What is open finance?

Open finance is a new and fast-growing use case for open blockchains, particularly Ethereum. It’s so new that the community hasn’t even settled on a name for it – it’s often called decentralized finance or DeFi. Many already consider open finance to be Ethereum’s first killer app.

Here are nine hot open finance projects you can use today:

🌋 Basically fresh lava

MakerDAO

MakerDAO has emerged as the undisputed leader of open finance on Ethereum, with over 1.8 million ether locked in its smart contracts. The MakerDAO system maintains the value of Dai, a collateralized stablecoin (pegged to USD) with a current supply of over 70 MM. Users mint Dai by locking ETH into MakerDAO’s smart contracts and opening collateralized debt positions (CDPs).

Traders sometimes use CDPs for long positions on ether. But Dai users don’t need a CDP or even to understand how MakerDAO works (the system also uses MKR, a governance token). Many eagerly await MakerDAO’s planned upgrade to multi-collateral Dai, which’ll permit users to fund CDPs (and mint Dai) with other assets.

Available on Settle via:
CDP Station – Manage collateral debt positions
Liquid Alert – Get alerts for at-risk CDPs

0x

0x is an open protocol that allows for trading of any token on Ethereum. It has positioned itself as one of the top projects working on the decentralized exchange of assets. And the 0x team has built a reputation for shipping high-quality products and feature upgrades.

 

Available on Settle via:
OTC Manager (Settle Chat plugin) – Wrap 0x orders into chat
Dex.Ag – Compare decentralized exchanges to find the best price

Compound Finance

Compound is a money market protocol on the Ethereum blockchain. Anyone can supply cryptoassets to the Compound protocol and either earn interest on those assets or borrow against them as collateral.

 

Read more on the Settle Blog: Compound Finance: What is it and how can I use it? 

🔥 Really, really hot

Dharma

Dharma is a peer-to-peer lending protocol on Ethereum that serves as a standard for administering tokenized debt assets. This lets anyone issue or underwrite nearly any type of debt agreement imaginable. Think bonds, margin lending, and collateralized NFTs, for starters.

 

dy/dx

dy/dx is a decentralized protocol for financial derivatives on Ethereum. This open protocol enables peer-to-peer shorting, lending, and options trading of any token on Ethereum. dy/dx lets traders short ETH or take leveraged long positions.

 

Kyber

Kyber is a liquidity protocol on Ethereum. It can be integrated into any application to allow instant, decentralized token transfers. The Kyber protocol exists entirely on-chain.

 

Available on Settle via:
Dex.Ag – Compare decentralized exchanges to find the best price

 

Uniswap

Uniswap is a new entrant into the decentralized (DEX) space. Inspired in part by a reddit post from Vitalik Buterin, Uniswap is a fully decentralized on-chain protocol for exchanging tokens on Ethereum. Anyone can earn fees by contributing any amount of liquidity, which Uniswap pools to algorithmically make markets.

Available on Settle via:
Dex.Ag – Compare decentralized exchanges to find the best price
Swap Tool – Trade ether and ERC20s on Uniswap

Read more on the Settle Blog: Uniswap: How to Add Liquidity and Start Collecting Fees!

 

Augur

Augur lets anyone create a prediction market around any event. With the centralized systems of traditional finance, prediction markets were impractical – small markets cost way more to set up than they were worth. But by harnessing the democratizing power of open finance, Augur makes these tools available to anyone.

 

Set Protocol

Set Protocol lets users create custom bundles of tokens for transfer in a single transaction. This opens up lots of new use cases. From the simple (send all your ERC20 tokens to a different address at once) to the complex (create instruments like index funds and ETFs).

 

Open finance is just getting started

Even in an extended bear market, open finance protocols on Ethereum keep gaining traction. Open finance is all about breaking down barriers to let everyone benefit from + use financial tools. And Settle is all about open finance.

Need a better way to track your DeFi? Settle offers the most advanced portfolio tracker in crypto… for free! If you haven’t experienced a professional portfolio management tool before, you should try it now.

P.S. Did we leave anything out? If so, just shoot a Twitter message to @scott_lew_is!