THE TOP 50 MOST INTERESTING PROJECTS IN DEFI

- 2023 Edition -


The Badge

One of the biggest stories coming out of the cryptocurrency space right now, is the emergence of the decentralized finance industry (Defi). We felt it would be helpful to list some of our favourite projects in the space. There were a number of criteria that went into deciding who made this list. Some of which include: market capitalization, community support, useful innovation and impact on the world.


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Ethereum is an open-source and global platform for decentralized applications. The platform is open to everyone. It is open access to data-friendly services and digital money for everyone. What’s best is no company or government has control over Ethereum. It is completely private as you don’t have to provide your personal details.

Aave is an open-source liquidity protocol to earn interest on borrowing assets and deposits. It is one of the top emerging De-Fi cryptocurrencies. Aave is a decentralized lending system which lets you lend, borrow, and earn interest on cryptocurrency without a middleman. So, a borrower gets exposure to various cryptocurrencies without owning them directly.

The decentralized oracle network of Chainlink offers tamper-proof and reliable inputs and outputs for complicated smart contracts on a blockchain. With this, you can start to build your universally connected smart contract. Chainlink is built on a flexible framework which retrieves data from any API, connects with the previous system, and integrates with all blockchain.

Uniswap is a decentralized protocol developed for automated liquidity provision on crypto. It lets you exchange Ethereum tokens on the platform without trusting anyone with your funds. In the meantime, anyone lending their cryptocurrencies to special reserves is known as liquidity pools. In exchange for the deposits to the pool, they earn fees.

With Synthetix, you can mint new crypto assets that mimic both crypto assets and real-world assets. It is one of the emerging numbers of DeFi or decentralized finance cryptocurrencies. Synthentix enables the services just with the help of codes. It is a collection of smart contracts that runs on the Ethereum blockchain.

Compound is a blockchain-based and decentralized protocol that lets you lend and borrow cryptocurrencies. Locking your cryptocurrency with Compound is just about your money in the savings account. But instead of depositing it in the bank, you send it to Compound wallet. Just as lending money to the bank, you start earning interest for your crypto.

Cardano is a third generation, proof-of-stake blockchain platform: the first to be founded on peer-reviewed research and developed through evidence-based methods. It combines pioneering technologies to provide unparalleled security and sustainability to decentralized applications, systems, and societies. Cardano boasts a powerhouse team, with the most Git-Hub commits of any project in crypto and strong community support to boot. The launch of native assets in February of 2021 will bring an explosion of Defi applications to Cardano.

Yearn.Finance launched by Andre Cronke in early 2020 is an Ethereum-based protocol that focuses on offering the users access to the highest yield on deposits of stablcoins, ether, or altcoins. The main feature of the protocol is Vault. The funds deposited are managed by a strategy that helps in minimizing risk and maximizing yields.

Ampleforth is a digital-asset protocol designed for smart commodity-money. It is just like Bitcoin except for the fact that it can be used in contracts. AMPL is a financial and cryptocurrency building-block. But it can be used to denominate stable contracts. It is an independent financial primitive that doesn’t depend on centralized collateral or lenders.

Maker Dao is a smarter and better currency that can be used by anyone, anytime, anywhere. It is the world’s first unbiased currency. Maker Dao is a decentralized and stable currency that doesn’t discriminate. Any business or individual can use digital money to their advantage. More than 400 services and apps have integrated Dai.

RENVM, an open-sourced protocol provides access to inter-blockchain liquidity for every decentralized application. With this, you can transfer any token between any blockchain you choose with the help of the existing smart contract but you don’t have to worry about unwrapping or wrapping tokens. RENVM plans to support more blockchains.

Band is a cryptocurrency describing itself as a cross-chain data oracle aggregating and connecting APIs and real-world data to smart contracts. It allows blockchains to access data like weather and stock prices which are available through API. Band has been designed to be compatible with every blockchain development frameworks and smart contract.

Loopring is a decentralized exchange protocol that has been created to let users exchange assets across different exchanges. But it is not a decentralized exchange by itself. It facilitates decentralized exchanging with the help of ring-sharing and order matching technologies. So, it allows anyone to build non-custodial or throughput exchanges on Ethereum.

Kyber Network is a decentralized and blockchain-based liquidity protocol that lets you exchange Etheruem and other ERC20 tokens in no time. You don’t need to wait to register to do it. With this vendors can accept different kinds of cryptocurrency while still being paid in the cryptocurrency they prefer. It is a secure token exchange protocol.

Balancer is a software that runs on Ethereum and seeks to incentivize a distributed network of computers for operating an exchange where traders can purchase and sell all types of cryptocurrency. It uses a blend of crypto assets to offer this service and enables trading with any financial intermediary such as an exchange.

