungible Upheaval – New Digital Gold?
Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) are one of the hottest topics in today’s industry. In 2021, the NFT market experience a colossal cash flow, especially after the millionaire sales obtained through digital art auctions.
Tokens such as “Everydays – The First 5,000 Days” (sold for $69.3 million) and CryptoPunk #3100 (sold for $7.58 Million) just demonstrated how profitable this niche can be. Speaking of CryptoPunks, they are the oldest and probably the most significant NFTs in the whole scene.
Forgotten during the 2018-2019 crypto market crisis, they finally rose to success at the end of 2020 and have never stopped since then. Following the popularity of CryptoPunks and projects such as CryptoKitties, Axie Infinity, and Sorare, the NFT market is simply booming.
Further reading: Learn about NFT marketplace Rarible App
NTFs are unique pieces, which means they are utterly scarce. While many are still waiting for Bitcoin’s big comeback, many already have changed their sights to this new – and profitable – breed of digital assets.
Ulti Arena
Focused on solving some of the insistent issues in the e-sports and gaming industry, Ulti Arena is a community-oriented NFT marketplace. Unlike some other popular NFT platforms, Ulti focuses on empowering gaming artists, developers, freelancers, and other professionals.
The platform creates multiple opportunities for the community, as artists can connect and present each other with future projects, work opportunities, and innovative ideas. Plus, Ulti’s multipronged approach also permits users to create, play and enjoy the exclusive ULTI metaverse, an exclusive blockchain-based game engine.
Recur
As the demand for more NFT-based services is growing astonishingly, many yet-to-launch projects are already laying out their foundations. One of these much-awaited novelties is Recur, a platform focused on designing and developing on-chain experiences for individuals to buy, collect, and trade NFTs.
The vision behind the project is that the future of blockchain lies in NFTs. So far, Recur has managed to build a world-class team with experience in several fields, including licensing, blockchain engineering, gaming design, marketing, and much more.
The project is still developing to launch its first product(s) in Fall 2021.
Conclusion
After beating record after record, the DeFi evolution is going through a process of maturation, wherein projects will focus more and more on interoperability, accessibility, and flexibility.
While some still believe the answer is segregating DeFi and CeFi, the general market trend is developing solutions that reunite that bring the benefits of both worlds together.
Yet, it is plain to see that the rise of decentralized finance (DeFi) is not just about a digital form of cash. Instead, it is much more about freedom of will and individual empowerment, considering people’s liberty to transfer wealth ownership without relying on intermediaries.