Yearn Finance is a gateway for a set of Decentralized Finance solutions, powered by the Ethereum blockchain, that allows one to maximize your investments through lending aggregation, yield-generation, and insurance. The revolutionary YFI can be seen as the first step towards a secured and better investment in the DeFi. While volatility seems to be the most consistent characteristic of the overall cryptocurrency market volatility, its effect on the YFI token seems undeniably low.
The following article explores what Yearn Finance is, the basics, and how you can use it.
Essentially, Yearn Finance allows users to automatically get the highest yields on several DeFi platforms. Like we mentioned before, Yearn Finance runs on the Ethereum blockchain and provides lending aggregation, yield generation, and insurance.
Yields on Yearn Finance
It’s maintained by a series of independent developers while being governed by YFI holders. It was developed by Andre Cronje, a well-known cryptocurrency expert with extensive knowledge in mobile development and distributed systems. Prior to dedicating his time to developing Yearn Finance, Cronje was a Head of Technology for several companies where he started grasping blockchain and cryptocurrencies. After that, he dove deep into this technology and performed roles as advisor, engineer, analyst, and consultant for a series of companies such as CryptoCurve or Kosmos Kapital and projects such as FUSION foundation or Fantom Foundation.Yearn Finance comprises four core products that function together seamlessly to enable a smooth running of the protocol and enable users to gain on their investment:
Vaults: A passive-investing tool that automatically generates yields through capital pools;
Yinsure: A KYC-less insurance policy for smart contracts;
Zap: A tool that allows you to swap in and out of certain liquidity pools;
Earn: A lending aggregator that continuously searches for the best interest rates.
2. Highs and Lows of YFI
To better understand the Yearn Finance of today, let’s take a look at its history.
Initially, Yearn.Finance was created by Cronje with the goal of allowing investors to find the best yield for their investments in a practical and automatic way. Its native token is called YFI and acts as a governance token concerning voting and decision-making on the protocol.
YFI was listed on Coinbase Pro on the 11th of September of 2020, and four days later it was ready to be used for trading. Coinbase described Yearn.Finance as a decentralized platform with the automated functions of aggregated liquidity and marketing movement of providers’ funds between platforms like dYdX, Aave, and Compound.
The surge of YFI is one of the more unexpected coin booms in recent cryptocurrency history.
Just four days after its listing on Coinbase Pro, YFI’s price grew from $32,382 to $41,381. This burst in per-token price met with Bitcoin’s price at around $43,966.Experts concluded that the explosive burst of YFI might be related to its union of strong technical, new products, yield farming, and the growing popularity of DeFi liquidity pools.
The DeFi and Yearn Finance communities look towards its products such as Vaults, Yinsure.Finance, and “StableCredit USD” to further push the network (and price) forward.
3. The evolution of Yearn Finance
The Yearn Finance protocol started under the name of iEarn and it was built single-handedly by Andre Cronje. The protocol suffered an attack in 2020, which led to the founder taking time off the platform following an outcry from the project’s community.
This attack basically exploited the fact that Cronje tests his software in a “live” environment. This allowed a user to “lose” more than $400k via slippage in Curve Finance, but it also allowed his friend to step into the scene with large pockets and reverse the slippage. This then resulted in a small loss for the first user mentioned here and a small profit for a third user. Even if a lot of people were suspicious, the attack was not as damaging as it could have been.
Various proposals on Yearn finance
In any case, he came back to the protocol and the project was rebranded to Yearn Finance.
The rebranding also resulted in the introduction of new products on the platform such as Vaults, StableCredit, yInsure, and Earn. However, it was the introduction of the protocol’s native token YFI that projected the protocol to the spotlight.
Before the token’s introduction, the available liquidity on the protocol was just $8M but this changed swiftly to more than $400M in just a week after launching the token.
Initially, only the Founder Cronje had the right to mint tokens, which has since been extended to include 9 members. These nine members are the closest there is to a board of directors. To make any changes to the protocol, at least 6 out of those 9 members need to approve through a Multi-sig wallet. Only active members of the DeFi community are included in the Multi-signature ownership and Cronje is not included as part of the signatory.
Various proposals on Yearn finance
The Yearn Finance community members and contributors have explored the addition of extra YFI tokens to incentivize developers. They planned to add 6666 tokens to the existing pool of 30.000 and voted on the proposal on January 28, 2021. The vote to inflate the token supply by 22% passed with 1670 YFI voting in support of the proposal and 331 YFI voting against it.
4. How to use Yearn Finance
Now that you know what is Yearn Finance, let’s explore how people are actually using it.
You can use Yearn Finance for trading and lending through its product known as Earn, Zap, and APY. For example, Earn allows users to earn the highest interest on lending via all lending protocols. Earn searches all these lending protocols to get the best rate for users. Users can earn these interest rates by depositing USDT, sUSD, DAI, USDC, and TUSD on the Yearn Finance protocol.
Zap enables users to make many investments in a single click. That means that you can exchange your USDC for yCRV in a single stroke rather than repeated steps across different platforms. This is time-saving and cheaper in terms of the transaction cost. If tokens like yCRV are unfamiliar to you, do not worry. They do involve a few more steps to get but once you dominate the platform, it will come naturally to you.
Annual Percentage Yield (APY) on the other hand, analyzes the lending protocols available to Earn users then gives an estimation of the amount of interest they should expect to make annually for a specific amount of money.
