DeFi
Last updated 17 October 2026Last verified 17 October 2026
What is DeFi (Decentralized Finance)?
Decentralized Finance. Financial services: lending, trading, yield generation, built on public blockchains and executed by smart contracts, with no central intermediary controlling access or holding assets. The absence of a central gatekeeper is the feature; the absence of recourse when something goes wrong is the corresponding risk. The DeFi Primer covers the full landscape interactively.
TradFi equivalentThe functions a bank, a broker and an exchange perform, executed by code with no institution in the middle. What disappears along with the intermediary is not only the fee but the recourse.