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Cryptocurrency Education for a Decentralized Revolution

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DeFi Category

This category contains posts about the decentralized finance (DeFi) revolution that is occurring. The advent of distributed computing, smart contracts, and cryptocurrencies allow for new financial models without any central authority. This is unprecedented for the world of money and value transfer. I write these posts to educate so you can participate in the new financial system.

A Complete List of DEX Aggregators

DEX aggregators let you trade over multiple cryptocurrency exchanges and blockchains using a variety of different wallets. These platforms bring in the best prices from DEXs and CEXs for trading in one dashboard.

Aggregators can lower network fees such as gas or protect against greedy node practices. Most of them use a trade routing smart contract or protocol to accomplish this.

Some of them can split a trade into multiple pieces to deliver the best prices or lowest slippage, which is an amazing feature really. I feel DEX aggregators will be a huge deal as more assets become tokenized in the future. Liquidity pools from the entire blockchain ecosystem are starting to link up into liquidity oceans!

Anyways, I wanted to keep track all the DEX aggregators I could find, so I made this post.

If the aggregator has its own token, I list its CoinGecko profile after the name. Each one allows for swaps across multiple chains. When you visit them, the chains are usually in the drop down menus.

You can see the wallets they support by hitting the “connect wallet” button (usually in the top right or bottom middle).

Just because I list them here doesn’t mean I vouch for their safety or effectiveness. Research each one thoroughly before using them. See if they’ve been hacked or had problems in the past. Study their underlying protocols too.

DEX Aggregator List

1Inch Network (1INCH): One of the leading, time-tested aggregators. They have helpful resources to get your started. Interacts with 14 wallets (so far) including hardwares.

Atlas DEX (ATS): Powered by Wormhole, six blockchains, 130 platform integrations. Stake your ATS tokens too.

CoW Swap (CoW): An interesting protocol that protects traders against arbitrage, sandwiching, and front running of orders. They offer gasless orders and allow smart contract wallets.

Jupiter (JUP): An aggregator for the Solana Network.

KyberSwap (KNC): Supports 17 chains, limit orders, has good volume.

LlamaSwap: This is DeFi Llama’s “aggregator of aggregators”! They use the routing of the top other aggregators. This is why I say that liquidity pools are all linking up across the whole blockchain ecosystem.

Matcha: More than 5 million tokens from 130 sources of liquidity, limit orders, zero fees, eight of the top wallets supported.

OKX DEX: Another aggregator that lets you swap across more than 100 DEXes and bridge.

OpenOcean: Sources liquidity from centralized as well as decentralized exchanges, derivates too. Supports 16 chains.

Paraswap: They have some stake, farm, and DAO features too.

Orion Protocol: Aggregates from various CEXs, which is pretty unique. But, they don’t allow for cross-chain swaps.

Rubic (RBC): They boast connections to over 70 blockchains and over 200 DEXes. But, their RBC token has been steadily declining and their site looks low quality to me.

Slingshot: Used to be DEX.ag, mobile app coming.

Swoop Exchange: Very new (as of Jun, ’24) so research thoroughly and give them time to develop.

XY Finance (XY): 23 chains, over 270 DEXes and 120,000 tokens. But, their interface looks cheesy with a huge ad in the middle of the app.

Like I said, I don’t vouch for these. It’s just a list for jumping off and researching yourself. I would stick to the higher quality ones that have been around for some time.

Since they are aggregators, you should only need one or two! Good luck. I hope you found the list helpful. Share it around.

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XRP Ledger DEXs – Listed and Explained

Did you know the XRP Ledger has built in decentralized exchange (DEX) functionality? You do now! It’s been a part of XRPL since 2012. This post and videos cover the projects that utilize it and some upcoming ledger features that will improve them. The first video is mine.

This short video from BankXRP covers the decentralized exchange and a few of its features:

Most assume that smart contracts running automated market makers (AMMs) are required for a DEX, but not on the XRPL

There are newer proposals and projects working to bring smart contracts to the XRP Ledger soon. Liquidity from pools would add greatly to the ecosystem.

Of course, that would be a game changer (if the ledger can handle the increased network usage) There are also efforts to bring automated market makers without smart contracts as well. You can see there are many efforts in many directions to improve everything DEX related on the XRP Ledger.

Here is another highly recommended video from the Tech Circus Youtube Channel. It’s David Schwartz, the Chief Technical Officer of Ripple talking about DeFi and the XRPL DEX.

The XRPL has some unique built-in features related to asset exchange right now:

  • Auto-Bridging: When XRP is used to trade between two assets. This is helpful for liquidity problems.
  • Pathfinding: Allows for hops between assets to find the best liquidity and price between two assets on the XRPL.
  • Federated side-chains: a new feature (not yet released) that will allow coins from other blockchains to live on the XRP Ledger. This will improve on the gateways / bridges that have been used recently. Bridges across various chains have been vulnerable to hacks. They seem to not be a great answer.
  • Order books: The downside of XRPL DEXs right now is that trades are driven by an order book system. Like I said, developers are working to bring automated market makers and liquidity pools which will improve the trading experience.

List of DEXs Using the XRP Ledger

There are a few DEXs already live on the XRP Ledger. They are part of the ever expanding decentralized trading movement. Every major chain has multiple DEXs and the space grows every day. I see these apps (along with tokenized traditional assets) as the future of DeFi.

So finally, here is my list of XRPL DEXs and a blurb about each one. I go over them quickly in the video above. I kept to DEXs that are live and working (as of July 2022). Be sure to check on the liquidity in their networks before you use them. Also, research how to use them and reviews from traders.

