What is DeFi
DeFi is a set of financial services — trading, lending, borrowing, earning — built from smart contracts that anyone can use without an intermediary.
In depth
Instead of a bank deciding who can borrow, a lending protocol accepts collateral from any wallet and lends against it automatically. Everything is transparent on-chain and composable — one protocol’s output can be another’s input. The flip side is that there is no customer service and bugs are permanent.
Why it matters
DeFi is where much of crypto’s innovation — and many of its blow-ups — happen.