As The Crypto Spring Becomes Evident,Here Are The Top 3 DeFi Leaders In H2 2020

The reign of DeFi has translated to more money in the hands of crypto hodlers. Here is how you too can join the rave.

The decentralized finance (DeFi) market has experienced a massive growth over the last several months. Anyone following blockchain trends will likely know that ICOs are a thing of the past. Now, it is all about DeFi projects.

DeFi pulse statistics shows that the sector’s total value locked (TVL) is currently at $6.71 billion and grows by $500 million weekly. This is massive growth from the previous month with a TVL of about $2 billion.

According to recent published reports, the TVL dropped to $500 million in March 2020. However, this explosive growth stems from the yield farming ecosystem and the high lending interest of DeFi projects.

Just as expected in any market, this sector has its leaders. Currently, Maker, Aave, and Curve Finance are the leading projects.

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1. Maker

Maker Dao is the current leading DeFi project, with more than $1.46 billion of the $6.71 billion locked within this single project. Maker outperforms other platforms in the DeFi world pretty much the same way Bitcoin tops the crypto industry.

Maker is the oldest and the most recognizable name and cryptocurrency on the list. It is a decentralized credit platform on Ethereum that supports DAI – a stable coin with a USD-pegged value.

You can open a vault with Maker, lock in collateral such as BAT or ETH, and generate DAI as a debt against that collateral. DAI debt induces a stability fee (a continuously accrued interest) paid upon repayment of borrowed DAI.

Also, Maker has a unique feature called DAI Savings Rate (DSR). The feature enables DAI holders to lock their DAI into Maker’s DSR contract and receive a variable interest rate in DAI, generated from stability fees.

Maker dominated the DeFi sector with 21.78% of the TVL.

2. Aave

Aave is an open-source, non-custodial protocol on Ethereum for borrowing and lending a vast range of cryptos using stable and variable interest rates. I should also mention that the platform is entirely decentralized.

Aave offers notable distinguishing features such as rate switching, flash loan, uncollateralized loans, and unique collateral types.

It also uses a native coin – LEND – as a bargaining chip to provide holders with discounted fees. LEND is also staked for governance and as the first line of defense for outstanding loans.

Also, Aave provides the broadest range of DeFi collateral of any lending protocol on the market and takes a large share of the DeFi lending market due to its strong liquidity and the chance to protect against smart contract risk.

Aave’s flash loan feature opens the doors for safe and secure arbitrage opportunities at virtually no cost to the user.

Unlike other lending platforms that tend to lock users into a variable or fixed interest rate, Aave’s rate-switching feature allows users to switch between two different markets and earn by arbitrage.

This enables users to get the best interest rate on their loans by choosing between “variable” and “stable” interest rates.

However, these stable rates are not fixed interest rates but a rather stable form of variable interest rate, which is constant and less susceptible to market fluctuations.

Though launched in May 2020, Aave is currently ranked second and locked at $1.26 billion.

3. Curve Finance

The Curve is also a decentralized exchange liquidity pool on Ethereum designed for stablecoin trades. It is ranked third with a TVL of $1.04 billion.

Since its launch in January 2020, Curve enables users to trade between various stablecoins with low slippage. Its small fee algorithm was explicitly designed for stablecoins and earning fees.

The Curve is also one of the few DeFi protocols to achieve exact product-market fit by fulfilling a specific purpose that market participants have come to value.

Also, Curve serves as an alternative to trading stablecoins on general-purpose DEXes such as Uniswap, whose algorithm is not optimized.

Curve also integrates with DeFi lending and borrowing platforms like Compound, dYdX, and Aave, which allows Curve users to earn interest on top of their trading fees.

Another interesting fact about Curve and other Ethereum-based DeFi protocols in its class is that they allow anyone to provide liquidity to the market.

Unlike traditional market makers that often use exchange-provided assets to provide liquidity to a market, Curve delivers to users with assets that support its market to provide liquidity.

Conclusion

Hopefully, the reign of DeFi will lead to a further deepening of the cryptocurrency market for the benefit of investors . There is no doubt that there is more to come in the days ahead.

Here Is How Cryptocurrencies Have Become The Norm For Money Transfer

Crypto beats fiat as a result of its flexible governance structures. With no Central Bank to look to, these digital currencies have taken on a new life as money transfer vehicles.

Is the crypto option for money transfers here to stay? Here is what you need to know

Cryptocurrencies have become the new normal of money transfers. It is gradually becoming a thing to request a cryptocurrency wallet address rather than a bank account number when trying to transfer funds between counterparties. The reasons are obvious.

Crypto payments are fast and secure due to the cutting-edge technology of the blockchain. Also, transaction costs are minimal, making it a good choice from a business perspective since both sides get to keep the part of the payments that would have gone to settling payment transfer costs in a regular wire transfer.

