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

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

Markets

Blockchain Bites: The Government Won't 'Kill DeFi' but FATF Might Compromise Anonymity

Consensus: Distributed saw discussions over the constitutionality of FATF's Travel Rule and why regulators want DeFi in the U.S.

Photo by JESHOOTS.COM on Unsplash

Tech

Popular BTC Derivatives Product Goes Live on DeFi's dYdX

Andreessen Horowitz-backed dYdX released its Bitcoin Perpetual Contract out of private alpha on Wednesday, bringing a key BTC derivatives product to DeFi.

Trading screen

Videos

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About the DeFi ‘Flash Loan’ Attack

There’s now a case study for how DeFi can go awry. bZx, the eighth-largest decentralized finance project according to DeFi Pulse, suffered two attacks last weekend following the introduction of “flash loans,” a new DeFi feature that limits a trader’s risk while improving the upside.

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Markets

Kyber to Offer Delegated Token Staking After Coming Network Upgrade

A new partnership with StakeWith.US will allow community members to delegate staking if they don't have time or knowledge to get directly involved in governance, said Kyber.

Loi Luu, CEO and co-founder of Kyber Network (right), at CoinDesk Consensus (Credit: CoinDesk archives)

Tech

Network Bringing Bitcoin to DeFi Taps Libra Member Bison Trails for Staking Services

DeFi protocol Keep Network has tapped Bison Trails to provide non-custodial staking services for tBTC, an ERC-20 representation of bitcoin (BTC) deposits.

Archives and record keeping

Finance

DeFi Project dForce Refunds All Affected Users After $25M Hack

The Lendf.me smart contract was hacked on April 29, but then, curiously, the funds were returned two days later.

(Ilya Pavlov/Unsplash)

Tech

AVA Labs Will Splash Millions to 'Brain Merge' DeFi and Traditional Finance

AVA is already in dialogue with five DeFi projects interested in receiving some of the "many millions" it's making available in grants.

Emin Gun Sirer speaking at CoinDesk Consensus