Overview

Decentralized Finance (DeFi) is a developing area at the intersection of blockchain, digital assets, and financial services. DeFi protocols seek to disintermediate finance through both familiar and new service arrangements mainly by leveraging blockchain technology. DeFi protocols experienced explosive growth in 2020. The value of digital assets locked into DeFi services grew from less than $1 billion in 2019 to over $15 billion at the end of 2020, and over $80 billion in May 2021. Yet we are living in the very early days of DeFi. In this talk we will review the basic attributes of DeFi services, the structure of the DeFi ecosystem, and emerging developments.