Inventory of the Hottest DeFi Projects in 2020: DEX, Decentralized Lending Takes You to Read All at Once
Since 2020, the lock-up volume of DeFi tokens and the number of active addresses have repeatedly broken new highs. The prices of DeFi tokens represented by COMP and BAL have skyrocketed, pushing the total market value of DeFi tokens to new highs. At present, DeFi has become one of the top hotspots in the blockchain industry.
DeFi, Decentralized Finance, decentralized finance, also known as open finance. It mainly refers to encrypted assets, financial smart contracts and agreements built on smart contract platforms (such as Ethereum). These assets, smart contracts, and agreements can be combined like Lego, so they are also called "currency Lego".
DeFi is currently mainly built on the Ethereum network. Well-known applications such as MakerDAO and Compound have emerged. Other public chain ecosystems, such as EOS, TRON, Cosmos, Polkadot, and Nervos, are gearing up. The current participating user groups of DeFi mainly involve individual cryptocurrency investors, blockchain project parties, encrypted hedge funds, mining farms, quantitative trading platforms, etc.
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List of popular DeFi project tokens in the OKEX platform department
Since the concept of DeFi came into being, there have been thousands of related blockchain projects. From stablecoins to decentralized trading platforms, mortgage lending, and insurance, the entire ecosystem has begun to take shape. So, what are the hottest DeFi projects worth paying attention to this year? Let's take stock one by one today.
1. Decentralized lending
The emerging services of pledge lending, mainly MakerDAO and Compound, are the main infrastructure of the DeFi ecosystem. This kind of business is mainly similar to the "mortgage lending" of banks, and has become the biggest rigid demand of DeFi participants.
（1）MakerDAO
As the most "veteran" project of DeFi, MakerDAO was established in 2014. It is a decentralized autonomous organization and an automated mortgage lending platform. It provides the first decentralized stable currency Dai on Ethereum (1:1 anchored to the US dollar) ). In addition, MakerDAO also issued an equity token and community governance token MKR, with a total supply of 1,005,577 pieces and a current market value of $456 million. The stable currency Dai is the currency that users can eventually borrow through the platform, and MKR is the interest that users need to pay when redeeming the mortgaged Ethereum. Through such a dual currency mechanism, MakerDAO enables the entire decentralized mortgage loan system to operate.
To put it simply, MakerDAO can pledge users' digital assets (mainly ETH) through smart contracts, and then lend users the same amount of stable currency Dai for their free use of the platform.
Popular index: ☆☆☆☆☆
Project highlights: Launched the first decentralized stable currency Dai, which can be generated by staking ETH.
Platform official website:https://makerdao.com(Token: MKR)
（2）Compound（COMP）
Compound is also an Ethereum-based mortgage lending platform. Users can mortgage one token to lend another token, such as mortgage ETH to lend the US dollar stable currency USDC. Currently supports nine tokens: ETH, DAI, USDT, USDC, BAT, REP, ZRX, WBTC, SAI. The Compound platform recently issued the community governance token COMP, with a total of 10 million, of which 4.23 million will be distributed to protocol users for free.
At present, Compound has already surpassed MakerDAO with a token market value of 2.1 billion U.S. dollars, and has won the leading position in DeFi.
Popular index: ☆☆☆☆☆
Project highlights: The deposit rate is the highest among popular DeFi projects; participants can participate in contract governance and interest rate dividends. After the COMP token was launched this year, it rose from 0.08ETH to 0.8ETH, a surge of 9 times, which attracted the attention of investors. Currently the project has adjusted its token distribution rules (which will go into effect Thursday) so that users only need to earn COMP for the dollar value of the assets they stake or borrow in the system.
Platform official website:https://compound.finance(Token: COMP)
（3）Aave
Based on the non-custodial open-source lending protocol on Ethereum, users can obtain interest income by depositing funds into the pool, and at the same time, they can also lend out funds from the pool through over-collateralized funds and pay interest for the loan. In addition to mortgage lending, it also supports issuing and obtaining loans without intermediaries, referred to as "Flash Loans". The Aave protocol currently supports 17 different crypto assets, including 6 stablecoins. The predecessor of Aave was ETHLend, which provided P2P loans. After the improved version of Aave was launched in January 2020, it turned to the lending pool model. The new project still uses the token LEND as the governance token.
