Exploring the DeFi Landscape and P2P Economies

A recap of our recent virtual roundtable.

2020 was a booming year for DeFi!

With the emergence of a multitude of new projects as well as a lot of investment support flowing in, the value of peer-to-peer economies through DeFi has been significantly seeded in the global financial space.

After breaking the $1 billion total locked value (TLV) in Feb 2020, projects such as MakerDAO, Compound, and Uniswap among others, seriously influenced the course into the future that DeFi would take. Now in 2021, the DeFi arena currently has a TLV of $38 billion.

Game, set, match.

DeFi is growing strong and has the potential to reach even greater heights.

This growth stands as a testament to how blockchain and crypto tech is a relevant and viable means for enabling users in the fintech space to function freely in peer-to-peer economies and access the many benefits of decentralisation.

You may have seen that recently, we decided to take this conversation a few steps further to help our community understand the implications of the rise of DeFi and its impacts on all things peer-to-peer.

So, we created a roundtable. In collaboration with Lumos Labs, a Singapore-based innovation management firm, we drew in experts from the blockchain industry to share their insights, alongside our very own Co-Founder and Business Director, Dorian Johannink.

Take a look at the panelists:

Vishal Chawla — Journalist, Crypto briefing (Moderator)

Jesus Rodriguez — Co-Founder & CTO, Intotheblock

Sandeep Nailwal — Co-Founder & COO, Matic Network

Ankitt Gaur — CEO & Co-Founder, Easyfy Network

Dorian Johannink — Co-Founder & Business Director, Sylo

Watch the video below

Now, here’s a glimpse into the conversation they had…

The DeFi Boom

The rising success of DeFi is the talk of the blockchain space, among other trends like the shift to PoS consensus mechanisms and non-fungible tokens. This boom is attributed to the levels of automation achieved with smart contracts, the inflow of capital through liquidity mining and the overall creativity of the DeFi projects currently on offer.

“There are many factors that contribute to the boom of DeFi. One very simple factor is in the merits of the space in and of itself. I mean, it’s hard to argue with the levels of programmability and automation, and the creativity of many of those projects is bringing a lot of adoption. And, something interesting, a clever mechanism, is liquidity mining and it has attracted a lot of capital in this space.”

- Jesus Rodriguez, CTO & Co-founder, IntoTheBlock

“The real supply side of financial services is not yet unlocked by direct retail intelligence, it has always been done, governed and managed by the centralised financial institutions worldwide. Obviously, there are pros and cons to that part, but with the mechanisms and the maturity that is gradually building up, I see a long way to enable the whole ecosystem.”

- Ankitt Gaur, Co-founder & CTO, Easyfy Network

NON-FUNGIBLE TOKENS

The next big thing in the blockchain space is non-fungible tokens (NFT’s), a more palatable part of the blockchain space that can open doors to the general public to participate by owning unique digital assets that have their own unique values. NFT’s have a mass-market appeal that can unify the rest of the world with the crypto space. From what exists already, the user experience in this arena is a lot more user-friendly. For example — there is no need for GAS fees and NFT’s also provide a solution for adding value to digital assets that can appreciate over time.

“NFT’s act as a fun element in the blockchain space and having large gas fees for these doesn’t make much sense. This is why large brands (in the blockchain space) are exporting to add their NFT’s onto layer two [blockchains]. And I think that layer two will boost adoption and bring users into the overall space. And the gaming sector is kind of the gateway to bringing normal users into NFT’s…”

- Sandeep Nailwal, COO & Co-founder, Polygon

THE WHATSAPP PRIVACY DEBACLE & THE NEED FOR DECENTRALISED COMMUNICATION

The recent privacy policy update by Whatsapp put the messenger in the doghouse. Users from all over the world began to realise the problem with centralised messaging platforms and started looking for alternatives that would respect the privacy of users, not subject them to the nuances of privacy policies that are subtly unethical. But perhaps most importantly, users want to be provided a safe, trustless environment to communicate freely. This is a perfect use case that decentralised tech can cater to.

“The main thing [for decentralised communication] is the experience being on par. People care about it to a certain extent but at the end of the day, they still want that functionality that they experience with apps like Whatsapp. If you can stack the experience up side by side with the other communication apps that people are using, then your solution is viable; you’re going to get people crossing the chasm.
From a tech standpoint, the benefits of decentralised technologies for communications and social media are massive. That’s what we’ve been working on since inception.”

- Dorian Johannink, Co-Founder & Business Director, Sylo

UI/UX IN DEFI PROJECTS

Multiple DeFi projects are impeded by difficult interfaces and non-intuitive user experience flows. Design issues like these hamper the likelihood of everyday people exploring DeFi and dissuade those who are already experimenting.

DeFi interfaces can be improved by reducing gas fees, improving the UX of nano transactions with layer 2 solutions and the creation of more social wallets.

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We enjoyed hosting this roundtable and found it to be a great learning experience that brought together several unique perspectives on the burgeoning presence of DeFi in the blockchain space.

The panel discussion also dove deep into security in DeFi, the nature of Governance Tokens, the next big adoption-drivers in the DeFi Space, and the challenges faced by DeFi today across tech, adoption and product.

Watch the video above and let us know what you think :)

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