About Alkemi Network
Alkemi Network is bridging CeFi to DeFi, building an on-chain liquidity network with a suite of tools and products that serve as onramps for everyone to participate in decentralized finance. The flagship protocol, Alkemi Earn (Earn), facilitates institution-grade borrowing and lending within a compliant environment via Alkemi’s primary ‘permissioned’ liquidity pool of digital assets (ETH, wBTC and stablecoins). Earn will also offer access to Alkemi’s secondary ‘permissionless’ liquidity pool of digital assets at the network’s Token Generation Event.
Alkemi Network was established fully intent on associating DeFi and CeFi, with the agreement that liquidity will make the two business sectors more grounded.
The stage works on the essential thought that associating the two business sectors will make cooperative energies, and lift advancement no matter how you look at it.
Alkemi is dispatching an on-chain liquidity network with a bunch of apparatuses and items that go about as entrances for everyone to approach in DeFi, beginning with a center group of overall disseminated, specific specialists and originators.
The CeFi – DeFi Bridge
With the DeFi market in its infancy, the first step has been to build a bridge between the CeFi and DeFi worlds.
It’s not surprising that one of the crypto market’s most well-known names is involved in bridging the gap…
Binance is amongst the innovators building the CeFi – DeFi Bridge.
Why the need for a bridge?
The goal of DeFi is to reconstruct the banking system in an open, Permissionless, and Trustless space. DeFi advocates see DeFi delivering a more transparent, resilient, and less fragile financial system.
Following all the negative news surrounding Tether, the case for DeFi has become all the more compelling in recent years.
There are some challenges, however. One of the key advantages to DeFi is one of its disadvantages in the early days.
There is no governance in the world of DeFi. Anyone is able to launch a protocol and attempt to raise funds. The lack of oversight means that many projects will boom and bust, leaving investors with material losses. Along with protocols that may not make it, there are also scams to avoid in the space.
While this is the case, there are some impressive protocols that have already garnered plenty of interest.
As the DeFi world maneuvers its way through its early years, some of the crypto market leaders need to carefully woo users across from the CeFi space. This is all the more important with the lack of DeFi awareness today.
Estimates vary on the size of the DeFi community, with the numbers ranging from as low as 400,000 to as many as 5,000,000. Both numbers are small, however, when compared with the CeFi space.
The market caps of stablecoins and non-stablecoins tell the story. At the time of writing, the market cap of stable coins stood at about US$16bn, dwarfed by the non-stable coins market cap of US$310bn.
The Key Steps
In order to fully bridge the CeFi and DeFi spaces, developers will need to bring the offerings of the financial sector to the DeFi space.
Some key steps in bridging the CeFi and DeFi world include:
- Materially reducing risks currently associated with DeFi platforms. Offering insurance, proper testing and auditing, and preventing hacks are a must. Any adverse news and the DeFi space will take even longer to establish itself as a viable alternative to the banking world.
- A marked increase in DeFi education to shift the DeFi space from niche to mainstream.
- Simplifying access to DeFi protocols. At present, there are too many steps to gain access, deterring possible early adopters.
- Build reputable DeFi communities.
The speed of innovation is working in DeFi’s favor early on.
While progressing through the key steps outlined above, DeFi will also need to deliver key financial services products to build the community.
More importantly, however, will be for DeFi to deliver what the existing financial systems are unable to deliver.
The ultimate goal is for users interacting with DeFi to not even know that it is DeFi. Many leading figures within the DeFi space see this as the inflection point.
At the time of writing, the World Bank estimates that the total number of non-banked sits at 1.7bn.