You can also use Yearn Finance vaults on the protocol to gain earnings on your investment. However, it is a bit more complex than the other products we have talked about. Yearn Finance vaults utilize the protocol’s self-executing code to enable traders to track active investment strategies. There are 10 vault strategies available to users as of August 30, 2020.
However, for users to grasp how vaults work they have to be familiar with code as the strategies on it are expressed in Solidity. It sounds complicated, but actually investing in a vault isn’t as technical as it seems. The user interface on Yearn Finance does a pretty good job at simplifying the process.
Essentially, users will see a list of vaults with historical ROIs and can deposit USDC into any given vault. Then, the profits generated are used to invest in the same asset of each vault, creating a “continuous buy-and-hold strategy”. Finally, for those that wish to withdraw their funds, they will be proportionally allocated, based on the share of contribution of each investor to the pool.
Final Thoughts: Is Yearn Finance Legit?
The astronomical rise of its token YFI put it on the radar, but Yearn Finance is more than just a rapidly growing token. Yearn Finance has cemented itself as a key player in the DeFi market due to its ability to interface with multiple pools and offer the best possible rates.
Its technical capabilities allied with a valuable token and a large and passionate community make this project one of the most exciting ones in the DeFi space. The expectation of getting new products, new Vault strategies, and new integrations cannot allow any crypto enthusiast to avoid following the Yearn Finance community.
Smart contract platforms now allow anyone to design programmable finance and apply them to a myriad of new use cases. For example, the decentralized finance (DeFi) movement, as well as other decentralized applications (dApps), are all dominated by Ethereum-based smart contracts.
One can think of smart contracts as dynamic “if-then” statements.
And if a developer or company combines enough of them together, they can build never-before-seen tools. The advantages aren’t just in this flexibility, either. Smart contracts eliminate many of the costs of intermediaries traditionally included in the fields of law, finance, supply chains, and much more.
Ethereum now has a host of competitors too. Though the project has enjoyed a first-mover advantage, faster, more advanced blockchain projects have emerged to try taking the throne.
In the following Guide, Crypto Briefing outlines the top smart contract platforms and offers readers a broad overview of the smart contract space.
One-liner: The first smart contract platform, and still the biggest in terms of developer activity.
Ethereum was the first blockchain to be developed with a Turing-complete scripting language, Solidity. It was the brainchild of programmer Vitalik Buterin, who recognized the vast potential of blockchain technology through his early engagement with Bitcoin. However, after failing to convince Bitcoin core developers that the platform needed application development functionality, he wrote the white paper for Ethereum.
The founding team comprises Buterin, Anthony Di Iorio, Charles Hoskinson, Mihai Alisie, Amir Chetrit, Gavin Wood, Joseph Lubin, and Jeffrey Wilke. Several of these members have since left Ethereum to work on their own projects.
Ethereum is the current leader of smart contract space and provided a blueprint for many of its successors. It was the first blockchain to gain any significant traction with enterprise adoption, thanks in part to the formation of the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance, which boasts members including Samsung, Intel, and JP Morgan.
Ethereum is also the central hub of the decentralized finance movement, home to some of crypto’s biggest dApps, including Maker and Compound.
Over the years, Ethereum has weathered several significant events, the most notable of which is The DAO incident in 2016, where a hacker exploited a vulnerability in a smart contract and stole $50 million worth of ETH.
The fallout from the incident resulted in a divide in the Ethereum community, with one side supporting a rollback of the blockchain to reclaim the funds, and the other side declaring that “code is law.” A controversial hard fork ensued, resulting in the formation of the Ethereum Classic blockchain.
The biggest challenge facing Ethereum, however, has been its lack of scalability. Despite being one of the most-used blockchains, it frequently suffers from network congestion. Perhaps due to a highly decentralized approach to core development, upgrades are slow to arrive and often beset by delays.
The current upgrade, dubbed ETH 2.0, has been slated for the first phase of implementation in July 2020.
The native token of the platform is ether (ETH), which is the second-biggest cryptocurrency by market cap. Ether is also used to pay the gas fees required for transactions on the platform.
RSK
Founder: Diego Gutiérrez Zaldívar (now CEO of IOV Labs), Sergio Lerner, Gabriel Kurman, Adrian Eidelman, and Ruben Altman
Date of creation: RSK was founded in 2016 and launched in 2018.
One-liner: Smart contract platform running as a sidechain of the Bitcoin blockchain.
RSK operates as a sidechain of the Bitcoin blockchain and is merge-mined with Bitcoin. It was developed to bring Ethereum-like smart contract functionality to the Bitcoin network.
Diego Gutierrez Zaldivar, CEO and founder, describes the RSK vision to Crypto Briefing as:
“We developed RSK to add value and expand functionality to the Bitcoin ecosystem by providing smart contracts functionality and greater scalability, establishing the layer needed for Bitcoin to become the financial system of the future.”
The RBTC token is pegged 1:1 with Bitcoin and is the native token of the RSK platform, used to pay for the gas to execute transactions.
RSK now operates as part of a technology stack with the Bitcoin network as a base layer. The RSK Infrastructure Framework (RIF) layer runs on top of RSK, providing a marketplace of developer tools. These include storage, payments, and a naming service.
RSK hasn’t gained the same traction as Ethereum in the North American and European markets. However, it does have a far bigger footprint in its native Latin America.
