Crypto was born from the desire to create a better, more equitable financial system built atop of an infrastructure that’s inclusive, and accessible to anyone, no matter who they are or where they live. Since the introduction of Bitcoin in 2009, the cryptocurrency industry has matured far beyond its original concept as a medium of exchange, spawning countless new use cases. Decentralized finance, as these new use cases have collectively become known, refers to a range of financial services that can be accessed by anyone without the involvement of a centralized institution or intermediary, such as a bank, broker, or loan shark. DeFi, as it’s known, provides banking for the unbanked, or banking without a bank. Its scope goes far beyond simply saving money and sending payments. These days, DeFi refers to a world of cryptocurrency exchanges, automated payments, capital transfers, spot and futures trading, lending, borrowing, high yield staking, liquidity provisioning and much more. The truly remarkable feature of DeFi though is not the extent of its functionality, which these days has matched – and some say even surpassed – that of traditional finance. Its most important quality is that it can be accessed by anyone at all, without any need for a bank account or identification. Just as impressive, DeFi is designed in such a way that no single entity can have more power over the financial network than anyone else. DeFi i...
