DeFi Fundamentals

DeFi, smart contracts, dApps, and DAOs — software replacing middlemen.

Updated 2026 ж. 21 қаз.GaiaEx Academy Editorial

Бұл сабақта

What decentralized finance offers
How it differs from a bank

Негізгі тұжырымдар

1DeFi rebuilds financial services as open smart contracts
2It's permissionless — no application or gatekeeper
3You keep custody, but you also carry the risk

Сабақ қорытындысы

DeFi rebuilds financial actions as open smart-contract systems.

Mental model

The core idea behind DeFi fundamentals

DeFi rebuilds financial actions as open smart-contract systems. It removes some middlemen, but it also moves responsibility from institutions to users and code.

What decentralized finance offers
How it differs from a bank

Mechanics

How to reason about DeFi fundamentals

Users connect wallets instead of opening traditional accounts.

Smart contracts define the rules for swaps, lending, collateral, and rewards.

Anyone can inspect or interact with many protocols, but that openness does not remove risk.

DeFi rebuilds financial services as open smart contracts
It's permissionless — no application or gatekeeper
You keep custody, but you also carry the risk

Example

Seeing DeFi fundamentals in action

A lending market can accept ETH as collateral and let a user borrow a stablecoin without a loan officer. The protocol enforces collateral rules automatically.

Есте сақтаңызDecision rule: Before using DeFi, identify the contract, collateral, oracle, liquidity, and exit path.

Common mistakes

How DeFi fundamentals trips learners up

Permissionless does not mean safe. It means access is open; users still need to understand contract, oracle, liquidation, and approval risk.

Risk notes

Reading the risk in DeFi fundamentals

Smart-contract exploits, oracle manipulation, bad governance, and user signing errors can cause losses without a support desk reversing them.

Define DeFi in one sentence.
Identify what the smart contract replaces.
Name at least two DeFi risks.

Practice

Make DeFi fundamentals stick

Define DeFi in one sentence.
Identify what the smart contract replaces.
Name at least two DeFi risks.

Қайталау

Негізгі терминдер

Custody: Who controls the private keys. Custodial = a third party holds them; non-custodial = you do.
DeFi: Decentralized Finance — permissionless, composable financial services built on smart contracts.
Liquidation: Forced closure of a leveraged position when margin can no longer cover its losses.
Liquidity: How easily an asset can be bought or sold without moving its price much.
Oracle: A service that feeds real-world data (like prices) to smart contracts on-chain.

Дерек көздері