Crypto transfers seem to be here to stay given all their benefits. However, there are existing limitations you need to keep in mind before converting all of your cash to BTC or ETH.

Reach

Despite having been in existence for more than a decade, cryptocurrencies have still not been adopted globally by most people. As at the beginning of the second quarter of 2020, there were 50.71 million blockchain wallet users worldwide, in contrast to well over a billion regular bank accounts. At this point, one would realize that there is a huge gap to be filled.

This is something to keep in mind as most people do not have cryptocurrency wallets, and you can’t transfer to them without one. A suggested solution is to try to open the conversation with clients or suppliers or any other business counterparties, encouraging them to open a blockchain wallet and make your business transactions seamless.

Price stability

This is a major issue with cryptocurrencies. Imagine getting a transfer of say 2 BTC worth $18,000, and just before you’re able to either pay for another product with it or convert it to a fiat currency, the value drops to $12,000, which is a $6,000 loss on a single transaction.

Also Read: Despite The Marketplace Twists,Thorns and Thistles, Here Is How USDT Has Weathered The Storm

A way around this is to transact in the stable cryptocurrencies known as stablecoins. The USDtether, for example, is tied to the value of the US Dollar. Tether cryptos are not as subject to volatile swings in value as other cryptocurrencies and this makes it safer to use them for transactions.

Government regulation

Some countries have strict regulations that limit the volume or usage of cryptocurrencies by law. For example, Binance was created in China but had to move to Japan due to issues with regulators. Be sure to confirm if there are no restrictions on the use of cryptocurrencies either within your own country or that of your counterparty.

Platform Security

The safety of blockchain only guarantees that transactions and their history cannot be tampered with. Beyond that, your wallet is vulnerable to the extent to which you can protect your account. If malicious hackers gain access to your account passwords, your cryptocurrency funds will be lost. Hence, it is important to secure your wallet either through 2 Factor Authentication (2FA) or Authy.

As long as you keep the above factors in mind, the blockchain and cryptocurrencies ecosystem will make your experience with transferring money seamless even across borders.

Despite The Marketplace Twists,Thorns and Thistles, Here Is How USDT Has Weathered The Storm

USDT has weathered the storm these past two years to soar to the third place on the list of the most capitalised crypto. Here is the journey so far for Tether this year.

The meteoric rise of USDT in 2020 H1: Everything you need to know

Predictions for what will happen in the cryptocurrency world exist at any given time, and vary wildly depending on who you ask. Long gone are the days when Bitcoin was expected to reach $100,000 “by the end of the year,” although there’s still the odd enthusiast with overtly positive expectations to come up with such claims now and then.

Still, most movements in the crypto market are predicted by at least a few people, and in some cases these crypto gurus, when predicting such market changes, end up causing them in response.

However, 2020 has seen a market change nobody ever thought, among many other things the world has seen this year. Specifically, the rise of the USD Tether (USDT) and stablecoins in general has been higher than even the most optimistic of predictions.

You Should Read: Investing in 2020: what you need to know

What’s USDT? Why is it important?

The USD Tether is the name of a specific stablecoin, USDT for short, whose value is pegged to that of the US Dollar. 1 USDT thus equals 1USD at all times. It’s one of many coins with prices pegged to those of fiat currency, and thus it is categorized as a stablecoin – because the price always remains stable.

Is it a bad coin? Why people never thought it could rise?

Stablecoins can be divisive among the community, because they imply the creation and use of blockchain as a means to move fiat instead of independent digital currencies – something some crypto enthusiasts consider against the spirit of cryptocurrencies.

However, stablecoins aren’t considered bad in general. Over the years, many crypto analysts have actually predicted they could become an entry point into cryptocurrencies for many people, and the relative safety of their prices has led several crypto exchanges, Binance chiefly among them, to adopt their own stablecoins and offer instant exchanges into them to crypto holders.

Stablecoins are, thus, quick ways for holders to jump out of the market without necessarily going through the bothersome process of turning their crypto into fiat. Since this process doesn’t involve actually exchanging tokens for fiat, but for other tokens, many of the costs – such as a bank transaction and withdrawal fees – are skipped. It’s the preferred way for holders and traders to take a step away from the market if they plan on returning to trading soon.

But why would USDT grow so suddenly? Why would it get popular? Are new people joining the market?

The reason USDT has risen in the past few months has little to do with newcomers and a lot to do with existing crypto traders, current events, and how those shape the economy.

As had been long predicted, a worldwide recession is underway, and if you believe certain predictions, we’re yet to see the worst of it. The current pandemic, along with the gross mishandling of it by many world governments, is leading the worldwide economy towards a second shutdown within a year, one that’s expected to hit much worse than the first one.