Universal Market Access or UMA is a protocol that is built on Ethereum allowing you traders to create a custom synthetic token. The platform lets you trade all assets using ERC-20 tokens without exposing the asset itself. It is a secure, flexible, and fast way to create synthetic assets on Ethereum.

0x is a decentralized exchange protocol used by developers to create their own cryptocurrency exchange. It is an open-sourced protocol enabling a peer-to-peer exchange of assets. Almost anyone can use the platform to service a wide range of markets ranging from financial instruments and gaming items to assets which couldn’t have existed before.

Bancor Network is a decentralized financial network seeking to offer liquidity to micro and small-cap coins and return for the providers of liquidity. They are the leaders in this new wave of the decentralized financial system. The protocol had initially been developed by Eyal Hertzog, Guy Benartzi, and Galia Benartzi in 2017.

THORChain is a decentralized liquidity network with no wrapped or pegged tokens. It is a crypto network that aims to enable the exchange of assets across different blockchain networks in a non-custodial way. THORChain, founded in 2018, distributed rewards in the form of RUNE to users who add tokens to the liquidity pool.

Serum is a cheaper, faster, and more powerful DeFi. This decentralized cryptocurrency exchange has been built on the Solana blockchain. It is one of the first prime projects to be developed on Solana. Serum is interoperable with other cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum and Bitcoin. It brings low transaction costs and unprecedented speed to decentralized finance.

With Kava, you can earn a high-yield on your crypto. It serves as a decentralized bank for the digital giving users with loans, stablecoins, and interest-earning opportunities for the crypto they have. Kava offers users on-demand capital whenever they need it. It is the next-generation decentralized lending platform trying to bring flexibility to the market.

Gnosis is a new market mechanism that has been developed for decentralized finance. Its three interoperable product lines let you create, trade, and hold digital assets securely on Ethereum. The main benefit of GNO is to generate OWL tokens through staking. You can lock GNO for a specific time to earn rewards.

Curve is a software using multiple cryptocurrencies for operating an automated market focusing on stablecoins. It is one of the many decentralized finance protocols developed on Ethereum. Curve uses pools of cryptocurrencies offered by users, in exchange they earn fees through their deposits. It gives users the chance to earn fees on their assets.

xDAI Stake is a blockchain designed for inexpensive and fast stable transactions. It is used for payments, transactions, and deeds. xDAI Stake is the best cryptocurrency for everyday transactions and payments. It has extremely low fees and the payments are fast. xDAI Stake is a multi-chain staking token created to secure the payment layer.

Sushi Swap decentralized cryptocurrency that rewards people depositing cryptocurrency to offer liquidity to the protocol with ERC-20. You can use it for the governance of protocol. It consists of many asset pools and each of them contains two assets LINK and ETH. SUSHI is as easy to get as actual sushi.

Tellor is a decentralized oracle network. It is a permissionless community of data providers, token holders, and validators. You only need 3 lines of code for integrating with Tellor for trustless and reliable data in the smart contracts. Tellor is a platform used for payments, security deposits, governance, and dispute resolution.

Augur is a no-limit global betting platform. On this platform, you can bet on economics, sports, world events, and much more. Now, this trades in USD and ETH. The platform aims to build something better. It is a transparent exchange that doesn’t have a limit on what you can bet on or have a rollover requirement.

Cryptocurrency is ruling everything around you and Cream has realized this. It is an ERC-20 token that has been developed on the Ethereum blockchain. This is given to users who interact with Cream Finance either by borrowing, lending, or providing liquidity in different protocols. It is a more equitably distributed COMP token of Compound Finance.

Akropolis builds products that will help you save, grow, and scale. With this, there is no centralized party to rely on to lend or borrow. You can access the lending market from anywhere you want. Akropolis lets you borrow with little or no collateral. It has a portable track record and is fraud-resistant.

Terra is a cryptocurrency project for building a stable coin through e-commerce. It aims to make stablecoins available to all developers on every blockchain. At present, it is love on Solana and Ethereum, and more is to come soon. Terra has primarily been designed for mass adoption and builds financial infrastructure for next-gen decentralized applications.

Swerve is a native token that is governed and community-owned. It is a liquidity pool that has been designed for efficient stablecoin trading. Anyone providing liquidity to Swerve is going to get tokens from them. It is low-risk and a supplement fee income for the liquidity providers that let you boost your yield.

DFI. Money is also called YFII is a well-known decentralized finance aggregator platform that has been launched in 2020. Apart from protocol changes, it also has newly released products, primary among them the Vault. The native token of this is YFII and is a fixed-supply token that liquid providers earn as per their network interaction.

Erasure is the brand new staking protocol that has been powered by NMR on Ethereum blockchain. It allows staking mechanism to adopt all through the internet. Initially, it had been developed for crowdsourcing intelligence for Numerai hedge fund but now it can be used for all platforms. It creates instant trust with perfect strangers.

