When you transfer funds to a centralized crypto exchange, you lose some control over your finances. Decentralized finance (DeFi) democratizes the ownership of digital assets and frees users’ hands when it comes to trading, lending, and borrowing. Users can now rely on objective and transparent smart contracts. With their emergence, aggregators, derivatives, and lending protocols have flooded the blockchain space. The introduction of autonomous services has led to the rise of peer-to-peer trading, yield farming and liquidity providers. Meanwhile, low fees and interesting investment offers attracted users to DeFi cryptos.
With DeFi services, lenders and stakers can earn high interest rates and traders can get quick loans without having to close their positions. However, this also had a downside, as projects with poor technical solutions flooded the market. To avoid distractions from risky and unpromising decentralized platforms, it is worth focusing on platforms that will bring benefits to users in 2024.
King of DeFi Cryptos: Uniswap (UNI-USD)
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Uniswap (UNI USD) is rightly a pioneer and current market leader in the field of decentralized exchanges. The introduction of an automated market maker system (AMM) and working with liquidity pools have accelerated trading and enabled the development of hundreds of tokens. The platform allows trading pairs to be listed for free without the permission of a central authority, allowing anyone to create their pair and fill it with liquidity.
The first version of Uniswap caused an explosion in the market, although it had limitations. For example, it was not possible to create liquidity pools. The developers solved this problem with the V3 version by introducing concentrated liquidity and multiple fee tiers. Historically, the project has meant a lot to DeFi cryptocurrencies, but it was included in this list due to its upcoming innovations and commitment to continuous improvement.
Uniswap V4 is scheduled to be released in the second half of this year and will impress users with additions in the form of hooks and custom pools. All DeFi pools will be included in a single contract, making creating a new pool 100x cheaper. Users can add smart contracts to pools and customize them more precisely thanks to the introduction of hooks. In the third quarter of 2024, the project plans to increase efficiency by introducing the flash accounting function. This allows multiple actions to be combined into one transaction, reducing fees.
Internet Computer (ICP-USD)
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Internet computer (ICP USD) aims to redefine the Internet by making it a place for decentralized applications and data. This goes far beyond the standard impact of DeFi cryptocurrencies, which focus on the independence of digital assets from centralized authorities. To realize its ambitious plans, the project has created an infrastructure of independent data centers spread across several continents. However, the distances do not slow down the speed of the system because it uses chain key technology. Thanks to this unique approach, the software is updated on time and transactions occur instantly.
The project launched its token to the wider market in 2021 and its relevance continues to grow. The main reason for this is a well-thought-out architecture that makes it possible to solve still unresolved problems. A balanced consensus mechanism and optimized workflows have led to the rise of the project as an energy-efficient and scalable solution with endless possibilities for Internet integration.
Digital assets have taken advantage of the boom in artificial intelligence to increase their value. Typically, this was limited to announcing future implementations, adding “AI” to the name, or using neural networks to create NFT images. The case of ICP is fundamentally different as the project has integrated advanced AI models (DALL-E and GPT-4) to meet the needs of developers. The crypto community is just beginning to experience the impact of these innovations in the form of interactive applications on the ICP blockchain.
Websea (WBS-USD)
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Young people are the target group of innovative services such as blockchain and cryptocurrencies. That’s why many of today’s projects place particular emphasis on meeting their needs. Websea (WBS USD), a Web3 platform for digital assets, is one of them. Powered by Polygon (MATIC USD), the project overcomes the limitations of ether (ETH-USD). It is characterized by fast transactions that do not require large funds to pay commissions. Going beyond trading, Websea is gradually expanding its presence in the blockchain space through gaming, communication services and other high-frequency activities.
In total 300,000,000 WBS help the system maintain its constant flow. Active participants can interact with the token in a variety of ways, from standard staking to paying for subscriptions to accessing premium content. With this ERC-20 analog in their wallet, users get higher trading limits, access to social media features, and a say in platform development.
In 2024, DeFi cryptos will not surprise anyone with single-token application features or a developed referral program. However, the complexity of the approach sets it apart, as Websea makes communication with users playful. It turns an ordinary trading platform into a playground where crypto enthusiasts can have more fun performing standard Web3 actions.
NFTs, Web3 services and metanetwork features expand the functionality of Websea, which serves as a gateway to the decentralized finance space. Despite its still low daily trading volume (approx 12 million dollars), the coin is competitive because it offers access to dozens of decentralized financial services in one place.
At the time of publication, Julia Magas did not hold, directly or indirectly, any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, subject to those of InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines.