And the thing about the first one is it proved many theories about cryptocurrencies’ place in the economy, well… wrong.

Wait, what was wrong?

One of the most commonly held beliefs among cryptocurrency enthusiasts was that crypto would rise if markets went down. Some people went as far as to call it the new gold, usually following the (not quite true) belief that gold always goes up when markets go down.

However, March and April 2020 told a much different story: As COVID-19 had markets close and stocks went down across the board… so did cryptocurrencies. Ether hit its year-long low in mid-March, having shed 50% of its value in a span of just two weeks. Bitcoin did likewise in April, hitting a year-low price of just under $5,000/BTC – less than 50% of the high reached back in September, which had the token valued at almost $12,000.

Being the main tokens in the market, they’re often used as a way to see the current trend in crypto prices. Both tokens severely underperformed when the recession first hit, and while both have also recovered since (Bitcoin partly helped by its May 2020 halving,) with a second, worse recession dip in our doors its only understandable people are trying to jump ahead of the market.

Will this rise last?

USDT isn’t much of an investment, being tied to the value of a clearly inflational currency, and therefore there’s little reason to hold it in a world where cryptocurrencies aren’t yet mainstream. But,the green light is in the fact that mnay hold it as a midpoint between investing and selling off their crypto holdings.

USDT is currently serving as a bellwether for crypto traders who fear the current economy might send token prices to the ebb. Once markets recover, however, many of them will jump back – and USDT might return to its regular trade values or yet, grow stronger.

Which Cryptocurrencies Should You Invest In 2020?

Cryptocurrencies have altered the landscape of investment in recent years. Should you invest in them in 2020? Read on.

Are you looking for the best way to invest your hard-earned money so that you can get maximum returns from it? Do you want to invest in cryptocurrencies but don’t know which will be the best to invest in this 2020?

Cryptocurrencies took the world by storm in 2017 with a whopping 1500% increase in bitcoin price, and this has led to an increased number of investors. However, because of the price volatility of cryptocurrencies, you need to know the right cryptocurrency to invest in, and that’s why this article is written.

Below are 2 cryptocurrencies to watch out for if you considering exploring the new frontier in 2020:

1. Bitcoin (BTC)

Bitcoin is the largest cryptocurrency on the crypto market. Since the creation of Bitcoin, it has grown through much criticism and disdain to become the most valuable cryptocurrency all over the world. The current price of Bitcoin is something to write home about, but more than that, it promises to break more grounds in the future, and 2020 will probably kick-start a new progress.

Bitcoin has a maximum supply of 21 million Bitcoins; presently, over 85% of the cryptocurrency has been mined with only about 3 million left to be mined. This already sets the tone for scarcity with the world’s population teeming to nearly 8 billion people. As the fight for a decentralized system rises more and more, there is an expected steady growth in the adoption of Bitcoin as a mode of payment.

In 2020, Bitcoin will still be the most dominant cryptocurrency and first choice for any investor seeking for a safer investment in the cryptocurrency ecosystem. More so because Bitcoin will undergo “halving – a situation in which the Bitcoin block reward is halved.”

When Bitcoin halved in 2012, it moved significantly from $11 to $1,100 within a year; the second halving in 2017 birthed an unbelievable $700 to over $20,000 rise at the end of 2017. It may be hard to precisely determine what Bitcoin may rise to this year, but it will be massive with an expected 1000% increase.

2. Ethereum (ETH)

Ethereum was created by Vitalik Buterin in 2014 as a support for building crypto-based decentralized applications. Ether is the cryptocurrency of the Ethereum blockchain.

Ethereum peaked towards the start of 2018 when 1 ETH was worth over $1,400. Ether, today, is worth about $200 despite the many negative comments the technology has faced since its inception. As a strong support for creating many other cryptocurrencies, Ethereum will surely be a sought-after cryptocurrency in 2020, especially for those who are seeking to offer decentralized services.

Its smart contracts can encourage activities that will assist organizations to perform better and optimize their business processes effectively. Ethereum transactions are quick with transaction time as low as 15-20 seconds. This makes Ether cash an ideal instrument for exchanging cash, and this will help to foster more adoption in the coming months.

Ethereum also intends to launch the Ethereum 2.0 in 2020 to improve security and empower significantly faster transactions. All of these make Ethereum a viable cryptocurrency to invest in 2020.

Final Words

Cryptocurrency or the blockchain tech is a big deal which has not been fully unveiled.

As technological innovations such as machine learning, cognitive automation, and artificial intelligence are growing, the crypto tech will also gain ground by fixing the security issues common to those technological innovations. Eventually, investments on cryptocurrencies would yield very high ROIs.