What’s New In DeFi, December 9 - 21, 2020

Here’s what you need to know about the latest developments in the world of decentralized finance.

Fintech pros make their predictions for 2020

Just like last year’s “Crystal Ball” predictions, the Token Daily team asked some established crypto and finance pros to do a little armchair fortune telling on what 2020 holds for cryptocurrency. Check out the predictions they got from the Winklevoss twins, Meltem Demirors, Bram Cohen, and more.

There’s a great new explainer out on DeFi basics

Medium.com contributor Philipp Sandner of the Frankfurt School Blockchain Center has published an excellent on-ramp to DeFi concepts. He explains that DeFi is an ambitious attempt to decentralize core traditional financial use cases like trading, lending, investment, wealth management, payment, and insurance on the blockchain. This all happens via decentralized applications (dApps) or protocols that support a peer-to-peer financial network. Like Lego building blocks, dApps can be combined to work with each other, connected by smart contracts.

Coinfloor is delisting every cryptocurrency except for Bitcoin

On the rationale that “Bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency that’s proven so far,” the oldest UK crypto exchange will drop popular alternative cryptocurrencies like Ethereum from its offering in January 2020 to focus exclusively on Bitcoin.

Kraken acquired Circle’s over-the-counter desk

Popular crypto exchange Kraken has completed a powerful acquisition of Circle Trade, the OTC desk associated with peer-to-peer payments company Circle. The acquisition pours gas on Kraken’s figurative fire, gaining them new trading partners around the world (particularly in Asia), enhanced liquidity, and tighter spreads across all assets supported on the exchange. It furthermore brings more automation and new tools for traders active on the platform.

Twitter is working to bring a decentralized standard to social media

It’s an effort they’re calling Bluesky. Piggybacking on the same exact principles that make DeFi work, social media giant wants to bring a decentralized standard to social media. This could theoretically change the way the company operates. They’re using a dedicated team to do it because this kind of undertaking will take years to complete.

It’s getting harder to ignore DeFi’s steady traction across business spheres. Just check out the social media chatter on DeFi and the many protocols emerging within it. This mounting excitement isn’t about price increases and network activity, but instead is about a true interest in changing how the world conducts its economics, and adopting the new technologies to make it happen.