In March 2022, the decentralised finance (DeFi) market is worth an estimated 200 billion US dollars. This growth has been fueled by the near mass adoption of cryptocurrency and the continued development of blockchain technology. DeFi has enabled people, merchants and businesses to eliminate the cost of the middle man. Herein lies the power of DeFi – it provides individuals greater control over their money because they’re dealing directly with each other, and as a result, provides far greater returns on investment. DeFi projects and protocols offer similar services to traditional financial institutions but with fewer obstacles, greater speed and next to no overheads.
The direct relationship between DeFi projects and their clients can work remarkably well. Project founders, known as developers or devs for short, often interact constantly with their investor community through Telegram or Discord. The best projects can grow rapidly through this constant communication as they can respond quickly to investor’s needs or concerns.
INNOVATION
A great example of innovation in the DeFi space, is Titano Finance, a project that operates on the Binance Smart Chain. Titano Finance launched just four months ago, and in this short time, they’ve already grown to a market cap of $177M making it one of the fastest-growing and most popular projects on BSC. What started as a DeFi experiment now boasts over 57,000 holders and has one of the most active communities in the space.
Titano Finance fulfils the promise of DeFi, delivering astonishingly high returns with minimal fuss. As the Titano website states, if you buy the $TITANO token, and hold it, you will earn 1.89% on your $TITANO holdings per day, which results in 102,483.58% APY. The simplicity and effectiveness of Titano’s DeFi protocol has garnered widespread praise, and there have been multiple forks and clones, but none have the expertise or brilliance of this original developer team. Not only have they have pioneered the auto-staking, auto-compounding token protocol, but they are also now taking that innovation to NFTs, gaming, venture funding and more.
TRUSTLESS
DeFi is founded on the principle of being entirely trustless. That is to say; trust is unnecessary because DeFi is built with smart contracts and delivered on-chain. In DeFi you don’t need to know who you are dealing with – you don’t need a background check, a deposit or references because as long as the person(s) is transacting with you via a smart-contract, you know that both sides are obligated to fulfil the agreement. It is a binary situation where both parties get what they expected or none at all.
Given that the smart-contracts underpin DeFi, it is these smart-contracts that may require additional scrutiny. There are multiple auditors operating in the blockchain space that can provide such a service. Titano Finance, for example, hired two of the most reputable auditors, Solidity and Certik, to inspect their original project code. The Solidity audit was made public, shortly after launch, by the Titano team, and it confirmed that the project was safe from external hacks or vulnerabilities. The audit did highlight some concerns, and those were publicly addressed by the Titano team. Any vulnerabilities are now being fixed in an upcoming smart-contract update under the watchful eye of Certik, crypto’s top auditor. It is this ability to communicate clearly, react quickly, and innovate continuously that inspires community confidence in both Titano and other similar DeFi projects.
24/7
DeFi never sleeps. It doesn’t require a teller, a downtown building, or a branch manager’s rubber stamp. It can on-board users 24 hours a day, wherever they are in the world and requires no human interaction whatsoever.
In the case of Titano, the 1.89% daily interest is split into payments that occur every 30 minutes, 48 times a day, automatically. It doesn’t matter if you hold a gigantic number of $TITANO or a few dollars worth; you will earn your interest regardless. In this respect, it is a complete leveller and brings the opportunity to those that would never have imagined it possible. In the space of just a few months, Titano Finance has had countless testimonials and success stories, recounting how the protocol has changed the lives of ordinary people, delivering a passive income they never thought possible. And all this without ever knowing the name or face of the person who created the project. That’s not to say there isn’t help or interaction when needed. Indeed, Titano has an incredible community and moderating team that is active every hour of the day to help with any issues that users may face.
CONCLUSION
For now, as the sector grows, DeFi remains experimental. It should still be viewed cautiously, but just might become an alternative to traditional finance for the vast majority.
DeFi is unregulated and, for the most part, anonymous both for the provider and the consumer. This issue of anonymity in finance has long been a highly debated topic amongst advocates and regulators. This conversation isn’t new. In the past, it was about tax havens or offshore banking. Today, it involves technology.
However, for most, DeFi is about personal freedom rather than tax avoidance, and anonymity can be considered a side effect of having a truly trustless system, instead of being the goal.
Pioneering DeFi projects like Titano Finance are proving that trust can be built on-chain and through community interaction alone. If the past couple of years is anything to go by, the growth of these projects will accelerate, and we could see a total disruption of the banking system in the not too distant.
