The decentralized finance industry is growing at a striking rate, with over 600% increase in users since 2018. At this speed, it is right to conclude that the industry will soon go beyond the current $6 billion in assets. It is gaining momentum in 2020 partly due to its ability to provide non-custodial financial services to the people, mostly by leveraging smart contracts capabilities.
Today, there are more decentralized finance projects than ever, and this diversity doesn't seem to be about to stop. This article focuses on 7 unique DeFi projects of 2020 that every blockchain technology and decentralized finance enthusiast should note.
Synthetix (SNX)
Earlier in July 2020, Synthetix ranked at the seventh position in terms of market capitalization. However, the 2017 conceived protocol is continually growing to one of the best currently in existence. The project provides users with a synthetic asset issuance platform and a decentralized exchange platform.
Synthetic assets are commonly referred to as Synths, which are digital assets representing real assets such as physical goods, fiat currencies, stocks, or even cryptocurrencies. One of its significant features is the incentivized staking mechanism. It allows users to provide liquidity and maintain the platform.
The Synthetix ecosystem runs under the Synthetix Network Token (SNX), available on different exchange platforms. Users can deposit the tokens and use them in staking. In recent months, the SNX token has seen a surge, with its value shooting from $0.79 to $3.32 between June and July 2020.
It is forecasted that 250 million tokens will be minted by 2025. The platform remains protected from price swings through its high collateralization rate.
Orion Protocol (ORN)
As DeFi continues as the trending blockchain technology innovation, Orion Protocol is taking the industry's creme. The platform's most vital point is its ability to aggregate the entire cryptocurrency industry's liquidity into one platform since it is built on the strongest liquidity aggregator. The Orion network has created thirteen different income streams for its users, with the ORN token at the core. The project won the KUCOIN Choice Community Vote in July 2020 and was listed on KuCoin.
The first DeFi project is to implement a token sale network where the USD backs utility tokens for up to 16 months. It provides a single and non-custodial gateway into the digital currency space and unprecedented protection of the cryptocurrency industry participants.
Defi Yield Protocol(DYP)
Defi Yield Protocol is a smart contract-based network designed to decentralize liquidity provision to everyone on the platforms. It merges an Ethereum mining pool and yield farming to ensure maximum profitability.
For instance, in 24 hours, DYP users earned about 47.69 ETH. Moreso, in just the first 18 days live, the platform's liquidity providers made 609.98 ETH, an equivalent of $652 thousand.
Currently, the most outstanding DYP feature is it's resistance to market manipulation. Due to it allowing everyone to provide liquidity, whalers will not have superiority when causing shifts in prices.
Although the platform is already feature-rich, DYP will soon be introducing better systems to ensure better service provision and rewards. Among the features include;
Within the next two weeks, DYP will be launching new staking pools with DYP tokens, leading to a total number of 4 DYP staking pools.
The staking pools' rewards will depend on the lock period, with the lowest reward being 20% and highest being 35% APR, and the lock time ranging between 30 and 120 days.
There will be a RE-INVEST function allowing investors to plow back their rewards without being charged any fee.
DYP referral program will credit 5% of rewards received from referred friends to the referee.
However, with all those features, DYP is still working hard to give even better products like;
- DYP Earn Vault
- ETH mining pool
- Governance upgrade
- DYP tools with 100% decentralization, aiming to bolter DYP use cases
DeFiChain
DeFiChain is a project designed to help investors in the cryptocurrency industry make returns on their investments in any industry. It is a non-Turing complete blockchain, built to provide the best proof-of-stake under the immutable and secure Bitcoin. The platform's nodes have a global distribution across datacenters in Australia, Europe, India, the USA, Singapore, and Canada.
One of the critical factors to the project's success is the team's impressive history behind it. U-Zyn Chua and Dr. Julian Hosp founded it. Dr. Julian is currently a cryptocurrency expert, while Zyn is a blockchain technology architect.
In addition to its simplicity, fast throughput, and high security from Bitcoin's aspects, DeFiChain supports decentralized token wrapping, asset tokenization, dividend distribution, decentralized lending, decentralized exchange, transfer of debts and receivables, as well as decentralized non-collateralized debt. The project's main net came live in May 2020 and has seen steady growth ever since. Its token (DFI) has gained more than 50% within the few months following its trading launch. DeFiChain currently holds a market capitalization of over $165 million.
yEarn Finance (YFI)
yEarn Finance, a yielding aggregating platform built on Ethereum, was introduced by Andre Cronje in February 2020 and has since joined the most successful DeFi projects. The platform is playing a role in the yield farming mania that started with a COMP token distribution. It seeks to maximize yielding capacity for users by utilizing DeFi protocols to optimize token lending.
yEarn Finance diversifies liquidity to different decentralized finance space sectors to deliver the best returns for its users. It runs as an open-source network automated to transfer user funds to different decentralized finance lending protocols based on their returns. Users' YFI reserves switch among reputable yield farming platforms like Dydx and Compound to maximize the annual percentage yield.
SYNC Network
SYNC Network is a decentralized finance platform that primarily comprises two contracts, namely the CryptoBond ERC-721 and SYNC ERC-20. Scott Bondsman, the network’s founder, introduces a new class of assets, the non-fungible tokens, or the CryptoBonds that aim to strengthen the cryptocurrency industry as a whole.
The CryptoBonds are tradable, so users do not have to wait for them to mature. The platform employs a unique risk management strategy whereby the CryptoBonds should be half the SYNC tokens at a minimum. The strategy ensures that the SYNC token and its liquidity pools remain stable.
From its initial launch, the SYNC Network planned to release 10 million tokens per day and a half 12 times to have 4800 tokens. Half of these tokens would be shared among users who make their ERC-20 contributions while the other half goes to the development team. SYNC Tokens received from liquidity locking and ETH coins from the fair release schedule will be used to create new CryptoBonds. However, 5% of the daily ETH during the fair release will go to the founders.
DEXTools
The crypto industry is flooding with platforms, each providing a single or a set of digital services. Most of them center on their products and services, with the primary objective of maximizing profits by capturing a larger market. However, DEXTools set a new pace in decentralized finance.
The platform focuses on assisting newbies in decentralized finance trading by providing the analytics for informed trading decisions. It also promotes other projects by providing them the opportunity to spread awareness about their programs. Additionally, users can store data and access it from multiple devices. They can also set and receive notifications about changes in trading sites.
Generally, DEXTools is the decentralized finance hub providing unprecedented functions, insights, and a world of tools to traders and other DeFi platforms. However, all platform users have to own some Dext tokens to use the platform.
There are currently about 93 million Dext tokens in circulation and a 150 million maximum supply. The platform burnt 50 million tokens in September 2020, and plans on burning 10% of monthly subscriptions which means the token will be deflationary.
Conclusion
Like cryptocurrencies, decentralized finance has the potential to evolve, and so we can expect more soon. DeFi is easily accessible as it requires just a small amount of capital. Its transactions are instant and do not require third-party initiation.
However, it is essential to keep track of the fast-rising projects using industry tools. The DeFi Pulse tool will show you what projects have the highest locked value. On the other hand, the DEX tracker can help you keep track of all DeFi activities, specifically on Ethereum wallets.
