DeFi

Financial services — lending, trading, derivatives — built from smart contracts rather than intermediaries, with users retaining custody of their assets.

Also called decentralised finance · decentralized finance

Financial services — lending, trading, derivatives — built from smart contracts rather than intermediaries, with users retaining custody of their assets.

Why it matters

Removing the intermediary also removes its protections: there is usually no deposit insurance, no reversal and no complaints process.

Related terms

Keep reading

Whale A holder large enough that their transactions can move a market on their own. NFT A token representing a unique item rather than an interchangeable unit, recorded on a… Blockchain A shared record of transactions maintained by many independent computers, where each block of… Exchange A venue for trading assets. A centralised exchange holds customer funds and matches orders… Gas Fee The payment for the computation a blockchain transaction consumes, paid in the network's own… Audit A review of a smart contract's code by a specialist firm, looking for vulnerabilities…