De-Fi apps are NOT 100% decentralized

[Abiky]

Many (if not all) smart contracts offering banking services to the unbanked (De-Fi) are usually hosted on centralized web servers. While it's possible to interact with smart contracts by running their code on the ETH blockchain network, this involves a steep learning curve to the end user. The average person would interact with De-Fi apps on centralized infrastructure, as convenience/ease of use is put on top of everything else. For "De-Fi" apps to be 100% decentralized they'd need to be hosted on a P2P network like IPFS or even ZeroNet. But I guess that people don't care about "De-Fi" apps' decentralization as long as they're able to make profits in the shortest amount of time possible.

Do you think that "De-Fi" is not as decentralized as its proponents claim it to be? Does it need improvement? Your input will be greatly appreciated.

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[jerrison]

Well said brother, as long as people tend to make profit, they care less about what servers the apps are hosted on, whether centralised or decentralized. I understand defi apps not being decentralized is against decentralization itself but then the solution is more considered than the safety for the now. The need will arise some time In the future.

[Yogee]

Sadly, the term "Decentralized" in today's standard has been reduced to connecting your non-custodial wallet to these platforms who claims to be peer to peer. To a lot of non-techies, being able to control the keys is enough for them to say it's De-Fi.

Just by looking at the hacks compiled by zasad@ https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5267124.msg54946420#msg54946420
That should be enough to tell that these platforms have central point of attack.
  
Another example is IDEX, who is also part of the ethereum DeFi ecosystem, asking KYC and store it on their servers.

What suggestion for improvements can we give? I don't really know. Unless their blockchain allows them to do so, we can't do much.

[cryptoaddictchie]

Do you think that "De-Fi" is not as decentralized as its proponents claim it to be? Does it need improvement? Your input will be greatly appreciated.

For me it is decentralized we can see that on some major projects. Centralized approach is being with held with some of those projects.

For example curve finance it is decentralized but its governance is majority cotrolled by centralized authority, so where does it lead the project? Many thinks that decentralized revolves on simple smart contract but honestly I dont feel it.

Another example is IDEX, who is also part of the ethereum DeFi ecosystem, asking KYC and store it on their servers.

Im not sure about it. Ive used IDEX before, the only changes they made is the approach  on their registration aside from importing wallet details to an email. Yeah we can say that they are moving to a centralized gaming but not totally remove its objective.

[Yaunfitda]

Well said brother, as long as people tend to make profit, they care less about what servers the apps are hosted on, whether centralised or decentralized. I understand defi apps not being decentralized is against decentralization itself but then the solution is more considered than the safety for the now. The need will arise some time In the future.

This is so true, as long as people are going to make a good profit, they don't give a damn if the Defi is decentralised as it is claim to be. I would say that this is a big problem, what if the people behind collude with someone or they themselves steal the funds that is supposed to be being locked? That is very dangerous and people could lose tons of money here.

[AmoreJaz]

Well said brother, as long as people tend to make profit, they care less about what servers the apps are hosted on, whether centralised or decentralized. I understand defi apps not being decentralized is against decentralization itself but then the solution is more considered than the safety for the now. The need will arise some time In the future.

This is so true, as long as people are going to make a good profit, they don't give a damn if the Defi is decentralised as it is claim to be. I would say that this is a big problem, what if the people behind collude with someone or they themselves steal the funds that is supposed to be being locked? That is very dangerous and people could lose tons of money here.

thats why those potential buyers of these defi projects should do their own due diligence before jumping aboard. if they will be rekt then thats their fault as no one is obliging them to invest on this hype. they can do all the possible assessments for each project before shelling out their hard-earned money. because once you bought, there's no turning back. you can just hope that the project will take off and do their job to actually realise their objectives...and in time, get your profits.

[Thomas-s]

Of course, not all Defi are truly decentralized and that's okay. most of these projects are just people who want to make money on the hype, but there are also quite a few projects that are very strong and really decentralized

[anu1908]

nobody really cares about the percentage of decentralization in defi as long as it makes money. and it's not ideal to expect the website being distributed because infrastructure are also limited. maybe they can do it with zeronet but the security is still questionable. anyway, most people are more than happy with having the option to gain yields without sending their tokens to central party and just lock them in a smart contracts.

[Convery]

It is true, behind the development is in most cases one team with the CEO, that is very respected and community will aways follow his ideas. The completely decentralized projects are Bitcoin and Grin - no creator, no CEO, no pre-mine, no master-keys, not created for their profit .

[bits4books]

As I wrote yesterday, DeFi is just another bubble like ICO. A lot of super-questionable projects and a lot of empty money spurred by a thirst for easy money. Bubble in a bubble inside a bubble - that's what your DeFi and all its projects are (I'm sorry, but it is).

[minairia3]

As I wrote yesterday, DeFi is just another bubble like ICO. A lot of super-questionable projects and a lot of empty money spurred by a thirst for easy money. Bubble in a bubble inside a bubble - that's what your DeFi and all its projects are (I'm sorry, but it is).

Yes it is really a bubble that investors and traders love to play with. I so many new defi yesterday, checkint on their social media, it seems their post or let say initial post are all about presale and how to raise fund. This is quite alarming cause the purpose of defi has been overwhelmed on uniswap. I think thats a nasty goal to earn bucks. I prefer to earn hard profits with real products. So far sinx and compound shows really a good potential.

[Tipstar]

The decentralization is in the level of handling of coins and tokens. It's not due to the nature of the site or project but due to the nature of the blockchain they are involved with.
Decentralization in the sense every transaction and freezing happens on the blockchain. Whether or not the blockchain is decentralized is another question. Though Defi is a good way ahead, the current hype is actually making it a joke and may hamper its reputation on long run.