The company that operates RSK, IOV Labs, last year acquired Taringa, the biggest social network in Latin America with over 30 million users. It’s also the platform of choice for Money on Chain, which operates the Dollar on Chain stablecoin and has recently expanded into offering stablecoins collateralized by the RIF token. https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?creatorScreenName=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2FLiam_Gallas&dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-0&features=eyJ0ZndfZXhwZXJpbWVudHNfY29va2llX2V4cGlyYXRpb24iOnsiYnVja2V0IjoxMjA5NjAwLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfSwidGZ3X2hvcml6b25fdHdlZXRfZW1iZWRfOTU1NSI6eyJidWNrZXQiOiJodGUiLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfX0%3D&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1247327791726710788&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fcryptobriefing.com%2Fwhos-afraid-ethereum-top-12-smart-contract-platforms%2F&sessionId=3a46b40fa92812b9c3c9b588bdbf2745b70d160c&siteScreenName=crypto_briefing&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ff2e7cf%3A1618526400629&width=500px
RSK can scale up to around 400 transactions per second. However, some of the tools available on the RIF layer can run even faster. For example, the Lumino payments protocol can handle up to 5,000 transactions per second.
The RBTC token is merge-mined with Bitcoin, and the RSK network has previously managed to gather around 45% of the Bitcoin network hashrate, making it highly secure compared to many other platforms dependent on a smaller number of miners or nodes.
Ardor
Founders: Lior Yaffe, Kristina Kalcheva
Date of creation: Launched on mainnet in January 2018.
One-liner: “Parent-and-child chain” architecture with lightweight smart contract capabilities and no blockchain bloat.
Ardor is operated by Jelurida and has its roots in the Nxt blockchain, which was one of the first PoS networks and has been running since 2013. Ardor was created by the same team to overcome the adoption challenges of traditional linear blockchain architecture.
These include the use of a single token, a lack of customization capability, and blockchain bloating as a result of processing and storing every single transaction in the same way.
Ardor aims to overcome this with an architecture that comprises the main parent chain and child chains. Each child chain is entirely customizable according to user requirements and can use its own token. Ardor also makes use of stateless, lightweight smart contracts programmed in Java.
Lior Yaffe, Core Developer and Co-Founder of Ardor, explains the lightweight smart contracts as follows:
“The contract code itself is a simple Java class uploaded to the blockchain and therefore digitally signed and time stamped. However, the execution of the contract is only performed by nodes who choose to run the Contract Runner addon. This removes the need for ‘metered’ execution using the gas model and removes the risk of systematic failure in case the contract malfunctions.”
He adds:
“Furthermore, this enables contracts to work as oracles, to freely integrate with external systems and thus removes the need for a separate layer of oracles.”
The first and main child chain of Ardor is Ignis, which offers unique features and functions across other child chains operating on the Ardor network. These include asset issuance and user account configuration. Ignis also provides various on-chain features, including a voting system, exchange, and data cloud.
Ardor and Ignis each operate their own tokens, under the tickers ARDR and IGNIS, respectively.
Applications running on Ardor include augmented reality game Triffic, art-focused DAO Tarasca, and real estate management platform Dominium.
One-liner: Plasma and PoS side chains create a scalable layer 2 for the Ethereum network.
Matic Network is a layer 2 scaling solution that utilizes sidechains for off-chain computation. T
he network is secured through an adapted version of the Plasma framework and a decentralized network of Proof-of-Stake (PoS) validators.
Jaynti Kanani, a co-founder of Matic, describes the vision of the project as follows:
“Matic aims to overcome the scalability and usability-related problems of the blockchain space by leveraging a combination of blockchain scaling, developer platform and tools, and a keen focus on user experience. We believe the answer to enabling widespread adoption of blockchain technology lies with second-layer solutions focused on scalability. Thus, Matic Network provides massive scaling capabilities whilst leveraging the security and decentralization of the Ethereum mainchain.”
Matic Network achieves significant scalability, with a throughput of 65,000 transactions per second without compromising on decentralization.
The project achieved early recognition from some of the biggest names in crypto, with both Coinbase Venture and Binance Labs providing financial backing.
Before launching its mainnet on Jun. 3, 2020, Matic had already attracted more than 50 dApps, making it the most adopted layer 2 platform in the space. dApps on Matic encompass a variety of niches ranging from gaming to DeFi, with notable projects including Decentraland and whitelabel betting platform BetProtocol.
The network’s token, MATIC, is used in a similar way to Ethereum to pay gas fees for transactions.
Telos
Whitepaper author: Douglas Horn (now founder of block producer, GoodBlock).
Date of creation: The Telos Mainnet was launched on Dec. 12, 2018, by the Telos Launch Group.
One-liner: Telos is a dPoS blockchain based on EOSIO software with a focus on governance.
The Telos network was created to combine flexible governance and high transaction speeds using EOSIO software. Telos never held an ICO and has been a community-driven bootstrapped project since inception.
With a network capable of handling 8,000 transactions per second, the Telos platform attracted gaming apps Angry Warlords and BLOX to its platform.
With governance credentials that rival those of Tezos, Telos has also attracted several dApps for social good in its first year. Sesacash allows cross-currency conversions in Africa. Seeds is an experiment in regenerative money that incentivizes people to behave in environmentally-friendly ways. And, finally, Murmur, a blockchain-based social network, recently switched from EOS to Telos to take advantage of lower-cost transactions.
