2020 Q2 DEFI INDUSTRY RESEARCH REPORT PART 4: COINDESK

 
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2020 Q2 DEFI INDUSTRY RESEARCH REPORT PART 4: COINDESK
2020 Q2
DeFi
Industry Research
Report Part 4:
Asset Management,
Infrastructure and Others

July 2020

ANALYSTS
Johnson Xu, Norah Song, Harper Li, Fanger Chou
johnson@tokeninsight.com
                 T I R es ea rch

TokenInsight.com
bd@tokeninsight.com                          Find, Create, and Spread Value in Blockchain.
2020 Q2 DEFI INDUSTRY RESEARCH REPORT PART 4: COINDESK
RESEARCH

                    COVID-19 and DeFi Overview
Overview

                    The first half of 2020 has been shattered by the global COVID-19
                    pandemic which turns into a significant economic shock that creates a
                    ripple effect on a global level. Decentralized finance is an exciting aspect
                    of the cryptocurrency industry where it continues its innovation and growth
                    at a significant pace despite the global economic downturn.

                    The decentralized finance ecosystem saw an accelerated growth in the
                    second half of 2019 where we have covered the growth in our 2019 DeFi
                    annual industry report, with leading projects such as MakerDao, Uniswap
                    and Compound Finance taking out solid positions in the DeFi ecosystem.

                    The most depressing moment in the first half of 2020 was the date that
                    global financial market turmoil also spread to the cryptocurrency industry,
                    the Black Thursday on March 12, 2020, at that time the industry saw a
                    market-wide panic and dried up market liquidity which resulting market-
                    wide liquidation and opened the door for system-wide structural risks to
                    be surfaced in the cryptocurrency market, particularly in the DeFi
                    ecosystem.

                    When many people in the industry wishfully think the industry would shine
                    in a big-time during a global economic crisis just like the one we are
                    experiencing right now. The Black Thursday market crash, unfortunately,
                    proved to many people that the cryptocurrency financial market is
                    interconnected with the traditional realm, creating a cascading effect, and
                    impacting every single aspect of the cryptocurrency market.

                    We are still growing fast in this early ecosystem, and a robust, structured
                    decentralized financial system is needed to deliver the next-generation
                    financial system to the world. The Black Thursday event was an early stress
                    test to the DeFi financial system, and the industry held it together and
                    successfully passed the early stress test.

                    Global zero-bound interest rate is potentially re-directing the money flow
                    from the traditional market to the DeFi ecosystem where the interest rate is
                    significantly higher than the one in the traditional system, although attracts
                    higher risks compared to the traditional regime.

                    The purpose of the Q2 2020 DeFi industry report is to shed some lights on
                    this lightning fast moving DeFi ecosystem, and as an organisation to Find,
                    Create and Spread value in the blockchain space. The Q2 2020 DeFi
                    industry report has been broken into multiple parts including trading
                    (DEXs, Derivatives and Prediction Market), Issuance (Stablecoins, Lending,
                    Non-Fungible Token), Asset Management, DeFi Infrastructure and Others,
                    Investment and Ratings where we work with Fundamental Labs to deliver
                    this part.
 tokeninsight.com                                                                                 2
RESEARCH

 ASSET                         DeFi Asset Management Overview
 MANAGEMENT
                                   The strong growth of the DeFi sector has spurred the
                                   development of DeFi asset management projects, with
                                   a handful of projects targeting at making life easier for
                                   users to interact with the DeFi world.

                               Due to the fragmentation of the DeFi space, there are limited one stop
                               asset management solutions to let users interact with multiple DeFi
                               platforms. Wallets and asset management tools have the ability to connect
                               and integrate different lending and trading platforms. With the
                               development of the DeFi industry, the necessity of such projects has
                               become clearer. At the same time, the influx of capital into the DeFi space
                               has spawned market demand for DeFi funds management and asset
                               management portal solutions.