Unlike MakerDAO, Aave’s flash loans are not targeted at borrowers, but mostly traders who do arbitrage transactions. For example, users can obtain loans from the Aave protocol, and then quickly arbitrage between the DeFi platform and the trading platform.
Popular index: ☆☆☆
Project highlights: Aave pioneered the flash loan without collateral loan model; the "Aave interest-bearing token" function allows users to receive a corresponding amount of "aToken" when depositing in the Aave protocol, which can generate interest in the wallet.
Platform official website:https://aave.com(Token: LEND)
（4）Instadapp
InstaDapp is a decentralized wallet that allows users to track blockchain assets spread across multiple platforms. InstaDApp connects its products to assets held by users on various DeFi platforms, and displays prices on the interface, allowing users to visualize their assets at any time and decide which ones to transfer to. At present, Instadapp integrates Compound, Maker, and Uniswap platforms to meet the needs of experienced DeFi users to manage assets in Maker, Compound, and Uniswap at the same time.
Popular index: ☆☆☆
Project highlights: Provide the convenience of a centralized asset management platform, and simplify a series of complex operations for users to transfer assets through smart contracts.
Platform official website:https://instadapp.io(unissued currency)
（5）Celsius
Celsius Network is a decentralized lending platform. At the same time, Celsius provides its own blockchain wallet. Users can mortgage the digital currency in the wallet to borrow USD stable currency. In addition, users can use their token Celsius Degree Token (CEL) to join the Celsius community and use CEL to repay interest. Advanced users can also obtain products with better interest rates.
Popular index: ☆☆
Project highlights: When users are in urgent need of cash, they can use encrypted assets as collateral to obtain fiat currency cash at low interest rates without sacrificing the ownership and future income rights of digital currency; by storing tokens in the Celsius wallet, they can obtain relatively high-yield interest.
Platform official website:https://celsius.network/(Token: CEL)
2. Decentralized exchange
（1）Uniswap
Uniswap is an Ethereum-based protocol designed to facilitate automated exchange transactions between ETH and ERC20 token digital assets. Uniswap is fully deployed on the chain. Any individual user can use this protocol as long as they have installed decentralized wallet software (currently supported wallets include MetaMask, WalletConnect, Coinbase Wallet, Fortmatic, and Portis). Uniswap can also be considered a DeFi project because it tries to use decentralized protocols to completely disintermediate the digital asset transaction process.
Popular index: ☆☆☆☆☆
Project highlights: Any user can access the decentralized exchange for free, trade Erc20 tokens, Ethereum, etc. on Uniswap, and the cost of consuming Gas is lower than that of Bancor and EtherDelta.
Platform official website: www.uniswap.io (uniswap)
（2）Balancer
Similar to Uniswap, Balancer’s index funds can also serve as pools of liquidity for users, suppliers, traders and other market participants. The user's stable currency is put into the protocol pool, not only can obtain income from loan interest, but also can obtain transaction fee income by providing liquidity. Because Balancer's liquidity pools are not limited to the 50/50 rule, the realm of Balancer's programmability is vast.
Popular index: ☆☆☆☆☆
Project highlights: It can realize decentralized token transactions without custody, and it can also help users automatically rebalance assets. It is an excellent asset management tool.
Platform official website:https://balancer.finance/(Token: BAL)
（3）Bancor
Bancor is a protocol for non-custodial token swaps on Ethereum using pooled liquidity. Like Kyber and Uniswap, Bancor does not use order books, meaning users can trade without needing a counterparty. Bancor employs an algorithmic market-making mechanism through the use of "smart tokens", ensuring liquidity and accurate prices by maintaining a fixed ratio with connected tokens (such as ETH) and adjusting its own supply.
Popular index: ☆☆☆☆☆
Project highlights: The biggest innovation of the Bancor protocol is that the value discovery of digital currency on traditional exchanges is based on the real-time synchronous (Synchronous) matching of buy orders (BID) and sell orders (ASK).