Telos lacks the profile of some of the other top smart contract platforms, but its feature-rich network and commitment to governance could give it an edge over the long run.
The network aligns itself with what it sees as a future economy built on interconnected smart contracts governed by its users. In the words of whitepaper author Douglas Horn:
“The dApps coming to Telos or emerging from our own Telos Works incubator are leveraging the massive speed and capacity, functional governance, and unique tools available to any dApp on Telos, like the Telos Decide governance engine. A significant portion of developers has also expressed to us that the ethos of Telos as a truly decentralized, egalitarian, and forward-thinking platform that has managed to build itself and foster other projects without an ICO or centralized ownership is an important area of alignment with their own aims.”
One-liner: EOS is a dPoS blockchain based on EOSIO software. It is also a top smart contract platform.
The EOS blockchain protocol is powered by the EOS token, which has consistently ranked in the top ten in terms of market cap since its launch in January 2018. Fueled by a record-setting $4 billion ICO, the EOS network emulates computing resources, including CPU, GPU, and RAM, all of which are supported by EOS token holders.
Larimer developed the delegated Proof-of-Stake (dPoS) consensus mechanism, whereby EOS token holders vote 21 block producers (BPs) to operate the network, with standby contenders on notice to assist if required.
Adrianna Mendez of Cypherglass, a founding EOS block producer and paid stand by BP, told Crypto Briefing that:
“EOS continues to showcase the potential of delegated proof of stake. Two years after its launch, it’s the most used and fastest-growing blockchain in the world. The possibilities for developers are endless.”
Delegated PoS offers speed and scalability advantages over pure PoS consensus mechanisms. Games and gambling apps dominate the top 20 apps on EOS, although a decentralized exchange, Newdex, boasts daily volumes around $15 million.
Block.one, the company behind the network, also operates a venture capital arm and launched a beta version of Voice in early 2019, a social media network poised to rival Facebook.
One-liner:Algorand aims to build a “trusted, public, and permissionless infrastructure for the borderless economy.”
The Algorand network is operated by a pure proof-of-stake consensus mechanism with a transaction throughput rivaling large finance and payment networks. It is scalable to manage billions of users. It claims to be the world’s first blockchain to “provide immediate transaction finality without the fear of forks.”
Upon Coinbase’s listing of ALGO in 2019, the platform’s native token was argued to be one of the fastest cryptocurrencies on the exchange.
Steve Kokinos, CEO of Algorand Inc., told Crypto Briefing that:
“Smart contracts need to be scalable and secure. At Algorand we’ve developed smart contracts built directly into Layer-1 to operate securely without compromising scalability or security while maintaining low execution cost. By focusing on simplifying developer experiences, Algorand enables real-world use cases like cross-chain atomic transfers and regulated disbursements with rapid confirmation time and immediate finality. These use cases are made possible by our pure proof-of-stake protocol, which was designed from the ground-up to deliver a secure, scalable, and decentralized platform necessary for mainstream adoption of blockchain technology.”
Early in 2020, Tether launched an Algorand version of its stablecoin on the platform, “representing the first significant use of Aglorand’s Standard Asset (ASA) specification.”
Other significant partnerships include one with World Chess, which intends to conduct a hybrid IPO and STO alongside a listing on the London Stock Exchange. AssetBlock also launched a real estate investment platform on the network in 2019, cementing Algorand’s reputation as a reliable partner for innovative corporate initiatives.
The high-profile smart contract platform has attracted RHOVIT, a gamified content platform, Meld Gold, an Australia-based tokenized golf asset trading network, and the tokenized investment platform, Republic.
The Tezos Foundation began the Tezos project with a lucrative ICO in 2017, raising some $232 million for the Swiss-based non-profit. It soon became embroiled in controversy, with a dispute between the Breitmans, who owned the IP, and Johann Gevers, the foundation’s president and the one in control of the project’s funds.
The resultant delayed launch saw investors sue the project as confidence faded. Intended as a network that boasted unrivaled governance processes, internal governance itself had become an issue.
Despite its tumultuous start, the network was finally launched in 2018. Its governance processes were indeed innovative. With decision-making processes baked into the system, protocol upgrades proposed by developers are approved by stakeholders. Once approved, the developer is paid.
The process incentivizes decentralized development and improvements. The on-chain governance properties of the network extend to its Proof of Stake mechanism, with token stakers known as bakers earning rewards for securing the network.
As Alison Mangiero, president and co-founder of TQ Tezos told Crypto Briefing:
“In Tezos, we already see widespread participation because unlike in proof of work and other stake networks, all stakeholders can help to secure the network (via baking or delegating), and avoid being diluted by inflation (of course all stakeholders can also participate in network upgrades by evaluating, proposing, or approving amendments to the protocol itself).”
Its protocol also allows Bitcoin and Ethereum to be represented on the network. As the whitepaper states, “Tezos can instantiate any blockchain-based ledger.”
From a hyped ICO to legal dramas and finally, a blockchain network lauded for its innovation and governance properties, Tezos has become one of the top smart contract platforms in the industry.
AVA Labs
Founders: Emin Gün Sirer, Kevin Sekniqi, Maofan Ted Yin
Date of Creation: 2018, still in the testnet phase. Planned to launch mainnet this summer (July).
Asset: AVA
One-liner: A more malleable version of Ethereum that allows users total control at all stacks of the technology.
