Cryptocurrency & DeFi Projects for the Future - Part III

One amazing thing about the DeFi universe is that the potential is so high right now. Better than the often-shameless ICO flurry of years ago, and much better than the outright delusion of the dotcom bust that preceded it, it might just be possible that people do learn over time after all, says Shannon Berkley.
 

DeFi is also an arena that doesn’t tolerate junk, which put another way simply means that even some of the more obscure, interesting Defi and cryptocurrency projects are potentially good horses to back.
 

Stated differently, the barrier to entry to DeFi is large. It is not a financial one, but rather the smart young modern breed of developers, investors and traders of the arena that together insist by competition or pride that DeFi projects are legitimately valuable, or that crypto shed any tartish image and make good sense. The desire to demonstrate street smarts and genuine value has always pervaded DeFi in the aftermath of the horror show that was bitcoin’s consumption by Wall Street investors.
 

Brokerages, not wanting to be caught with their pants down as many were when the world was still ambivalent on whether cryptographic tokens were indeed a new asset class, are adopting DeFi solutions where it aids their game. Trading platforms and exchanges likewise are already employing DeFi’s bag of tricks to improve stakes for all parties and be on the cutting edge of particularly fintech improvements as well, often reinventing as a hybrid concern today.
 

As the world continues to monetise debt, tokens’ value will keep rising in inverse proportion. To be clear, DeFi tokens may have their own innate value, but the way central banks are sacking the sacrosanct supply and other metrics that keep fiat robust is certainly encouraging for crypto tokens. 
 

The word is out. Fiat is under attack within its own city walls. CBDCs are a vulgarity to decentralised blockchains unlike any other. What does that leave for smart investors, besides the likely jump of precious metals anytime from now? 
 

DeFi tokens are generally smart, unencumbered by the fungibility and hesitancy issues of cryptos of yore, and so far haven’t dropped the ball. A better, modern, untainted store of wealth is needed for a smarter, younger demographic. Autonomy is likewise taking fire in the centralised arena and becoming something of a basic insistence of DeFi too, while internecine privacy wars at home are a microcosm for the world at large. 
 

Just before they buried privacy, in fact, it jumped out of the coffin and ran away, but they’re in hot pursuit with guns blazing. Small wonder that many of the lesser known yet potentially highly attractive DeFi projects have the safeguarding of privacy at their core. 
 

Here are four alternative coins and projects with use cases which may well prove to be of great significance and very attractive in the future of finance. The derivatives market particularly is facing a current stiff biff up the hooter with Basel III, and some DeFi projects put an interesting and acceptable spin on derivatives, or potentially simply improve the arena overall in a myriad of ways. 
 

ORCHID (OXT)

Orchid is a token on the Ethereum chain and it’s the lubricant of the Orchid network. What the Orchid network is, is the evolution of the VPN, and a sharp stick in the eye for centralised VPN providers and their latent (perhaps inevitable) collusion with dark interests, be those the mafia, Big Tech or your government agents.
 

Orchid is a peer-to-peer privacy tool that incorporates a decentralised VPN, and what it adds up to is a huge leap forward in user control over how they connect to the web. There are other features that grant users far greater autonomy over their internet connection, but that’s enough.
 

It is a quiet, good earner right now — slow and steady to win the race — and it is also in front of a race to reclaim the internet from Big Tech, all of which means it has potentially massive, legitimate value. Possibly the next equivalent McAfee or PayPal, everyone alive and online can enjoy this tool, and they’re waking up to the fact that they had better not stare a gift horse in the mouth. Definitely silent giant potential that any investor would be proud to have in his portfolio, current earnings of around 2.5% APY and future application would seem to grant Orchid a charmed future.
 

ETHEREUM (ETH)

Surely needing no introduction, Ethereum is like the sibling who stays home and manages the farm, builds the estate and makes good friends, while brother Bitcoin is out starring in Hollywood films. So what? Well, Ethereum’s deep legitimacy has ever lain hidden as other cryptos soaked up the limelight, probably because it was just a little too techie and legitimate in intent for many investors.
 

It was the Winklevoss twins who labelled Ethereum as “digital oil”, and they were right. Look at Ethereum today, pretty much single-handedly holding DeFi aloft, as a phenomenon. An open source and skilfully decentralised blockchain, smart contracts are today almost synonymous with ether (ETH) its native cryptocurrency. 
 

As to what Ethereum “does”, the sky appears to be the limit. As the mothership of DeFi and as respectable and hardworking a token as you could hope to find, Ethereum should definitely be in every investor’s portfolio. If Ethereum fails you, the world has ended, and everything crypto and DeFi would have ended as well. It is that kind of asset, like the old adage of “buy blue chip stocks and property — you can’t go wrong.” For the sceptics, as the second largest cryptocurrency based on capitalisation, Ethereum is building a DeFi arena worth billions upon billions right now. Watch this space.
 

DERO (DERO)

DERO offers completely anonymous transacting. That’s actually all their ad copy has to say, as that is value no one has to sell, especially now with the rise in deep concern and adamant insistence from users for a return to being able to choose whether or not to identify. It is something Big Tech long ago stole and sold as its personal IP, but DERO smartly cuts them off at the knee.
 

It is the very first cryptocurrency project that combines Proof of Work blockchain technology with block-DAG architecture, on top of that anonymous feel good. So what? Well, in simple terms that means the Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) architecture eliminates the scalability and speed frustrations of earlier crypto transactions, and is in effect a modern rival to VISA that boasts 55,000 transactions a second. DERO aims to catch up, and fast. 
 

Another hugely applicable token with the potential for huge adoption, all DERO has to do is make good on its promise, something it is built to do. If DeFi is defined in part by growing with leaps and bounds in improvements, DERO is an asset with massive potential.
 

XINFIN NETWORK (XDC)

Finally, there is XinFin — anathema to some but possibly just the ticket for legacy and crossover trading and investment types. If you bought stablecoins like Tether (USDT), you will want to get some XDC into your portfolio, because the Singapore-based blockchain project is also addressing more familiar financial pursuits in global payments. Rather, it slots right into international trade’s needs of fintech. It is the mediator in the room, the one advocating peace between parties and a consensus on the way forward, all of which is very attractive to legacy concerns, legacy investors, and the simply wary.
 

XinFin is a hybrid blockchain, allowing for peer-to-peer contracts strictly along regulated payment architecture, or in some cases in approved jurisdictions. The XDC Network is an enterprise-friendly and enterprise-ready hybrid blockchain that seeks to improve upon payment methodologies and the ease of worldwide transacting.
 

Staking needs validation by KYC documentation, so the project is more legacy-familiar and bent upon improving existing settlements without upsetting the apple cart. To whatever extent they expect that apple cart to keep rolling into the future, XDC offers investors the chance to soak up the last profits of a dying era before legacy behaviour perhaps changes fundamentally through future protocol interventions.
 

In spite of being both proudly DeFi and proudly pro legacy business, XDC may very well be emblematic of the tokens that will thrive for at least the next few decades, as existing protocols die hard and morph ever more to remain current and applicable.   EG