Coinbase Boosts MakerDAO
Coinbase may be centralized, but that isn’t stopping it from helping the decentralized finance (DeFi) industry. Recently, the popular exchange’s Earn division, which heads a service that allows common Joes and Jills — KYC-verified ones of course — to learn about top cryptocurrency projects for rewards, extended support for MakerDAO.
MakerDAO is the leading DeFi platform that allows its users to take out loans denominated in DAI — a decentralized stablecoin — through Collateralized Debt Positions (CDP). The Ethereum-based project now offers tens of millions of dollars worth of loans. Maker has gained so much traction that is has managed to garner the support of venture capital giant a16z’s crypto fund, which bought
Started two days back, Coinbase Earn now allows users to earn an extra $14 in Dai for learning how Maker’s relatively advanced system works. There are currently four lessons listed on the exchange’s rewards portal: 1) What is Dai? 2) What is Dai used for? 3) How does Dai stay stable? 4) Generate Dai with Maker.
What’s interesting about the last one is that it is actually an interactive experience. As noted by users on Twitter, the newest lesson has resulted in there being over 6,300 CDPs opened in July so far, which is far above the ~1,000 seen in normal months. In other words, DeFi just got a huge boost, and Coinbase is the one responsible.
DeFi Growing
This comes as DeFi has started to grow at a rapid pace. Per previous reports from Ethereum World News, this class of decentralized applications (dApps) have quickly garnered traction, giving users access to certain financial services and products that are hard to access, expensive, or don’t provide enough returns in traditional markets.
In fact, according to data recently compiled by Binance’s research division, there is over $500 million worth of Ethereum locked up in the blockchain’s DeFi applications. This has been on a strong uptrend, despite the recent issues Bitcoin has had facing down $14,000 and other key resistances.
Per the data, Maker sports $290.1 million worth of locked value. Following it is Compound, an interest and loan platform for Ether and ERC-20 tokens; InstaDApp, Nuo Network; and many others.
While $500 million is far from the trillions that retail banks and other financial institutions see on a yearly basis, the growth in this sector is strong and underlines Ethereum’s growing fundamental strength.
Title Image Courtesy of Marco Verch Via Flickr