DeFi won’t last long without unlocking Bitcoin’s $250B treasure chest

On Nov 8, 2020

Decentralized finance is a fairly new, nuanced concept for mainstream audiences. At its core, DeFi promises a revamped global financial system equipped with savings, loans and inventive yield-earning opportunities that enable innovative financial products without centralized gatekeepers. Since Jan. 1, this promise has been met with a demand that has exceeded $11 billion in total value locked, representing a more than 1,550% increase in year-to-date value.

DeFi applications require the on-chain logic of smart contracts. Today, a lot of experimentation and early traction for DeFi applications is happening in the ecosystem, using the JavaScript-like language Solidity.

Muneeb Ali, a Ph.D. graduate from Princeton University, is the co-founder of Blockstack, a project on a mission to build a user-owned internet. He is also the CEO of Blockstack PBC, a public benefit corporation that has raised more than $75 million to develop the core protocols for Blockstack.