                               ‣ DeFi Asset Management Landscape
                                Source: TokenInsight

                                                                           TokenInsight Research categorizes
                                       Wallets & Asset                     the DeFi asset management
                                      Management Tools                     sector into mainly 2 sub-sectors,
                                                                           1: Asset Management Protocols 2:
                                                                           Wallets and Asset Management
                                                                           Tools. We define DeFi wallets as
                                                                           the smart contract, non-custodial
                                                                           wallets. Asset management tools
                                                                           provide a way for users to interact
                                                                           with the fragmented DeFi world in
                                      Asset Management                     a more convenient way.
The early solid growth of
                                           Protocol
Dapper, Monolith and
                                                                           TokenInsight Research selectively
Argent led to an
                                                                           analysed some major DeFi wallets
extremely high user
                                                                           in the market, including Argent,
growth rate in Q2 2019.
                                                                           Mykey, Dharma, etc.
                               ‣ The Growth of DeFi Wallets                             DeFi Wallets Growth Rate
                                                                                      23.45%
                                Source: Statista, TokenInsight               24%
                                                                             19%
                    408.64%                                                  14%               11.77%
        120%                                                                                                    8.87%
                                105.39%                                      10%                        7.25%

         96%                                                                  5%
                                                                              0%
                                                                  70.21%               Feb     March    April   May
         72%

         48%                                    37.87%
                                                                              29.83%
         24%     15.64%
                              5.56%          5.48%           5.62%         7.57%
          0%
                   2019 Q2    2019 Q3         2019 Q4            2020 Q1    2020 Q2
 tokeninsight.com                                                                                                       3
RESEARCH

         1. The selection of the top tier              Based on the figure above, DeFi wallets have outgrown other types of
         projects is based on the                      wallets in percentage term in 2019 and H1 2020 due to the strong positive
         number of users, contract
                                                       growth of the broader DeFi sector.
         account balance, and the
         influence of the project in the
         DeFi ecosystem                                Compared with the overall cryptocurrency wallet sector, the development
                                                       of DeFi wallets is still in its early stage. While it has a higher growth rate
           DeFi TVL ($ Million, Left Axis)
                                                       than other wallets in the industry, it is also more susceptible to market
           Argent Growth Rate (Right Axis)
           Mykey Growth Rate (Right)                   fluctuations. The user growth of wallets across the industry in the below
                                                       figure has been relatively stable since the third quarter of 2019, the sharp
$1,300                                        4.0%
                                                       drop during the Black Thursday negatively impacted the growth of DeFi
$1,133                                        2.7%
                                                       wallet users in March and April, resulting in a significant decrease in the
                                                       growth rate of DeFi wallet users in the second quarter of 2020.
 $967                                         1.3%

                                                       At the same time, because the DeFi wallets are specifically focused in the
 $800                                         0.0%
         1/26 1/29 2/1 2/4 2/7 2/10 2/13
                                                       interaction of DeFi ecosystem, allowing users to conveniently interact with
                                                       DeFi applications such as lending platforms through the integrated service,
                                                       its growth is closely related to the overall development of the DeFi
            DeFi TVL ($ Million, Left Axis)
            Argent Growth Rate (Right Axis)
                                                       industry.
            Mykey Growth Rate (Right)

$1,600                                          1.6%   It can be seen from the figure below, the number of users of the top tier
                                                1.2%   DeFi wallets Argent and Mykey is relatively consistent with the total
$1,367
                                                0.8%   number of DeFi addresses. At the same time, during the two strong
$1,133
                                                0.4%   increases in DeFi TVL during February and June 2020, both Argent and
 $900                                            0%    Mykey user growth rates increased positively.
           5
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                                                       Among them, the user growth rate for Argent smart wallet surged to 3%
                                                       on February 4, 2020, and then returned to a stable level. Due to the
                                                       incentivised liquidity mining activities, Argent’s user growth rate jumped to
                                                       1.6% on June 19, 2020.