[Coin_trader]

The decentralization is in the level of handling of coins and tokens. It's not due to the nature of the site or project but due to the nature of the blockchain they are involved with.
Decentralization in the sense every transaction and freezing happens on the blockchain. Whether or not the blockchain is decentralized is another question. Though Defi is a good way ahead, the current hype is actually making it a joke and may hamper its reputation on long run.

Agree on the explanation of Decentralization of DeFi. There is no such thing as total Decentralized because it was created by human and it will be maintained by human too. In that sense, At some point there’s a centralized part even on bitcoin, without the miners, blockchain can’t run itself.

I just want to make a note on the hype on DeFi. It not bad because it just mean that there is a real demand on DeFi coin. The only problem on DeFi is those fake project with pump and dump coin. This is the real cancer on DeFi ecosystem.

[3meek]

Of course, DeFi is a new bubble, similar to the era of ICO... And some one-day projects, like in the old days, collect a lot of money... Human greed knows no boundaries and mistakes are always repeated in the end!

As for decentralization - in my opinion, the initial idea that the first cryptoanarchists tried to convey has long been spoiled... Most people (almost all of them) are trade on centralized exchanges! So what difference does it make whether DeFi is decentralized or not? It seems to me that they just don't care about it...

[amishmanish]

Everybody wants to get to the conclusion that DeFi is a bubble. I disagree. For something to be a bubble, it needs a lot of people to invest into it and put greater and greater sums of money. For this, it needs to be accessible enough. In case of ICOs, anybody could get in as the entry barrier was only knowing how to send ETH from your wallet. To earn money in De-Fi, you need a slightly higher level of proficiency in finance and coding. Those people will continue to make money using bots for quick trades, flash loans and arbitrage opportunities.
The whole thing will continue to be funded by the big players who are adept at all of this and the smaller ones can hope for smaller profits if they manage to take out the money before it all crashes down. In fact, this is exactly how stock markets work for the small retail investor. The window of information that you have about a company is very limited while the institutional investors can raise or sink a stock with insider knowledge. If you are lucky enough to catch the wave, you will benefit too.

The one difference is that company stocks can be evaluated on the basis of their performance. De-Fi tokens on the other hand can only be evaluated on the basis of the hype. The hype is manufactured by the big players. If a small investor can play along then they have the opportunity to earn money otherwise the biggies will continue to circulate the money amongst themselves keeping the charade going long enough and not letting it have bubble characteristics.

[20kevin20]

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I probably usually express myself the wrong way when talking about DeFi as a bubble. Whenever I do so, I usually talk about the coins like YFI that popped up and boomed in a matter of weeks like crazy. I can't see this going well, the same way pretty much any other crypto boom didn't end up well either. Most other members probably talk about the coins as well.

The tech will probably stay and evolve. The problem is imo that too many people are now rushing in to buy coins like YFI and this cannot go on forever. It's a constant talk about false ideas, especially decentralization, as if DeFi solves everything. It doesn't - there's a long way to go before we finally get to a properly structured and working decentralized app that has absolutely zero centralized features in it and is 100% trustless and reliable for most use cases.

[Heisenberg_Hunter]

Defi is all about making profits in a short amount of time. During the 2017 bull run, many didn't really care about the potential of the coin and invested their sum blindly on various projects to become rich within a few months. This ended up in investors losing all their money and scammers running away with it. There was no decentralization achieved through ICO coins but many claimed that it was indeed decentralized. I got into crypto only during the crypto craze of 2017 but luckily never invested in a single shitcoin at their ICO stage. The same goes with Defi craze where developers yell out that coin is worthless but it gets pumped to $23,000 per coin within a few months of launch.

Forked coins trend started gaining traction in 2013 bull run, ICO started gaining traction in 2017 bull run and now Defi is gaining traction in 2019 bull run but the end result would be like a coin or 2 would survive during the next dump.If we really need to save bitcoin, we should completely eradicate the newbie pump and dump strategy but rather teach the new joiners of crypto about decentralization, banking, bitcoin and technology. Bitcoin has evolved into a investment trading tool, forked coins evolved as a backup to bitcoin, ICO coins has evolved into a useless scam and Defi will be evolving into another decentralized scam but nothing more.

99% of the ICO coins would have never known why bitcoin was created by satoshi, so ignoring this Defi and trading is a better way to enrich ourselves in bitcoin.

[zasad@]

Know what I see? What a lot of people say about Defi but don't really take advantage of it.
Most people just speculate on the price of tokens and do not care about decentralization processes.
All of you are right when you say that the project interface should also be located in decentralized networks.
Although any programmer can work with a smart contract without a web interface.
I don't see this as a problem right now, if there is an attack or server blocking, the community will make a mirror.

[Shallow]

This is well said. I think the biggest question is, how many projects out there are even decentralized? Just like you said which I also agreed to, people do not care about decentralization because so far they have the opportunity to make money within a shortest time possible they are okay. Funny enough, for a project which calms to be a decentralized finance platform, but however isn't decentralized shows the level of negligence which has grown in the mind of people as they only invest to make profit, no more because of the idea or whatever. Till date, Bitcoin has remained the best and only decentralized cryptocurrency, others or maybe 95% are just a shadow of what they protary to their investors.

[BayAngelo]

you are right and it is clear that Defi projects still utilize centralized platform to promote or develop their project which opposes the blockchain technology it is promoting. i think that the reason behind this is we are yet to have fully and solid decentralized web servers were such project with high traffic can be carried out. i believed that in the future, the defi projects will migrate easily to decentralized platforms offering web services.