Another top smart contract’s platform, the AVA blockchain and its creators, AVA LAbs, have attracted top investors from throughout the crypto space. Like many of the “Ethereum Killers,” founders of the project are aiming Ethereum’s significant flaws. These flaws have primarily been user control over the production process and scalability.
In an interview with the co-founder of AVA Labs, Kevin Sekniqi told Crypto Briefing that AVA offers users three tiers of control. “First, there’s the network layer, the middle layer, which would be the actual blockchain or virtual machine, and then there’s the application layer,” he said. He added:
“AVA will support multiple smart contract languages and formats, but at launch it has complete support for the Ethereum Virtual Machine, and all of the tools that have fueled DeFi’s growth to-date, including MetaMask, Web3.js, MyEtherWallet, Remix, Truffle Suite, and more.”
Such customizability allows builders to take control of all dimensions of development. It also offers programmers and entrepreneurs new avenues of exploration.
Any novel experiments on this top smart contract platform would be scalable from day one too. That’s because AVA is leveraging a novel consensus mechanism called Avalanche.
Designed in 2018, Avalanche boasts an estimated 4,500 transactions per second, making it one of the most scalable blockchains in the ecosystem.
Unfortunately, the project lacks the same community as Etheruem and other more established crypto projects. This dynamic is not unusual; Ethereum has long been the most attractive platform for builders. This activity can be seen in the sheer number of projects that spring up almost every week.
Ethereum’s dominance hasn’t deterred Sekniqi, however. He said:
“On our testnet we have more than 700 full block producers actively staking and participating in the consensus protocol. These are full nodes, the highest-level of participants in the system. Further, since launching AVA-X, our accelerator for developers, in April, we’ve fielded hundreds of grant applications and awarded grants for projects like an end-to-end testing suite, atomic swaps, payments and remittances, and infrastructure.”
Further, the backing from names like Andressen Horowitz, Polychain and other VC firms, could see some developers leave Ethereum for newer horizons. AVA Labs is making this transition easier, too, by building a friendly-fork of Ethereum on AVA called “Athereum.”
The fork would resemble many of the features of Ethereum 2.0 but is unlikely to replace efforts towards an improved Ethereum. Like many of the projects on this list, AVA’s viability hinges on reaching a critical mass of developers before ETH 2.0 is launched.
Fortunately, it appears AVA Labs still have some time to make this happen. At the time of press, the first of four phases will be rolled out in 2021, according to ConsenSys.
One-liner: A multi-tiered blockchain project building out a PoS consensus mechanism capable of hosting smart contracts, dApps, as well as offering users a store of value. The smart contract platform is slated to launch later in 2020.
Charles Hoskinson is one of the founders of Ethereum. In 2014, shortly before the network launched, he left due to disagreements with how the project was structured. Instead of being a fully open source project, Hoskinson was interested in seeking venture capital and creating a for-profit company using the technology.
He then helped found IOHK, Input Output Hong Kong, a company that brought together various academics and engineers to build enterprise-grade blockchains. The targeted clients included government entities and large corporations. They attracted such customers and ultimately began focusing on Cardano in 2015 as a product of the group’s research.
Built using a coding language called Haskell, Cardano embraces the Proof of Stake PoS) consensus mechanism “because it adds a mechanism to introduce secure voting, has more capacity to scale, and permits more exotic incentive schemes.”
Cardano has technically been in the wild since 2017 via the launch of its first iteration called Byron. This “era,” as the team calls it, ushered in the Daedalus wallet for desktop and a light client called Emurgo. The network is currently transitioning into its next era called Shelley.
Shelley will bring about Cardano’s PoS mechanism and lay the foundation for implementing smart contracts, according to the project. Cardano’s smart contracts will be written in another language called Plutus, which is available for review here.
“Haskell is recognized not only at a developer level but at an academic level too, due to its mixture of academic and industry-grade talent with credentials in computer science. This means that our smart contracts will be safer and more reliable than smart contracts on other languages, as Plutus has been thoroughly tested and documented to ensure it is of the utmost security. Smart contracts on the Cardano blockchain will also allow for every party to have full visibility of the contract’s exact details, whilst making it virtually impossible for any individual to act in an adverse way.”
It should be noted, however, that Cardano developments have been slow to materialize with the team, often delaying many of its deadlines. For now, there is limited information available regarding the release of Plutus and the Cardano-based smart contract platform. Jue added:
“We are currently putting together a roadmap of features and functionality that will be released in a controlled rollout manner for the developer community to test and provide feedback, as product development refines and iterates, come Q3/Q4. More details will be released when available.
One-liner: Cosmos is a far-reaching project that seeks to add a communication layer between various blockchains. Although it’s primary focus is interoperability, it also enjoys robust smart contract functionality.
Cosmos is a set of blockchain-based tools that have been developed to help engineers build scalable blockchains. The advantage over Ethereum is in Cosmos’ improved customizability and ease. Instead of having to build all layers of a network from scratch, engineers need only focus on the application layer.
Examining the three primary Cosmos tools will help clarify this process. Before Cosmos launched, Jae Kwon developed Tendermint BFT. It bundles the networking and consensus layer into one single platform. This means that builders needn’t reinvent the wheel and can, instead, focus on building their blockchain project.
ABCI is a socket that allows developers to work in whichever programming language they are most comfortable with.