                                                       ‣ No. Of Wallet Users for Argent, Mykey
                                                        Source: TokenInsight

                                   Argent                           Mykey                  DeFi Total Addresses (Right Axis)
    30,000                                                                                                                            240,000

    22,500                                                                                                                            180,000

    15,000                                                                                                                            120,000

         7,500                                                                                                                         60,000

             0                                                                                                                                 0
            2020/1/1               2020/1/31             2020/3/1           2020/3/31     2020/4/30          2020/5/30         2020/6/29

         tokeninsight.com                                                                                                                  4
RESEARCH

1. As a third-party asset        Mykey has officially supported the Ethereum network on January 15 2020,
management tool, InstaDApp       leading to an immediate surge in the number of users, then the growth
does not require users to
directly store assets. The TVL
                                 rate returned to a more sustainable level of 1.5% until February. With the
here is the value of assets      strong growth of the broader DeFi ecosystem, the growth of DeFi TVL also
locked on other platforms by     led to the growth of Mykey users, the growth rate gradually increased to
using InstaDApp
                                 2.9% on February 12. Similarly, the growth rate for Mykey users on June 15
                                 surged from 0.23% the day before to 0.59%. In addition, DeFi wallets are
                                 still relatively niche in the current market, with the number of users capped
                                 at 30k for the top tier DeFi wallet such as Argent.

                                 As of June 29, the balance locked up in the Argent contract account was
                                 more than $5 million, compared to the lock-up value of the major lending
                                 platforms which has reached more than $600 million. As an asset
                                 management tool, InstaDApp has benefited from the hype of the
                                 incentivised liquidity mining, with TVL of $123 million, which is 25.7x than
                                 Argent and 112.2x than Mykey’s.

                                 ‣ DeFi TVL Comparison (Argent & Mykey ETH only)
                                  Source: DeFiPulse, TokenInsight

     Compound                                                                                              668.0M

          Maker                                                                                   619.2M

     InstaDApp                   123.4M

    Set Protocol        15.9M
                                               Argent

         Argent     4.8M                       MyKey

                                                        0M   1M   2M   3M   4M   5M
         MyKey      1.1M

                   0M            140M              280M                420M            560M                 700M

                                     Liquidity mining brings temporary user traffic to DeFi
                                     wallets which helped InstaDApp establishes its market
                                     position.

                                 The liquidity mining launched by Compound in June gained strong market
                                 traction in the DeFi space, resulting in a positive increase in the number of
                                 users in the DeFi wallet and No. of transactions. It can be seen from the
                                 figure below that the number of transactions from Argent and Mykey
                                 surged on June 15, increased from 479 and 109 to 596 and 388
                                 respectively. The number of transactions for Argent wallet broke through
                                 1,000 in the following days. However, subject to factors such as market
                                 conditions, the hype on incentivised liquidity mining did not bring a
                                 meaningful change to the overall development of DeFi wallets.

tokeninsight.com                                                                                                5
RESEARCH

                                                                 ‣ DeFi TVL Comparison (ETH only)
                                                                   Source: DeFiPulse, TokenInsight

                                          Argent                                                 Mykey
1,200

 800

 400

   0
        20

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                                                                 The market positioning for asset management tools such as InstaDApp
                                                                 tends to focus on professional users, represented by the launch of a
                                                                 leveraged liquidity mining function which can be maxed out at 4x for
                                                                 leveraged liquidity mining, attracted significant interest from the
                                                                 experienced market participants to leverage this tool to amplify the gains.

                                                                 The number of InstaDApp contract addresses has continued to increase
                                                                 after June 15. However, Zapper and Zerion are not smart contract based
                                                                 asset management tools, thus these data can not be a direct comparison
                                                                 with InstaDApp.

                                                                 ‣ No. Of Contract Deployed for InstaDapp
                                                                   Source: TokenInsight

                                                                                InstaDApp Contract Deployed

  5,000

  3,333

  1,667

         0
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                                                                         Asset management protocols projects gained initial
                                                                         traction in 2019 and began to shine in H1 2020.

                                                                 Currently, there are a few such projects on the market such as Set Protocol,
                                                                 Melon, and Betoken. Among them, Set Protocol and Melon are accounted
                                                                 for the majority of the asset management protocols market.
 tokeninsight.com                                                                                                                                                                              6
RESEARCH

                                    As can be seen from the figure below, although Set Protocol started later
                                    than Melon, its AUM has outgrown Melon’s. At the same time, benefiting
                                    from the broader development of the DeFi industry, both platforms grew
                                    significantly in H1 2020, with AUM growth of 726.3% and 455.6%
                                    respectively.

