Dharma Enables One-Tap Bank-to-DeFi Access

Dharma just made getting started in DeFi easier.

Users can now move funds from their bank account into the Compound Finance, Aave and Yearn Finance protocols with one tap and begin earning interest of at least 7.7% currently, more than 100 times the United States’ average savings rate of .07% according to Bankrate. It’s the first time Dharma has integrated Aave and Yearn into its app.

Whereas previous iterations of Dharma limited users to $250 a day in deposits, the cap is now $25K a week. As the median American has $5,300 dollars in their savings accounts according to data collected by the Federal Reserve, this means that the majority of Americans can go “all in” on earning interest in DeFi in the time it takes to download the app, attach a bank account, and supply their assets.

Like an App Store

“The ‘real magic’” of the release, Dharma co-founder Brendan Forster told The Defiant, lies in something called dharmaOS which the product’s docs define as “an open SDK that allows developers to connect any EVM protocol action to Dharma’s high-grade fiat on and off ramps.”

This means that developers will be able to write a script which specifies which actions will happen under the hood when a user taps a given protocol in the Dharma app. Automated deposits into Aave, Compound, and Yearn are examples, but the goal is “to emulate the App Store review workflow most developers are familiar with in iOS / Android,” Dharma’s other cofounder Nadav Hollander told The Defiant.

Hollander emphasized that submitting a protocol action to Dharma is low. “A typical action script would probably take one developer less than a day to write,” he said.

Slick Launch Video

Dharma occupies an interesting place as a fiat on and off ramp, as well as being a wallet which can interact with DeFi protocols. In doing so, the app appears to be on its way to becoming a Coinbase for DeFi, as Patrick Rivera, a Dharma alum pointed out on Twitter.
With the launch video’s white backgrounds and minimalist transitions however, Dharma appeared to pay homage to another consumer-facing giant, Apple, perhaps signaling the company’s aspirations could be even bigger.