DeFi is an acronym in English for Decentralized Finance, which refers to the set of financial services and products that work on a blockchain network, a type of shared and immutable database.
These services and products are not controlled by intermediaries, such as banks or other financial institutions, but by algorithms and smart contracts, which are computer programs that perform operations automatically. The goal of DeFi is to create a decentralized, independent, cheap, less bureaucratic, global financial system accessible to everyone.
DeFi emerged shortly after the launch of the Ethereum network in 2015, which was the first platform to allow the development of decentralized applications (DApps) on its blockchain. One of the first DeFi projects was MakerDAO, a decentralized lending platform that uses a stable cryptocurrency called DAI, which is pegged to the US dollar.
Since then, many other DeFi projects have been created, offering services such as cryptocurrency exchange, loans, insurance, fixed income, lotteries, among others. Some of the main representatives of this market are Uniswap, Aave, Compound, Yearn.Finance, Synthetix and Curve.