                                    The asset management protocols open the doors to many possibilities in
                                    the DeFi industry, its growth can be considered correlated with the overall
                                    DeFi industry. However, with the strong growth of the broader DeFi market
                                    and the fragmentation of the DeFi platforms, we see a significant demand
                                    for asset management protocols in the future to consolidate and create
                                    user-friendly decentralised funds platform in order to drive the industry
                                    forward.

                                    The current industry structure also demonstrates a strong network effect
                                    with the top tier projects conquering the most users in the space. The
                                    current No. of users on Set Protocol is roughly 10x then Melon Protocol at
                                    the beginning of the year. With Melon Protocol launches its V2 platform,
                                    TokenInsight Research believes the competition between the top projects
                                    alongside with the network effect will create barriers of entry for new
                                    players to enter the market. New players must find innovative solutions
                                    and strong market fit in order to track and outgrow the broader DeFi
                                    market.

                                    ‣ AUM & DeFi TVL % For Set Protocol and Melon
                                       Source: TokenInsight

                                                           Set Protocol (Left Axis)           Melon (Right Axis)
  $18M                                                                                                             $1.2M

  $12M                                                                                                             $0.8M

   $6M                                                                                                             $0.4M

   $0M                                                                                                             $0.0M
                     /1

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                                                 AUM as a % of TVL for Set Protocol & Melon
  2.20%

  1.47%

  0.73%

  0.00%
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tokeninsight.com                                                                                                    7
RESEARCH

INFRA-              ASSET MANAGEMENT SECTION SUMMARY
                    The development of the asset management sector is still in its early stage
STRUCTURE           and is correlated with the growth of the broader DeFi industry. Despite the
                    strong growth such as InstaDApp, Argent, Set Protocol and Melon Protocol
                    in H1 2020, asset management projects overall have not yet reached
                    widespread usage.

                    However, the characteristics of asset management projects determine their
                    necessity in the DeFi industry. In the future, with the development of the
                    DeFi lending and trading market, users' demand for integrated solutions
                    and asset management tools will inevitably become stronger. Based on the
                    analysis, TokenInsight Research predicts differentiated asset management
                    protocols and tools will begin to surface in the market to capture DeFi
                    market alpha in the near future.

                    Overview of the DeFi Infrastructure Sector
                    Due to the scale of the DeFi infrastructure sector, TokenInsight research
                    decided to limit its focus to price oracles and privacy projects.

                    TokenInsight Research believes that Infrastructure is the cornerstone of the
                    DeFi industry. Events such as the Synthetix oracle attack in H2 2019 and
                    the flash loans attack in H1 2020 all have demonstrated that the stable
                    development of the DeFi industry is inseparable from the development of
                    safe, reliable price oracles that can be used on a large scale.

                    Decentralized oracle projects started relatively early. At present, top tier
                    projects such as Chainlink and Band Protocol have been used by a number
                    of DeFi projects in the ecosystem. DeFi Privacy projects were born in
                    response to the development of the industry, generally starting in 2019,
                    and existing major projects in the market Projects include Tornado, AZTEC
                    Protocol, Incognito, etc.

                    ‣ DeFi Infrastructure Landscape
                     Source: TokenInsight
                                                            Price oracle sector is dominated by
                                                            Chainlink and Band Protocol, some
                   DeFi Infrastructure                      other projects such as Tellor are
                                                            actively developing and gaining
                                                            market traction. Judging from the
                                                            current industry development,
                                                            Chainlink is still the most
                                                            recognized project in the space,
                                                            and its price oracle has been
                                                            integrated by many projects in the
                                                            DeFi ecosystem including Aave,
                                                            Synthetix, Loopring and Set
                                                            Protocol.
tokeninsight.com                                                                                8
RESEARCH

                                          On the other hand, Band Protocol is committed to providing fast and low-
                                          cost price data, in addition to targeting the DeFi market on Ethereum, it
                                          also began to deploy to other public chain this year.

 ‣ Summary of Price Oracle Projects
   Source: TokenInsight, Data as of July 14, 2020

                            Chainlink                Band Protocol                 Tellor                    Nest Protocol

                            Market Leader, early                                   Security and High Value
 Characteristics                                     Cross-Chain, Decentralized                              Data Reliability
                            mover                                                  Projects

 Released Date              2017/11                  2019/09                       2019/10                   2020/05
 No. Of Supported
                            36                       Any Data                      25                        —
 Assets
 Institutional Partners     24                       11                            —                         —

 No. Of Node                30                       54                            Any 3rd parties           Any 3rd parties

                                          The role of the price oracle is indispensable in the DeFi ecosystem, but the
                                          number of players in the decentralized oracle market is currently small, and
                                          various existing projects are still in the stage of continuous improvement in
                                          terms of technology and governance.

