Since 2019, decentralized finance (DeFi) proved a valuable utility for cryptocurrency and likely kickstarted the bull market. Yield farming, staking and lending earned many cryptocurrency investors annual interest rates in double- and even triple-digit territory. Unheard of in traditional finance! But with high returns, investors faced high risks too. Numerous exploits of smart contracts where user funds were drained and malicious activity of DeFi protocols that suddenly withdrew large amounts of cryptocurrency resulted in a healthy amount of skepticism. Also, DeFi moved backstage since speculation around NFTs became a lucrative investment alternative, allowing investors to achieve immense multipliers by flipping JPEGs. But whilst the focus of crypto enthusiasts has shifted towards NFTs, DeFi has developed into a broader ‘Web3’ movement. Providers like Bancor continuously developed their protocols to provide a safer environment for stakeholders. Others, like Ocean Protocol, improved and implemented DeFi infrastructure to disrupt multi-trillion-dollar industries. Bottom line, the foundation is set and DeFi may just be on the verge of taking the center stage again to push the broader cryptocurrency market capitalization to new all-time highs. With the NFT market being valued near 50 billion dollars and projects featured on the Superbowl, it might be worth looking for other trends. An unexplored DeFi utility: data Data is the wor...