Wanchain is the cross-chain blockchain infrastructure created to facilitate asset transfers. It is one of the most advanced blockchain interoperability platforms. Wanchain locks your funds on the blockchain and manages the private key of the accounts through nodes. Wanchain hopes to replace the legacy banking system across the world with blockchain-based solutions.

With Loki, you can trade and communicate with complete freedom. It creates privacy tools that ensure secure and untraceable transactions and anonymous communications. Loki is basically a private network allowing the user to communicate and transact privately over the internet. Loki is a privacy coin attracting a fair bit of interest in recent times.

With Request, you can pay and get paid in crypto. Starting from simple payment requests to completely compliant digital currency invoices, Request can do it all. With this, you can get paid in crypto while offering complete control over the financial data. It makes your payment experience seamless and free of artificial barriers.

Nectar is a utility and deflationary governance De-Fi exchange. Through its DAO, NEC holders will be able to govern the utility of the Nectar token itself. Nectar exists as the token on the blockchain of Ethereum letting you interact with the decentralized financial ecosystem. It is listed in several exchanges for promoting liquidity and discovery.

Decentralized Information Asset or DIA is the open-source, oracle, and data platform for the De-Fi ecosystem. The platform enables the market actors to supply, source, and share trustable data. Leading index providers, platforms, and prediction markets can access DIA’s open-source freely. It has been verified by the entire community of stakeholders.

Jarvis Network works to bring decentralized finance to everyone. It bridges decentralized finance and legacy. Jarvis Network is a set of the protocol on the blockchain Ethereum that allows everyone to become a broker by financing and maintaining liquidity pools using stablecoins. The platform aims to welcome millions of investors and traders to DeFi.

Frontier, the chain-agnostic DeFi aggregation layer, is used by users for tracking and managing DeFi positions. It has added support for DeFi on Binance Chain, Ethereum, Kava, BandChain, and Harmony. With the application of Frontier, users will be able to take part in protocol tracking and management, liquidity provision, best-rate asset swapping, and CDP creation and monitoring.

With Hydro Protocol, DeFi developers will be able to create dynamic marketplaces for the decentralized assets they have. Using Hydro SDK, you will be able to launch your own decentralized exchange in just a few minutes. Hydro lets the existing platform bridge their liquidity easily into a decentralized market place.

Metronome is the first autonomous cryptocurrency in the world. With this, you will now be able to move tokens between blockchains. You can purchase MET from Autonomous Converter, Daily Auction, and from third-party exchanges. Engage with the MET community to strengthen the community. With Metronome, you can build the greatest and the latest applications.

Orion is the future of trading. It is the first gateway to the whole crypto market. With this, you can enjoy endless liquidity in one platform. Orion Terminal aggregates bottomless liquidity seamlessly from all top exchanges, including decentralized and decentralized. So, you have rich trading tools in an easy to use platform.

AirSwap is a peer-to-peer trading platform where you trade Ethereum tokens. This enables you to trade your tokens directly with each other. It has been decentralized as the platform doesn’t have control over the funds and trading execution. AirSwap works by letting users communicate with each other about the tokens they want to exchange.

COTI is the first enterprise-grade fintech platform empowering organizations to create their own payment solution and digitize a currency. This helps in saving money and time. COTI offers the 7 crucial elements to create the perfect payment infrastructure. These are scalability, simplicity, buyer-seller protection, cost-effectiveness, price stability, instantaneity, and security.

With Swipe, you can buy, sell, and spend the cryptocurrency. Its wallets enable you to have a multi-asset digital application that gives you access to all the features during verification. Users will be able to spend the cryptocurrencies with the help of the Swipe debit card anywhere that supports Visa payments.

Nexus Mutual is a blockchain-based solution that uses Ethereum. So, people are able to share the risk together without requiring an insurance company. It is building an alternative risk-sharing platform that will replace insurance. In the future, it aims to offer crypto wallet cover and more standard products such as earthquake cover.

PowerPool is a solution that accumulates governance power in all Ethereum based protocols. With this, minority token holders can extract minimal utility from the token for two reasons. Firstly, they cannot influence the votes and a considerable share of the token does not provide income. So, the fundamental value of the token is almost zero.

Datamine Network is the brand new decentralized and non-custodial open-source economic system using smart contracts for creating Adaptive Money. Its dual toke De-Fi protocol generates dividends at 15 seconds intervals. Datamine Network is the next-gen Deflationary Monetary System that is immutable, audited, ownerless, and is run completely by the community.

BitShares is a decentralized cryptocurrency exchange which enables the users to trade cryptos and also traditional instruments just by transforming them to BitAssets. It is a part of the Microsoft Azure blockchain that was created in July 2014. BitShares is at the forefront of the battle for regulating cryptocurrencies.