3 Top Altcoins To Explore: Institution-Ready DeFi Projects that surged 72.8% in the last 7 days | KuCoin Weekly Review Issue #28

2021/07/06 12:34:30

Despite the tough times faced by Bitcoin, it has managed to end the week in the green. It made it up to $36,595 in the middle of the week before dropping again. Otherwise, there was not too much news coming out about BTC this week, which is likely a good sign based on these past few months.

Ethereum, on the other hand, has ended the week very well. This comes after news that Ethereum surpassed the number of active addresses on Bitcoin by around 200,000. This is very reflective of Ethereum’s growth these past few days. It was able to break the $2,000 barrier once more, hitting a high of $2,375 on Sunday.

That’s great news, but even better than that is our topic for this week: growing opportunities for institutional investment in DeFi.

DeFi, or decentralized finance, refers to any sort of financial activities conducted on a blockchain. The main advantages of DeFi revolve around this decentralized design, as no centralized body is involved in the process.

This means that payments are faster, cheaper and offer more control. Speaking of which, the ability to incorporate automated processes through smart contracts makes the DeFi space much more flexible.

The versatility of DeFi and its explosion in popularity amongst the crypto community have drawn the attention of institutional investors looking to get involved in the decentralized world. That is why the KuCoin Blog will be exploring 3 altcoins relating to these DeFi opportunities for institutional investors that are well worth your attention.

Here are COMP, AAVE and UNI.

Notice: KuCoin does not provide financial advice. Please do your own risk assessment when deciding how to invest in cryptocurrency and blockchain technology.

Compound (COMP)

Compound is an algorithmic, autonomous interest rate protocol that has been built for developers. Its purpose is to unlock a universe of open financial applications. The COMP token is used to empower community governance of the Compound protocol and allow them to debate, propose, and vote on all changes to the protocol.

DeFi project Compound Finance is now all set to attract institutional investors to the growing decentralized finance sector. Compound’s Treasury is a new product designed to help institutions enter the DeFi space.

This institutional-focused product offers a fixed 4% APR on US dollars, with daily liquidity but with none of the complexity of crypto. This is particularly great for new institutions entering the crypto arena, as it lowers the knowledge threshold for entry. This is always a promising sign, leading to many looking to get their hands on COMP.

Trade COMP and 300+ other altcoins on KuCoin.

Aave (AAVE)

Aave is a decentralized finance protocol that allows people to lend and borrow crypto. Lenders earn interest by depositing digital assets into specially created liquidity pools. Borrowers can then use their crypto as collateral to take out a flash loan using this liquidity.

Aave Pro, like other institutional-flavored DeFi versions of existing products, is on the rise. It allows privileged permissioned access to clients who wouldn’t be able to access the DeFi world otherwise due to regulatory and compliance issues. It’s likely to launch this month, leading to heightened interest in the project by all.

Trade AAVE and 300+ other altcoins on KuCoin.

Uniswap (UNI)

Uniswap is a decentralized exchange protocol that is built on Ethereum to swap ERC20 tokens. It functions as an automated liquidity protocol, which implies that it does not follow the traditional “order book” model. It allows users to swap tokens and trade without any intermediaries, thus ensuring a high degree of decentralization.

Uniswap ‘Governance Proposal 005’ began to grab the attention of the community since its announcement. The proposal is to allocate one million UNI to create and fund the “DeFi Education Fund”, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit entity based in the United States to provide grants for political, educational, and legal engagement.

The main areas that the DeFi Education Fund will fund include policy-maker education, thought leadership and research, legal firepower, and better messaging. This new approach set out by HarvardLawBFI represents a more holistic outlook for the DeFi space and its relations with governments and regulations.

While it is still being discussed, it shows some promise from the community that it is trying to make a difference, possibly making it seem more attractive in the eyes of institutions.

Trade UNI and 300+ other altcoins on KuCoin.

Three DeFi Gems to Look Forward to This Week

Of course, that is not all. As the DeFi world is booming, there are more projects to look forward to this week. KuCoin recommends you check out BOND, AVAX and LUNA. These are examples of promising teams who are making a splash in the decentralized finance world.