                                          Nest Protocol is one of the oracle projects that emerged in 2020, which is
                                          in its early stage of development. With price oracles form the backbone for
                                          the DeFi ecosystem, centralized entities such as Coinbase and OKEx also
                                          have launched their respective price oracle in H1 2020, demonstrating a
                                          strong market demands to have reliable, decentralized price oracles in
                                          order to grow the industry.

                                          ‣ Chainlink, Band Protocol, Tellor Market Cap and DeFi TVL
                                            Comparison
                                            Source: DeFiPulse, TokenInsight

               DeFi TVL (Left Axis)          Chainlink (Left Axis)        Band Protocol (Right Axis)            Tellor (Right Axis)

$1,800M                                                                                                                                       $40M

$1,350M                                                                                                                                       $30M

 $900M                                                                                                                                        $20M

 $450M                                                                                                                                        $10M

   $0M                                                                                                                                        $0M
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 tokeninsight.com                                                                                                                         9
RESEARCH

                                 Based on the figure above, the market value of the oracle project has
                                 increased positively in H1 2020. Band Protocol grew strongly before June
                                 2020 and once surpassed Chainlink in terms of the market cap. The growth
                                 of Chainlink's market value is more consistent with the growth trend of the
                                 entire DeFi industry, showing that Chainlink is in a more mature stage of
                                 development. Comparing to Chainlink and Band Protocol, the growth of
                                 Tellor remain steady.

                                 TokenInsight Research analyzed the number of transactions on Chainlink,
                                 Band Protocol and Tellor since 2020, and we have discovered that there is
                                 a certain correlation between the fluctuations of on-chain transactions and
                                 their respective market value fluctuations. During the period of high
                                 market volatility, the on-chain transactions are also more active. At the
                                 same time, as can be seen from the figure below, the magnitude of the
                                 positive changes in the number of transactions on Chainlink and Band
                                 Protocol 2020 is much greater than the magnitude of the negative
                                 changes. Tellor’s number of transactions is less volatile, and the activity on
                                 the chain remains steady in H1 2020.

                                 ‣ Chainlink, Band Protocol On-Chain Transactions
                                   Source: DeFiPulse, TokenInsight

        Chainlink On-Chain Transactions Daily % Changes     Band Protocol On-Chain Transactions Daily % Changes
        Tellor On-Chain Transactions Daily % Changes

600%

367%

133%

0%

-100%
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tokeninsight.com                                                                                             10
RESEARCH

                                                          Privacy projects mainly are building based on the zero-
‣         Privacy Projects                                knowledge proofs technology, significant milestones
          Technology Stack
     Source: TokenInsight
                                                          have been achieved in H1 2020.
    Project                    Tech
                                                      Ethereum transactions are considered to be pseudonymous in a way that
    Tornado                    zkSnarks               the user address and transaction amount are completely disclosed but can
                               Zero                   not directly link to an individual or organisation.
    AZTEC
                               Knowledge
    Protocol                                          In response to the demand for completely private transactions, privacy
                               Proofs
                                                      projects have emerged in the market. Privacy projects have a significant
                               Zero-                  room for growth in the DeFi sector, and the recent USDC account freezing
    Incognito                  Knowledge              by the authority has triggered some deeper thoughts on how can the
                               Range Proofs           industry to work on privacy technology in the market.
    Plutus                     zkSnarks
                                                      At present, privacy projects on the market generally use zero-knowledge
                                                      proofs and specific classifications under zero-knowledge proofs to solve
‣     Degree of Privacy                               privacy problems. Since there are few privacy projects on the market and
      Transactions                                    the lack of data information, comprehensive market analysis is nearly
    Source: TokenInsight                              impossible. However, the development trend of such projects can still be
Project           Address Transfer                    seen from the performance of representative projects. In addition, it
                                                      should be noted that the mechanisms adopted by each project are
Tornado
                                                      different: Tornado adopts a fund pooling model, requiring users to deposit
AZTEC                                                 assets like a fund pool; while Incognito directly processes transactions
Protocol                                              through a shielded mode.
Incognito
                                                      ‣ Tornado Pool Size and Incognito Transaction Volume
                                                       Source: Incognito, TokenInsight
                                           Tornado Pool Size                       Incognito Total Transaction Volume

