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The Technology of Decentralized Finance (DeFi)

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  • Auer, Raphael
  • Haslhofer, Bernhard
  • Kitzler, Stefan
  • Saggese, Pietro
  • Friedhelm, Victor

Abstract

Decentralized Finance (DeFi) is a new financial paradigm that leverages distributed ledger technologies to offer services such as lending, investing, or exchanging cryptoassets without relying on a traditional centralized intermediary. A range of DeFi protocols implements these services as a suite of smart contracts, ie software programs that encode the logic of conventional financial operations. Instead of transacting with a counterparty, DeFi users thus interact with software programs that pool the resources of other DeFi users to maintain control over their funds. This paper provides a deep dive into the overall architecture, the technical primitives, and the financial functionalities of DeFi protocols. We analyse and explain the individual components and how they interact through the lens of a DeFi stack reference (DSR) model featuring three layers: settlement, applications and interfaces. We discuss the technical aspects of each layer of the DSR model. Then, we describe the financial services for the most relevant DeFi categories, ie decentralized exchanges, lending protocols, derivatives protocols and aggregators. The latter exploit the property that smart contracts can be “composed†, ie utilize the functionalities of other protocols to provide novel financial services. We discuss how composability allows complex financial products to be assembled, which could have applications in the traditional financial industry. We discuss potential sources of systemic risk and conclude by mapping out an agenda for research in this area.

Suggested Citation

  • Auer, Raphael & Haslhofer, Bernhard & Kitzler, Stefan & Saggese, Pietro & Friedhelm, Victor, 2023. "The Technology of Decentralized Finance (DeFi)," CEPR Discussion Papers 18038, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:18038
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    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Rainer Alt & Gilbert Fridgen & Younghoon Chang, 2024. "The future of fintech — Towards ubiquitous financial services," Electronic Markets, Springer;IIM University of St. Gallen, vol. 34(1), pages 1-13, December.
    2. João Almeida & João Alves & Carlos Bettencourt & Maria Bettencourt & Madalena Borges & Filipa Castilho & Sónia Correia & Gisela Fonseca & Mariana Júdice & André Leal & Afonso Marques & Carla Marques &, 2024. "Occasional paper on Decentralised Finance," Working Papers o202402, Banco de Portugal, Economics and Research Department.
    3. Saengchote, K & Castro-Iragorri, C, 2023. "Network Topology in Decentralized Finance," Documentos de Trabajo 20782, Universidad del Rosario.
    4. Junliang Luo & Stefan Kitzler & Pietro Saggese, 2024. "Investigating Similarities Across Decentralized Financial (DeFi) Services," Papers 2404.00034, arXiv.org.
    5. Chemaya, Nir & Cong, Lin William & Joergensen, Emma & Liu, Dingyue & Zhang, Luyao, 2023. "Uniswap Daily Transaction Indices by Network," OSF Preprints ube2z, Center for Open Science.
    6. Peplluis R. Esteva & Andrés El-Fakdi & Alberto Ballesteros-Rodríguez, 2023. "Invoice Discounting Using Kelly Criterion by Automated Market Makers-like Implementations," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 11(7), pages 1-37, March.
    7. Saengchote, Kanis & Putniņš, Talis & Samphantharak, Krislert, 2023. "Does DeFi remove the need for trust? Evidence from a natural experiment in stablecoin lending," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 40(C).
    8. Pietro Saggese & Esther Segalla & Michael Sigmund & Burkhard Raunig & Felix Zangerl & Bernhard Haslhofer, 2023. "Assessing the Solvency of Virtual Asset Service Providers: Are Current Standards Sufficient?," Papers 2309.16408, arXiv.org, revised Apr 2024.
    9. Tristan Lim, 2024. "Predictive crypto-asset automated market maker architecture for decentralized finance using deep reinforcement learning," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 10(1), pages 1-29, December.
    10. Nir Chemaya & Lin William Cong & Emma Jorgensen & Dingyue Liu & Luyao Zhang, 2023. "A Dataset of Uniswap daily transaction indices by network," Papers 2312.02660, arXiv.org, revised Sep 2024.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Cryptocurrencies; Blockchain; Ethereum; Stablecoins;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E42 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Monetary Sytsems; Standards; Regimes; Government and the Monetary System
    • E58 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Central Banks and Their Policies
    • F31 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Foreign Exchange
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G19 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Other
    • G23 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Non-bank Financial Institutions; Financial Instruments; Institutional Investors
    • L50 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy - - - General
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes

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