DeFi has marked the birth of an open alternative to the current financial system, promising broader financial inclusivity.
Decentralized finance came to life with the inception of Ethereum in 2013. However, it truly hit the ground running in 2016–2017 with the backing of Ethereum developers and some entrepreneurs and experts in the financial investment sphere. To get our facts right and clear all misconceptions, DeFi encapsulates a variety of financial applications in cryptocurrency or blockchain that are geared toward removing intermediaries between parties in financial transactions.
A large majority of DeFi applications are built on top of Ethereum. The first major, and the largest, DeFi application is MakerDAO, which was founded by Rune Christensen. Ethereum, to put it briefly, is an open-source platform that uses blockchain technology to create and run decentralized digital applications.
The development of DeFi in subsequent years
As an exciting new concept, DeFi is the rapidly expanding ecosystem of blockchain-based financial products that look to replicate or expand on the capabilities of traditional finance institutions — like banks, payment processors, clearinghouses and more.