As with many next-generation technologies, Cosmos is faster and more secure than many of its predecessors. It can handle thousands of transactions per second and boasts instant finality.
The team behind Cosmos has also built the Cosmos SDK and the Interblockchain Communication Protocol (IBC).
The SDK is a framework that offers engineers an easy way to manage staking, scaling, and interoperability functions. This framework isn’t exclusive to Cosmos, either. Any consensus mechanism that includes the ABCI socket can also tap the Cosmos SDK.
Finally, the IBC allows this collection of tools to interact with any other network, including Bitcoin and Ethereum. To make the transition for Ethereum developers easier, the Cosmos team has also built Ethermint. It offers many of the same tools and features as Ethereum but is built on Tendermint.
For those building smart contracts with Cosmos, there are many differences. Sam Hart, a member of the Interchain GmbH, told Crypto Briefing:
“Inter Blockchain Communication and Agoric’s smart contract architecture both use an ‘object capability’ model, which defines the way a contract, address, or anything else can interact with each other. These capabilities are to be defined explicitly, meaning developers must elect to give an entity in the system particular privileges, for instance moving money around, changing the membership of a group, etc. This model follows a ‘principle of least authority,’ which is the inverse of how most smart contracts are written, where access is granted by default. The result is far greater encapsulation, both from the standpoint of program logic and security —meaning that programs written in this paradigm should be far more composable and securely reusable.”
As one can see, Cosmos is rallying together a large community of developers to create a TCP/IP-like network of blockchains.
The interoperable parts could include networks like Bitcoin as well as more modern iterations down the line. In terms of its smart contract functionality, it offers the same experience as Etheruem while also improving flexibility.
Agoric
Founders: Mark S. Miller, Brian Warner, Bill Tulloh, and Dean Tribble
Date of Creation: 2018, mainnet TBA.
Asset: N/A
One-liner: Agoric is backed by highly-experienced engineers who helped work on some of the very first smart contracts long before blockchain technology existed.
Like many of the competitors found in this guide, Agoric is building improvements that Ethereum failed to adopt. Founder Dean Tribble told Crypto Briefing:
“We love Ethereum, which has had enormous success in combining the power of smart contracts with the integrity of blockchain execution. However, some of its strengths for early growth are real issues for large-scale, mainstream adoption, in particular with security: we believe existing security models don’t satisfactorily prevent theft of data or money.“
Agoric plans to solve this security issue by making the programming language as easy to deploy and audit as possible.
This is where the team’s rich experience with one of the world’s most popular programming languages, Javascript, comes in handy. This approach offers composability between modules and, thanks to an integration with Tendermint, interoperability between blockchains.
The project’s current iteration, called Zoe, offers yet another degree of safety. This framework helps users and developers ensure that they are receiving the goods or services they paid for when interacting with a smart contract. It is like a waiting room for blockchain transactions. Users send their “offer” for a specified transaction to this waiting room. Only once the conditions of this transaction are met, do the funds get released.
Concluding, Agoric’s value proposition is that the top smart contract platforms should be easy to build for most developers. After that, developments are focused on maintaining security throughout a contract’s operations.
A Final Word on the Top Smart Contract Platforms
Smart contracts are one of the more exciting fields within the blockchain ecosystem. And although Etheruem currently dominates developer activity, this may change in the future.
As this list has shown, many projects are looking to attract programmers to faster and more secure networks.
Like any business, however, users are the ones who will enjoy the fruits of this competition.
Cryptocurrencies and decentralized technologies are booming. The numbers speak for themselves — market capitalizations have gone through the roof, transaction volume has skyrocketed, and adoption from individuals, corporations, and governments has reached a global scale.
Thanks to blockchain technology, we are moving toward a trustless economy, with no need of third parties to exchange goods. Yet today’s digital currency exchanges are centralized. They have proven to be vulnerable to hacks, to react poorly to unusual blockchain events like hard forks, and often run with a high regulatory risk. Centralized exchanges keep their systems off-chain, meaning they operate as escrows for their clients, and transactions are not recorded on the blockchain. This leads to massive breaches of security and unsafe storage of information, funds, and private keys.
Trading comes with risks, but traders should not face any other risks than those they are already willing to take.
Blockchain entrepreneurs understand this, and some of them are working hard on what many believe will be the future of trading: decentralized exchanges.
Decentralized exchanges — or DEXes — aim to tackle the problems that impede centralized structures by building peer-to-peer marketplaces directly on the blockchain — Ethereum mostly — allowing traders to remain custodian of their funds. However, building a fully decentralized and efficient exchange remains today something of an utopia. Exchanges are centralized because it is the simplest way to proceed, and it is either too costly or technically complex to build fully decentralized platforms — for now, at least.
Throwbacks and inefficiencies of centralized exchanges leave the model with only few advantages. Many semi-decentralized exchanges are coming into action. They are hybrid models between centralized and decentralized marketplaces, trying to deliver the best of both worlds. There is an increasing number of such exchanges, following up on a need expressed by the crypto-community.
This “state of decentralized exchanges” begins with major cryptocurrency numbers and centralized exchanges, which currently monopolize the market. Decentralized exchanges are building the future of cryptocurrencies trading, and this “state” aims to pave its way with its rough listing of projects in the making. We should pay attention to them as they are shaping the way cryptocurrencies trading will operate in the future.
Disclaimer: I am part of VariabL (a derivatives trading platform on Ethereum) and ConsenSys (one of the largest global blockchain specialists).
