DeFi 101

Layer 1s are the base layer of a blockchain network. Here's how they work, and why they're so important to crypto.

In this DeFi 101 tutorial, we explain how Compound works and explore DeFi lending.

This handy primer explores the Axie Infinity game, from its driving concepts to its tokenomics and use of NFTs.

In this DeFi 2.0 primer, Mason Marcabello explores the next iteration of the DeFi story.

This updated primer on DeFi explains Ethereum, layer 1s and Layer 2, top projects, and governance.

In DeFi, while it’s not necessarily true that bigger is always better, the beauty of a high APY never fails to turn heads. And regardless of how much higher DeFi yields are compared to traditional finance, there’s no shortage of DeFi users eager to maximize their profits, chasing higher yields from platform to platform and…

Does leveraged yield farming sound intimidating? It’s understandable that some would feel that way. After all, leverage and yield strategies are tools that professional investors have been known to utilize, their inner workings esoteric to the every-day investor. Yet, with the growth of decentralized finance, that’s no longer the case. Easy-to-use platforms now exist to…

Insane 1000% returns, tokens named after foods, rugs? We get it, the decentralized finance, or DeFi for short, ecosystem is a whole new world and a complex, and many times anxiety-inducing, one at that. Our very own goofy face of The Defiant YouTube, Robin Schmidt, created a DeFi 101 presentation explaining what this new blockchain-based…

When Satoshi first published the Bitcoin whitepaper to the world, he titled it “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Cash System” and although Bitcoin would evolve to adopt the digital gold narrative instead, the dream of creating a fully functional digital cash system has remained. Stablecoins, defined as a subset of cryptocurrencies that are pegged to a specific…

Upshot: Uniswap and PancakeSwap have become household names in decentralized exchanges but a new crop of platforms are coming online with the promise of lower fees and more pricing transparency. With gas prices making headlines throughout the first half of 2021, it’s worth taking a deeper dive into what your options are when trading across…

The ability to write flexible smart contracts in Ethereum and to create composable money lego’s out of it is one of the main reasons why decentralized finance has seen such explosive innovation and growth. But the complexity that is brought by stacking these blocks creates an opportunity for blockchain miners to extract value by excluding,…

Solana has emerged as one of the handful of smart contracts platforms competing to become a base layer for DeFi applications, with some of its projects gaining traction as its SOL token climbs to the top 15 by market capitalization.  Solana, created in 2017, incorporates a so-called Proof-of-History timing mechanism that facilitates its Proof-of-Stake protocol…

One of the most important building blocks in DeFi is the governance token. When blockchains have on-chain governance, there is no built-in central entity that controls how any given upgrade is managed. Seeing the opportunity, developers all over the world are creating programmatic systems for on-chain governance, and issuing governance tokens, which give holders the…

This article offers a 10,000ft view on the ‘Decentralized {Autonomous} Organization’, or DAO tooling and project landscape. It’s intended to be complementary to introductory posts like Linda Xie’s ‘A beginner’s guide to DAOs’. The goal is to help contributors and participants better acclimate themselves with the distinct project categories and relevant infrastructure leading the growing…

As DeFi grows, keeping tabs on all the available products has become increasingly challenging. Even for those individuals who are able to keep track, the scattered nature of the many protocols, each with their own controls and very different user interfaces, makes operating in the sector a challenge. One of the best ways of mitigating this…

It’s that time of the year again. No, I don’t mean March Madness bracket busting, and I’m not talking about emerging from the depths of winter. That’s right, it’s the yearly time that we all get together and try to figure out how the heck we’re going to do our crypto taxes this year. And,…

The biggest question in DeFi is always: What’s next? And that’s what’s so magnificent about this new world of DeFi: nobody knows, but whatever it is, it’s coming fast and furious. Back up a moment to appreciate DeFi in 2020–the landmark year of Ethereum to date. You can ponder regrets having not bought ETH for…

“Gas” is the ETH required to power every transaction on Ethereum. Gas is a term that was coined to describe the ETH (ether) required to transact on the Ethereum network. More specifically, every transaction that occurs on the Ethereum network requires a set amount of gas, which is the unit used to measure the computational…

There are countless resources that can provide crucial information and education to help you along in your DeFi journey. These (in no particular order or ranking) are our Top 10 DeFi Resources: The Defiant. No surprise here. Subscribe to The Defiant YouTube channel, newsletter and podcast, covering the most interesting, most extraordinary, and sometimes, most…

You can lose 100% of your money in any DeFi app or protocol. So above all else, apply a simple rule of thumb to help mitigate this risk: don’t deposit more than you’re willing to lose. Here’s a rundown of the 7 most common risks (or 7 most deadly DeFi sins) that everyone should consider…

As more apps and protocols launch, and more money pours into DeFi, it’s important that DeFi investors can mitigate the risk of losing their funds. With great power, comes great responsibility. Insurance protects us from the unexpected, and in DeFi, there’s nothing more expected than the unexpected. While DeFi is exploding in growth, it also…

Options are yet another money lego growing like crazy on Ethereum, with growing liquidity on Hegic and Opyn. Options, like the name implies, give traders the option to buy or sell an asset at a pre-determined price on a future date. They are used to protect against price volatility and speculate on market moves. Options…

A derivative is a big word created by Wall St that simply means: a financial security with a value that is reliant upon, or derived from, an underlying asset or group of assets. In other words, it’s trading a thing that represents the price movements of the underlying asset. According to the Bank for International…

Stablecoins on Ethereum boast an estimated $20B in liquidity (according to usdonethereum.com) and they show no signs of slowing down in growth.  Stablecoins, examples of which include DAI, sUSD, USDC or USDT, come in all sorts of varieties: decentralized vs centralized, backed 1:1 by dollars vs overcollateralized vs reportedly undercollateralized (in the case of USDT).…

If you have tried DeFi recently, you have probably experienced the frustrations of high transaction fees. As the demand for DeFi services on Ethereum have increased, it has become “normal” to pay higher fees such as $20 per transaction or even several hundred dollars on occasion. If this blockchain scalability problem isn’t resolved, these transaction…