What is DeFi?
DeFi, short for Decentralised Finance, refers to a new category of financial applications and platforms that aim to provide financial services in a decentralised, open, and transparent manner.
In contrast to traditional financial systems that rely on centralised authorities such as banks, DeFi applications are mainly built on open, public blockchain networks such as Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain, and others.
According to the forecast for the period of 2022-2027, the DeFi market is expected to expand at a CAGR of 39.5%, with its value projected to increase from $9.4 billion in 2021 to roughly $70 billion by 2027 (Source: BCC Research).
With the significant attention of DeFi increasing in recent years, there is more to explore about its projects! We’ve compiled top DeFi projects worldwide you won’t want to miss in the article.
Top DeFi Projects You Should Know
Sending.Me — Decentralised group chat platform
Status: Launched
Sending.Me is an encrypted, decentralised group chat platform fostering ground-level, user-friendly Web3 growth. Users, creators, community managers, and key opinion leaders can connect socially, securely transact, or reward their friends and audiences. Through smart contract-powered payments, defi protocols, and premium services, creators can monetize projects through P2P swaps, community marketplaces, crowdfunding, gifting, auctioning, and token-gated membership.
Objective:
- To provide a user-friendly social platform for Web3 activities
- To let the community members manage digital assets all in one place while maintaining full ownership of their interactions
Find more on this project on CFTE’s analysis of blockchain projects.
GoodGhosting — DeFi social savings app
Status: Launched
GoodGhosting is a DeFi app that uses blockchain technology to encourage individuals to participate in the digital asset ecosystem and build their wealth more efficiently. The app gamifies savings by offering higher interest rates when other users become more passive savers, aligning entertainment with responsible investing objectives.
Objective:
- To make DeFi accessible and engaging for all, especially in developing countries where access to traditional bank accounts is limited but access to mobile phones and the internet is high
- To help the community make saving easy, fun and rewarding and improve their financial habits
Find more on this project on CFTE’s analysis of blockchain projects.
Kyber Network — Multi-chain crypto trading and liquidity platform
Status: Launched
Kyber Network is a decentralised liquidity network that is built on the Ethereum blockchain and operates as a decentralised exchange (DEX) for cryptocurrencies. It facilitates the exchange of assets by aggregating liquidity from various sources to enable transactions at optimal rates.
Objective:
- To become the liquidity hub for the decentralised economy, where any user or application can easily access the required tokens for their liquidity needs
- To build protocols that support convenient and secure value exchange in DeFi, NFT markets, and beyond
Find more on this project on CFTE’s analysis of blockchain projects.
Pancake Swap — Decentralised Exchange (DEX)
Status: Launched
Pancake Swap is a DEX that operates on the Binance Smart Chain, allowing users to trade cryptocurrencies without the need for intermediaries. It is currently one of the most popular DEXs in the DeFi space.
Objective:
- To provide users with a fast, cheap, and user-friendly platform to trade cryptocurrencies
Find more on this project on CFTE’s analysis of blockchain projects.
Augur — DeFi and P2P platform
Status: Launched
The Augur prediction market platform is a decentralised, P2P platform based on Ethereum blockchain. It allows users to create and participate in prediction markets on a wide range of topics.
Objective:
- To create a decentralised and open platform that allows users to create, trade, and settle prediction markets
Find more on this project on CFTE’s analysis of blockchain projects.
LACChain — Global alliance of the blockchain ecosystem development
Status: Launched
LACChain is a global alliance integrated by different actors in the blockchain environment and led by the Innovation Laboratory of the Inter-American Development Bank Group (IDB LAB) for the development of the blockchain ecosystem in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Objective:
- To enhance the financial inclusion in developing countries
- To accelerate the development and adoption of blockchain technology in developing countries
Find more on this project on CFTE’s analysis of blockchain projects.
Avalanche (AVAX) — Smart Contract platform
Status: Launched
Avalanche is an open, programmable smart contracts platform for decentralised applications in the blockchain industry. It has the most validators securing its activity of any proof-of-stake protocol.
Objective:
- To accelerate the adoption and growth of Web3 and Decentralised App (dApp)
- To build fast, low cost, Solidity-compatible dApp
Find more on this project on CFTE’s analysis of blockchain projects.
Synthetix (SNX) — DeFi derivatives platform
Status: Launched
Synthetix is one of the most fast-growing DeFi platforms. It is a decentralised asset insurance protocol built on Ethereum. Synthetix relies on Ethereum’s ERC-20 smart contracts to tokenize underlying assets.
Objective:
- To remove the need for brokers or intermediaries by using smart contracts to automate the transactions
- To create a decentralised and open platform that allows users to create, trade, and in the market
Find more on this project on CFTE’s analysis of blockchain projects.
Project Guardian — Digital Assets use case in Singapore
Status: Pilot Launched
Project Guardian is a collaborative initiative with the financial services that seek to test the feasibility of applications in asset tokenization and DeFi while managing risks to financial stability and integrity.
Objective:
- To understand opportunities and risk areas by the collaboration with traditional financial institutions and Fintechs
- To assess longer-term transformational impact and aim for safe development of the ecosystem using industry experiments and research as a reference
- To establish policy guidelines and framework in terms of acceptable governance model or technical standards for regulated DeFi
Find more on this project on CFTE’s analysis of blockchain projects.
Compound — DeFi protocol
Status: Launched
Compound is an Ethereum-based lending and borrowing protocol that enables users to receive interest on their cryptocurrency investments. And it dynamically maintains the interest rates in its coin pools, based on the supply and demand of the cryptocurrency in the market.
Objective:
- To enable transactions without going through a traditional financial intermediary
Find more on this project on CFTE’s analysis of blockchain projects.
Future outlook of DeFi development
DeFi has grown rapidly in the past few years and has already attracted billions of dollars in investment. One of the key reasons for DeFi’s growth is its potential to disrupt traditional financial systems by offering more transparent financial services with lower fees and higher accessibility.
More contents to be discovered…
If you are interested in discovering how blockchain is implemented in the industry, these are some of the best resources that can help you out!