Platform official website:https://bancor.network(Token: BNT)
（4）Loopring
Loopring (Loopring) is an open multilateral transaction protocol between tokens based on ERC20 and smart contracts. It not only has a set of public smart contracts for executing transactions and matching operations, but also has a set of off-chain participants. Match and broadcast orders. The Loopring protocol adopts decentralized technology, provides a zero-risk token exchange model, and allows multiple exchanges to conduct off-chain matching and on-chain clearing and settlement for the same order through competition.
Popular index: ☆☆☆☆
Project highlights: It adopts the idea of Lightning Network to put order generation, dissemination, and matching outside the block, thus avoiding the performance bottleneck of the update and maintenance of the order table by the blockchain, avoiding the recharge and withdrawal steps of the entire transaction, and reducing possibility of asset loss.
Platform official website:https://loopring.org(Token: LRC)
（5）KyberNetwork
KyberNetwork is a decentralized trading platform for instant transactions and exchanges of highly liquid digital assets (various encrypted tokens, such as Ethereum and its ERC20 tokens, Bitcoin and ZCash, etc.). In addition to exercising the function of an exchange, KyberNetwork will also provide various payment APIs to allow Ethereum accounts to easily receive payments in the form of various encrypted tokens.
Popular index: ☆☆☆☆
Project Highlights: KyberNetwork will be the first system to implement desirable operational attributes of an exchange, such as trustless features, decentralized execution, instant transactions, and high liquidity.
Platform official website:www.kyber.network(Token: KNC)
(6) 0x protocol
0x (ZRX) is a protocol that allows for the decentralized exchange of tokens and assets issued on the Ethereum blockchain. Developers can use 0x to create their own applications for cryptocurrency exchanges with a variety of features, such as the ability to trade tokens issued on the Ethereum blockchain over-the-counter. ZRX tokens are also used to implement decentralized management of the 0x protocol update mechanism, which allows for replacement and improvement of underlying smart contracts.
Popular index: ☆☆☆
Project highlights: The transaction is executed by the Ethereum smart contract system, which is publicly accessible and free to use, and any DApp can be accessed. The execution logic of the exchange is: off-chain order relay + on-chain settlement = market maker (initiator ) Low friction cost + fast settlement.
Platform official website:https://0x.org/(Token: ZRX)
3. Derivatives trading items
（1）Synthetix
Synthetix, formerly known as Havven, was established in 2017 and consists of a distributed payment network and stable coins. Synthetix is a platform based on Ethereum that can generate a soft-anchored stablecoin sUSD by mortgaging its own platform token SNX or ETH, and can use sUSD to trade and purchase assets with theoretically unlimited depth sBTC, sETH, gold, silver and reverse For virtual asset platforms such as iBTC, the profit or loss of a single user depends on whether all other users make a profit or loss, and has nothing to do with whether the market price of the asset that the user trades and holds rises or falls relative to the time of purchase.
Popular index: ☆☆☆☆
Project highlights: In this project, traders, asset mortgagers, traders and external liquidity providers and arbitrageurs, the current SNX token price has risen from 0.05USDT in early 2019 to a maximum of 1.5USDT, an increase of up to 30 times.
Platform official website: https://www.synthetix.io/ (token: SNX)
（2）Nexus Mutual
Nexus Mutual is an open platform on Ethereum that allows members to share risks together through discretionary mutual insurance (a community-owned insurance alternative). Only members can participate in the network, purchase insurance, and hold NXM (the platform’s token) ). Anyone can become a member by paying a token amount of Ethereum (0.002 ETH).
Two months after going public in May 2019, Nexus Mutual launched its first product, Smart Contract Insurance, which allows members to purchase insurance against financial losses caused by the misuse of smart contracts by others. Insurance coverage is customizable: the buyer selects the smart contract (any Etherscan-verified contract is eligible; for complex DAPPs, coverage extends to directly related contracts) as well as the duration and amount of insurance (in ether).
Popular index: ☆☆☆☆
Project highlights: When investors use Defi products, they are always worried about risks such as asset theft and platform vulnerabilities. On the Nexus Mutual platform, users can purchase insurance for these Defi platforms. Once a hacker event or a loophole occurs, investors can go to The Nexus Mutual platform handles claims. Currently, Nexus Mutual supports buying insurance for different decentralized financial services such as Compound, Uniswap or MakerDao.
