DeFi Crypto: The Ultimate Guide To DeFi
DeFi Crypto: The Ultimate Guide
What is DeFi? Do you want to invest in DeFi? Are you wondering if DeFi investing could be profitable? Keep reading our DeFi Crypto Ultimate Guide and learn everything there is to know about Decentralized Finance!
DeFi Crypto: What Is Decentralized Finance (DeFi)?
Decentralized finance, or DeFi, is a broad definition that covers all financial products that have become available thanks to blockchain technology. These products are available to anyone and don’t require a bank or institution to grant users access to them. More specifically, DeFi products are software-based systems written on blockchains that enable buyers, sellers, lenders, and borrowers to interact within a peer-to-peer network that is governed by rules hardcoded in the software. The term DeFi refers to the amount of liquidity locked in these products, whether it be the amount locked in smart contracts and lending pools or the amount locked in transactional platforms where buyers and sellers are constantly interacting, like an exchange or a closed-loop payment ecosystem.
DeFi Crypto: How to Make Money with DeFi?
DeFi has opened up opportunities for anyone to create passive income streams with less risk than day trading. This allows you to grow your cryptocurrency balance on an ongoing basis with minimal effort. Let’s take a look at some of the ways that you can generate passive income through DeFi.
Before we continue, it is important to note that although DeFi passive income models are less riskier than day trading there is still risk involved. Let’s continue...
Staking
Staking involves locking up your cryptocurrency funds in a wallet for a set time. In doing so, you are then rewarded in interest payments that are paid in the cryptocurrency that you staked. Normally, you would do this on a blockchain that utilizes the Proof of Stake consensus model. These blockchains require users to lock up a minimum amount of cryptocurrency in their wallet in order to take part in the transaction validation process. Users are then rewarded for their work in the cryptocurrency native to the blockchain. For example ETH on the ethereum blockchain.
Become A Liquidity Provider
Decentralized exchanges like SushiSwap and Uniswap enable users to swap one cryptocurrency for another. To be able to do this these exchange platforms need liquidity. This is another great way to earn passive income. Instead of storing your cryptocurrency in a wallet, let it work for you by sending it to a liquidity provider smart contract. The exchange will then pay you a percentage of the transaction fees. However, this does not always guarantee a profit. Sometimes extreme price fluctuations can lead to losses. You can mitigate this risk by only using liquidity pools with a decent amount of liquidity.
Lending
Similar to liquidity providing, with lending you lock up your cryptocurrency funds in a smart contract. These contracts then allow other cryptocurrency users to loan your funds through terms hardcoded in the smart contract. Lending pools agree to pay you a certain percentage of the amount that you lend. This interest amount is dependent on criteria such as which cryptocurrency you’re lending, how long you’re lending it for, and how much you’re lending. Joining a lending pool is relatively safe since before anyone can loan money from a lending pool they will first have to give up collateral to the contract. This collateral is used to mitigate the risk of the person who borrowed the funds not paying back. It is however important to be aware of the fact that the expected return tends to fluctuate for some cryptocurrencies almost daily because of market activity.
DeFi Crypto: What Is the Future of DeFi?
DeFi is still in its infancy in terms of the technology that it refers to. Multiple factors need to be taken into consideration before a clear understanding of what the future holds for DeFi can be developed. Factors such as global cryptocurrency regulation, blockchain technology limitations, and mainstream adoption are just a few of the factors that play a role in DeFi’s future. If governments clamp down on blockchain and cryptocurrency technology, or DeFi, before its true potential is discovered then it can seriously hinder DeFi’s future by capping the amount of innovation that can go into the field due to governmental policies. Also, blockchain technology currently faces scalability limitations that have left the blockchain community prioritizing innovation that addresses this issue. Lastly, mainstream adoption also plays a role. In order for something to really take off in terms of value, it needs to be adopted by the masses. And going back to our previous point, if the masses do start using the technology daily then will blockchain technology be able to handle the surge in user traffic?
All of this aside, the future is bright for DeFi as a whole. The rate of current innovation in the field is at an all-time high. New decentralized methods for people to make money are also making their way to the DeFi market at a rapid pace, and DeFi’s market cap has grown since the inception of Bitcoin in 2008.
DeFi Crypto: DeFi as an Investment