I. Cryptocurrency Market Overview and the Flaws of Centralized Exchanges
2017 Cryptocurrency market in numbers¹ :
+3400%*=Market cap of cryptocurrencies is experiencing an exponential growth:
From less than $18B to more than $600B in 2017.
More than 99% of cryptocurrency transactions go through centralized exchanges.
II. Centralized Exchanges
Let’s first define what centralized exchanges are: platforms and apps that enable traders to buy, sell, and exchange cryptocurrencies against fiat currencies or other cryptocurrencies. They are marketplaces for tokens, and are essential to the ecosystem, since many of them enable payments with fiat currencies , i.e. non-crypto holders are able to buy crypto using USD, EUR, etc.
Among most well-known and trafficked centralized exchanges are Bithumb, Bitfinex, Bittrex, Poloniex, Kraken, GDAX, Coinbase and Gemini. Hundreds already exist, but the goal here is not to focus on their number, but rather on their limitations and potential for improvement.
Centralized crypto-exchanges may soon become obsolete as they lose the opportunity to leverage blockchain technology to improve their capabilities and efficiency.
Insecurity, risk of fund loss and thefts due to their centralized functioning. They are legally accountable and a custodian of users’ funds. 73% of centralized exchanges take custody of user funds, while 23% let users control keys⁴. They represent honeypots for hackers as they are responsible for billions of trades per day and store most of them on their servers.
A lack of liquidity: large orders struggle to be matched. Even at an all-time-high, volumes remain low (compared to traditional markets).
A fragmented (not to say decentralized) market: divides the global liquidity into a few main marketplaces. No clear market leader in terms of volume, which increases the liquidity problem.
A high level of risks for users due to potential performance issues, market manipulation, hardware failures, latency problems, and many other inherent problems when it comes to dealing with large volumes…
A lack of trust and transparency: actual costs and processes of trading are opaque and involve high trading costs, often higher than announced fees and higher delays due to peaks of demand badly managed. Plus, they can front-run orders, which is illegal.
A lack of educated users: markets are flooded by pure speculators unaware of safe ways to deal with cryptocurrencies.
III. Decentralized Exchanges and Open Protocols
Due to the lack of security, transparency, and efficiency that centralized exchanges have demonstrated, a strong demand for decentralized exchanges have surfaced. Scores of new actors are tackling these problems and addressing an obvious need by the community. Projects like 0x, Ethfinex, ShapeShift.io (not decentralized but not custodian) and EtherDelta have emerged and generated a strong interest.
One of the oldest projects in the field is EtherDelta, a platform with a simple user-interface and basic trading features (no margin trading), which has already gained sufficient traction to generate up to 25 million USD-equivalent of daily transactions⁵.
Definition
Decentralized exchanges differ from centralized exchanges as they enable users to remain in control of their funds by operating their critical functions on the blockchain: they leverage the technology behind cryptocurrencies themselves to enable a safer and more transparent trading. It solves the main limitations faced by cryptocurrency markets (see above), since there is no single point of failure, aligning them with what has made the blockchain technology so powerful in the first place.
Most decentralized exchanges are not fully decentralized, but semi-decentralized (full decentralization is today more of an ideal, due to limitations listed hereunder). In most cases, servers (centralized) still host order books (among other features) but do not hold private keys.
Another central aspect is that decentralized exchanges present the characteristics, benefits and limitations, of their underlying blockchain.
Main DEX Benefits
Trustless, which means that users’ funds and personal data are safe.
Security and privacy are well preserved.
Main DEX Limitations
Maintain the same scalability problems as the underlying blockchain.
Most are not easily usable, struggle with liquidity, do not provide fiat payments etc.
(more details in a section below)
Decentralized Exchange Mapping
Disclaimers:
This “state of decentralized exchanges” may not be fully exhaustive and did not assess all of those projects’ viability nor teams’ legitimacy. However, an effort has been made towards making an exhaustive mapping. Abandoned or scammy projects might be included. It should be taken with a grain of salt and you should conduct your own due diligence before using or investing in any of those.
All the projects below are or contain decentralized exchanges functionalities in their global offers. Many are not limited to exchange services. For the sake of that study, and since there are not (m)any fully decentralized and working exchanges, semi-decentralized exchange will be included.
Some exchanges offering advanced financial products such as futures or derivatives like dYdX or VariabL are voluntarily excluded of this benchmark since there is another article in the making for these ones.
The vast majority is in production/beta; this report aims to list all of them and assess their current state of development. I included their website and Medium accounts when available, which provide most of projects’ updates.
Decentralized exchange enabling cryptocurrencies trading and fiat currency gateways through cross-chain atomic swaps and cross-chain data transfers (In production)
Decentralized exchange that provides instant order placement and execution, free order cancellation, and real-time order book updates. (Live on the Ethereum MainNet)
Decentralized exchange on NEO with an off-chain matching engine including payment services. (in production, trading platform launch expected in Q3’2018)
Crypto-platform for asset/custom token issuance, transfer and trading on the Waves blockchain, with centralised order matching and decentralised settlement. (Live since June 2016)
Decentralized exchange providing price stable cryptocurrencies and banking services on the blockchain (Live since 2014) [Probably the oldest decentralized exchange sill working]
0x relayer and liquidity pool for trading Ethereum-based token (Beta)
IV. Open Protocols for Decentralized Exchanges
Definition
Open Protocols are setting up and running decentralized applications (dApps) on a common basis: some are designed especially for decentralized exchanges (ie. 0x), others also seem suited (ie. Omise). Both will be mentioned below.