Platform official website:https://nexusmutual.io/(Token: NXM)
（3）Erasure
The Erasure Protocol is an underlying protocol developed by the hedge fund competition platform NUMERAI. It has been launched on the Ethereum mainnet. This protocol has a series of key primitives with a wide range of application scenarios, including record tracking, payment and recourse. Primitives are deployed in the Erasure base template, which anyone can use when building web applications. In addition, the Erasure protocol also designed a set of unique clone factories (Clone Factories) based on the EIP-1167 proposal. Using the Spawner library, each entry on Erasure can create a clone based on a previously deployed template. Enroll in the only registry that determines agreement status.
Popular index: ☆☆☆☆
Project highlights: Erasure solves the problem of bad information on the Internet. This protocol ensures the authenticity of information through information publishers pledge assets.
Platform official website:https://erasure.world/(Token: NMR)
4. Decentralized payment
（1）Lightning Network
The most criticized point of the Bitcoin transaction network is the transaction performance: the transaction speed of the whole network is 7 transactions per second, which is far lower than the traditional financial transaction system; at the same time, waiting for the credible confirmation of 6 blocks leads to about 1 hour of delay. Final confirmation time.
The main idea of the Lightning Network is very simple, that is, to place a large number of transactions outside the Bitcoin blockchain to speed up Bitcoin transfers. This design was first proposed in February 2015 in the paper "The Bitcoin Lightning Network: Scalable Off-Chain Instant Payments".
Popular index: ☆☆☆
Project highlights: According to predictions, once the Lightning Network is successfully launched, the payment speed of Bitcoin will change dramatically, even surpassing Alipay. However, the development of the Lightning Network is currently stagnant due to difficulties.
Platform official website:https://lightning.network/(Token: None)
5. Asset management
（1）WBTC
WBTC (Wrapped Bitcoin) is an ERC20 token linked to Bitcoin, and the network was launched on January 30. WBTC is jointly launched by blockchain projects such as BitGo, Kyber Network and Ren (formerly known as Republic Protocol). The token is issued on Ethereum and linked to Bitcoin 1:1. Support, each bitcoin stored by the custodian can correspond to the total number of issued WBTC, and can be verified on the chain, only with the approval of the merchant, the custodian can mint WBTC, and when the holder converts WBTC into bitcoin, WBTC will be destroyed.
Popular index: ☆☆☆☆☆
Project highlights: The introduction of WBTC has greatly facilitated the pledge of Bitcoin. Through WBTC, the amount of BTC pledged has soared from 1,000 to 10,000 in just 3 months.
Platform official website:https://wbtc.network/(Token: WBTC)
（2）Set Protocol
Set Protocol is a non-custodial protocol built on Ethereum that allows the creation, management and trading of Sets, ERC20 tokens, representing a portfolio or basket of underlying assets. Each group of investments can operate and periodically rebalance its portfolio according to the strategies encoded in its smart contracts. For example, in August 2019, Set Protocol deployed a new trend trading product ETH 50 Day Moving Average Crossover Set (ETH50SMACO) on TokenSets. This product is designed to reset when the ETH price crosses the 50-day moving average (50 SMA) technical indicator Balanced, and it does so automatically. The strategy involves selling for the USDC stablecoin when prices are low and buying back ETH when the trend reverses.
Popular index: ☆☆☆☆
Project highlights: Automated strategy trading is only one of the functions of Set Protocol. It is also a Defi project with social trading functions. Investors with good trading skills can share their personal trading strategies, so that other investors can follow the order, and then through the follower The profit is shared, and its function is similar to the contract emperor.
Platform official website:https://www.tokensets.com/(Token: None)
（3）dForce
dForce aims to build a complete open financial ecosystem, including stable assets, liquidity agreements, lending markets, derivatives markets, etc. The DF platform currency undertakes multiple functions in the dForce ecosystem, including fee payment, platform governance, risk management, derivative asset synthesis, partner incentives, etc.
Popular index: ☆☆☆
Project highlights: dForce is known as the light of domestic Defi projects. Although it was attacked by hackers in April this year, the hackers returned the stolen assets and the team quickly fixed the loopholes.
Platform official website:https://dforce.network/(Token: DF)
