What is DeFi (decentralized finance)?

DeFi is financial services — trading, lending, borrowing — provided by smart contracts on a blockchain instead of by banks or brokers, so users interact with markets without a centralized intermediary.

DeFi rebuilds financial products as transparent, self-executing smart contracts. Instead of trusting a broker to keep giving you market access (and hoping they do not freeze you out, as centralized platforms sometimes have), you interact directly with code you can inspect, which cannot arbitrarily lock you out. A concrete example is a decentralized exchange where users swap tokens directly through a contract, with no company able to flip a switch and cut off access. The appeal is a more open, transparent, and continuously available financial system — with a large amount of value already locked in these protocols — though it carries its own risks. The core promise mirrors the whole space: replace "trust the institution" with "read the code."

Go deeper:

• Decentralized finance — Wikipedia — financial services rebuilt as permissionless smart contracts, and their risks.