They create synergies by allowing “anyone” to build their own services on top of them: it fosters innovation and is essential for native dApps to interact with each other. For decentralized exchanges, open protocols present the benefits of creating common pools of liquidity by allowing any project built on top to interact with each others.
Peer-to-peer protocol for trading Ethereum tokens, without orderbooks (to be open in the future)
V. What May Slow Down the Adoption of Decentralized Exchanges?
Security benefits, by allowing users to remain custodian of their funds, seem obvious and emphasized by all these hacks stories. So why everyone is not using them?
Some aspects are slowing down their adoption: Education and Technology.
Education
Users are not aware of:
Drawbacks and security issues of Centralized Exchanges
Security measures to undertake (how to manage private keys etc.) since it is users’ responsibility
Existence of Decentralized Exchanges
Advantages of Decentralized Exchanges
Technology
Usability: DEX are not user-friendly enough (very solvable problem, linked to early stages of projects)
Scalability: Possible blockchain bloat with ethereum network congestion and scaling pressure (with Token sales and a slow gas price adaptation…)
Speed: Transactions take time to be validated on blockchains
Cost: There is a potential high costs per trade
Liquidity: Chicken and the egg problem. Traders do not join because traders are not already on the platform to match their orders; getting liquidity through a large adoption by the ecosystem is a long process.
Full decentralization: Some services have to remain off-chain and have to suffer from limitations of centralized infrastructures (ie. onchain orderbook are expensive not efficient enough)
Front-running risk: miners can preview transactions, since they validate them, and can have consequences on any DEX (market manipulation)
Interoperability: need for cross-chain exchanges, and more blockchains/dapps interoperability for decentralized platforms to interact with each others.
Accessibility: Need for fiat integrations and stable tokens for lower volatility.
On the matter, Kyber’s chief executive and co-founder, Loi Luu stated:
“…centralized exchanges are potentially unable to handle large volumes of users, touting decentralized trading platforms as a better alternative. However, decentralized exchanges are not as user-friendly as centralized options, and may not have the funds to support mass trading due to small numbers of users.”6
Conclusion
99% of cryptocurrency transactions still go through centralized exchanges; this trend is expected to be reversed in the coming years. Switching to decentralized exchanges is necessary for cryptocurrency users to exploit their full potential, aligning with the decentralized nature of blockchain itself. Education is arriving, and most technological hurdles we face today will probably be overcome very soon.
Differences between projects’ value propositions are hard to spot in this field, and most of them will probably not exist in a close future. However, the trend towards decentralized exchanges is clearly evident.
Centralized exchanges will shift toward decentralized technologies sooner rather than later, but improvements have to come from both sides. Users to learn how to protect themselves, and platforms must provide better security tools, as well as education around common issues and best practices.
“Ultimately, I believe that centralized and decentralized exchanges will co-exist as they each provide their own unique benefits,” says Linda Xie, who sums up the situation pretty well (talking about 0x). Will Warren (0x Co-Founder) goes even one step further by stating that “centralized exchanges will continue to play a critical role in the cryptocurrency ecosystem, because they offer fiat on/off-ramps.” This is one function that fully decentralized exchanges, by definition, do not allow.
If some factors are slowing down adoption, the above-mentioned open protocols (for decentralized exchanges) are fostering development by lowering entry barriers to their implementation and adoption. 0x is probably among the best projects working on the matter. However, even the 0x protocol may suffer from problems like efficiency and scalability, which still represent massive hurdles for the whole blockchain, Ethereum and exchange ecosystem. Solutions in the making, such as State Channels, or Sharding/Plasma, will allow scaling, albeit with certain sacrifices.
From a wider perspective, decentralized exchange adoption will follow the adoption of the (Ethereum) blockchain itself, alongside better educated users and technological breakthroughs. As mentioned, centralized/decentralized hybrid models will most likely get their break first. Fully decentralized exchanges remain an ideal, towards which most of those projects are aiming.
Some questions remain: does everyone want to take care of their own private keys? Probably not, but they should at least have the choice. Friction for new users switching from centralized exchanges to decentralized ones also remain a big hurdle; even the process of switching represents a considerable effort for most users…
Is the switch is going to happen any time soon? People like Vinny Lingham(Civic) say that some centralized exchanges will soon close, and think this will accelerate the adoption of decentralized exchanges.
If the causes and triggers are matters of debate, we can hardly argue that decentralized exchanges are and will continue to grow as a hot topic of 2018 and potentially an essential pillar of the blockchain ecosystem.
Footnotes:
https://coinmarketcap.com
https://localethereum.com/ belongs to another type of cryptocurrencies marketplaces not mentioned here but also trending: local P2P token market places. Other examples: https://localbitcoins.com/fr/ or Dether
https://blog.localethereum.com/centralised-exchanges-are-terrible-at-holding-your-money/. More hack stories hacks stories: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=576337
“GLOBAL CRYPTOCURRENCY BENCHMARKING STUDY” Dr Garrick Hileman & Michel Rauchs (2017)
https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/etherdelta/
Loi Luu (Kyber Network): https://www.coindesk.com/uc-berkeley-kybernetwork-partner-for-decentralized-exchange-research/