Qualifying for a loan in the first place is uncertain, usually requiring a high enough credit score and good debt-to-income ratio. Once approved, on average you can expect to pay 10%-30% in interest.

DeFi let’s you collateralize your crypto holdings in order to pull a loan against it.

With DeFi, you may also opt to lend your crypto and earn interest on it. Most DeFi platforms and decentralized exchanges (DEXs) have a staking mechanism or liquidity pool where you can lock your crypto into the platform and earn interest. Lending helps DeFi platforms to continue facilitating tran...

Lending mechanisms on DeFi platforms have opened up the practice of yield farming, which is where crypto holders routinely seek the highest interest rates on the market to earn passive income.

So how is all of this facilitated on decentralized platforms? Through the use of smart contracts, DeFi platforms are able to process transactions without the need of a middleman or centralized entity holding funds in custody and keeping track of ledgers. Instead, crypto traders lock tokens into l...

From smart contracts, a blockchain project called Maker was able to create a stablecoin known as DAI. And with DAI, holders of ethereum were able to collateralize their tokens in exchange for the stablecoin.

Another big innovation that Ethereum enabled were ICOs.

While the ICO craze l...

DeFi saw huge growth in the middle of 2020 but declined a bit later in the year. Despite drops in the token value of popular DeFi projects, their usage and development continued well into 2021. Now, many are speculating a “DeFi Summer 2.0” as the Ethereum blockchain is slated to release an import...