                $8M

                $6M

                $4M

                $2M

                $0M
                                 2020/2/29                2020/3/31            2020/4/30             2020/5/31          2020/6/30

                 Tornado Pool Size
                                                      As can be seen from the figure below, in H1 2020, Tornado and Incognito
    $3M                                               have achieved positive development. The balance of Tornado's fund pool
    $2M
    $2M
                                                      increased from $350,000 at the beginning of the year to more than $4
    $1M                                               million, with a growth rate of 1077%. Since the launch of Incognito’s
    $0M
                                                      mainnet launched in November 2019, as of the end of June, Incognito's
      20

                  20

                                 20

                                           20
          20

                      20

                                  20

                                             20
           /1

                       /1

                                      /2

                                                /2

                                                      transaction amount has reached $7.53 million, and its growth was the
            /1

                       /2

                                      /1

                                                /2
                           1

                                       0

                                                  9

                                                      strongest from March to June, with a growth rate of 528%.
     tokeninsight.com                                                                                                               11
RESEARCH

                   But at the same time, the use of privacy tools also has certain security risks.
                   For example, if the privacy function is used by a hacker to initiate an
                   attack, it will be difficult to track the hackers.

                   SECTION SUMMARY
                   There is ample market space in the DeFi infrastructure sector, infrastructure
                   players need to have a deep understanding of the technology supported
                   by the strong growth of the DeFi ecosystem in order to gain large-scale
                   adoption. The safety and reliability of the price oracles will play vital roles
                   to support further growth of the DeFi industry. At the same time, privacy
                   projects aim to address some of the DeFi pain points, and the emergence
                   of privacy issues in the industry boosts the development of such projects,
                   and there is plenty of room for subsequent growth in the industry.

tokeninsight.com                                                                               12
RESEARCH

CONCLUSION             The DeFi space is gradually realising its unique value
                       proposition.

                   It is without a doubt that DeFi is still in the early stage where users still
                   experience sufficient frictions in interacting with the DeFi applications.
                   However, the DeFi world is working together to grow and produce
                   innovative solutions to reduce these user frictions and connecting the dots
                   to form an integrated decentralized financial ecosystem with ample
                   liquidity.

                   As we are building, learning and experimenting with the “money legos”,
                   being an open, permissionless and interconnect financial ecosystem gives
                   back significant power to the users, in the meantime, there are also
                   significant risks associated with the DeFi space. The oracle attacks, front-
                   running, re-entry attacks, liquidity risk, and many more whether due to
                   smart contract logical errors or poorly designed system mechanisms. Users
                   who wish to experience the DeFi world should at least aware and
                   understand these potential risk factors before jumping straight to the DeFi
                   bandwagon.

                   DeFi presents a significant innovation in the space, and the industry is still
                   growing and learning from our traditional counterparts. TokenInsight
                   Research believes the future of the DeFi space, its unique value
                   proposition, strong growth potential and innovative concepts can drive the
                   broader cryptocurrency market to another level. At some point, proof of
                   stake, centralized finance and decentralized finance will come together to
                   form an enormous cryptocurrency financial ecosystem to achieve the
                   potential of “money legos”. Sophisticated derivatives products and
                   instruments will be developed in the near future to add another layer of
                   complexity in the already complex yet young financial ecosystem, driving
                   innovation and experimenting various financial applications to achieve
                   unimaginable future.

                   With the composability of decentralized finance, the untapped potential of
                   building with the “money legos” is enormous. We expect DeFi will grow in
                   an exponential trend in the future with unprecedented liquidity to be
                   presented in the space, combined with a concrete decentralized financial
                   ecosystem to achieve mass adoption and bring decentralized finance to
                   the world stage.

                   Don’t trust, verify.

tokeninsight.com                                                                              13
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