XUMM

XUMM is a non-custodial wallet and suite of apps that run on the XRP Ledger. Most of these other decentralized exchanges also integrate with XUMM. XRP Toolkit is one that offers DEX functions.

Gatehub is also a new way to trade and interact with the XRPL through XUMM. Their liquidity might not be as good as Sologenic, though. XUMM integrates with most of the XRPL DEXs and provides great developer tools.

Sologenic (SOLO, CORE)

Sologenic is an ambitious XRPL DEX that is aiming to allow trading of a variety of crypto (not just XRPL coins) against tokenized traditional assets. These are things such as stocks, funds, bonds, commodities, and others that are locked up and represented on the chain.

SOLO will be running on the Binance’s BNB Chain in parallel. They are also building their own layer 1 blockchain called Coreum (CORE) as well. This will operate with the Cosmos Network through Tendermint and allow for smart contracts to be written in WASM.

XRPL Coins

In addition to being a useful XRP Ledger coin explorer, they have their own DEX too. Their user interface is great and it seems to be popular.

On XRP

On XRP has a DEX that is part of their website. They have a lot of stuff going on including education and NFTs.

XRDoge DEX

Yes, XRDoge has a DEX. It’s not just a copy of a meme coin! This DEX is low quality in my view. I would avoid it since the quality of Sologenic XRPL Coins is so high.

To conclude, I like the progress and approach that XRPL developers are taking. Their ledger is already fast, inexpensive, and energy efficient. It just needs better liquidity and might really blast off if Sologenic pulls off Coreum and tokenized assets.

If the Sologenic team can pull off their vision by the end of 2022, there will be huge value added. If the AMMs can be integrated well, the functionality and liquidity of the XRPL DEX will be among the best in DeFi.

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$UST and Terra $LUNA Collapse Coverage [Videos]

I made a quick video of my thoughts after learning that UST and Terra (LUNA) were delisted across platforms. The Terra blockchain was halted, then restarted, and is now halted again (May 12, 9:20 pm PST) as well.

If you lost a ton, go easy on yourselves and allow time to process. I would suggest staying away from alcohol and drugs for a few days, too.

This has been a crazy and rapid death of a top ten crypto and its stablecoin. It will be studied for years. There will be a lot of regulation and lessons stemming from this one. We may also see ripple effects to the wider crypto ecosystem. Time will tell.

Some Contributers to the LUNA / UST Death Spiral

  • Rumors of whales taking large positions, then dumping and shorting
  • There was an $85 million UST to USDC selloff on Curve
  • Huge amounts began pulling out of Anchor Protocol
  • Once UST was depegged, the confidence quickly eroded
  • LUNA went hyper inflationairy as it tried to be converted to support the peg.
  • Crypto markets were downtrending for a while leading up the crash.
  • The Federal Reserve raising interest rates pushed the market lower
  • Shorts and leveraged shorts were relentless on LUNA
  • Stablecoin arbitrage bots had a field day with UST pairing with other stablecoins.

Here’s my update video from May 15, 2022: Nothing from Do Kwon. Elliptic tracked the Bitcoin. The Terra forum is deciding how to move forward. Other stablecoins are struggling with their pegs a bit.

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Liquidity Pools for Decentralized Exchanges – Explained

Note: This is a lesson from my Free DEX Course (here).

Liquidity pools are groups or pairings of assets on a blockchain that we trade against. A user interface (site or app) allows traders to swap between their personal crypto wallet and the liquidity pool directly. This is the basis of decentralized exchanges (DEXs). Watch the vid!

What’s So New about Liquidity Pools?

Pools are controlled by smart contracts (blockchain code) that lock up assets. To compare with the old ways of trading, we no longer need a buyer to buy exactly what we are selling.

In the new ways of decentralized finance (DeFi) and decentralized exchanges (DEXs), crypto coins, tokenized assets, and stablecoins get locked up in smart contracts for trade. These contracts are programs that live on a blockchain and cannot be changed. They are programmed to execute automatically, sitting and waiting for a trade.

How are Liquidity Pools Funded?

Exchanges provide incentives for users to “crowd fund” a liquidity trading pool. Liquidity providers can be awarded parts of the trading fees or gain crypto in other ways. This could be considered a new way of earning interest with crypto.

Liquidity pools work alongside automated market makers (AMMs). AMMs are other chunks of code that determine the price of assets compared to the amount that are available in the pool. They are run by a simple formula to keep supply and price constant.

Wild Speculations about Future Liquidity Pools

The big trends in DeFi and DEXs are cross-chain swaps and tokenizing of traditional assets such as stocks, funds, etc. There are early efforts at bridging different blockchains, though they have been plagued by hacks.

Fiat money continues to be locked up and go on various blockchains in the form of stablecoins. “Wrapped” crypto allows coins to be traded on DEXs that are not their home blockchain too.

All of these efforts are combining in different projects and frameworks. Blockchain ecosystems are beginning to “link up” in other words. In my view, liquidity pools connecting together is the next natural trend.

The near future of decentralized trade will be run on massive pools. We will be trading nearly any crypto for nearly every type of traditional asset that has been tokenized on-chain. The plumbing is starting to come together in DeFi.

It will be 24/7 trading of every kind of asset that can be also be frationalized too. Of course, point of sale will also plug in to all this. That’s all pure speculation, of course!

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“Wrapped” Crypto Explained – Tokens for Cross-Chain Interoperability

Need wrapped crypto explained simply? You found it here. Blockchains are independent, decentralized networks. That means they can’t communicate with one another “out of the box”. That is beginning to change through bridges and other interoperability routes.

When one cryptocurrency is locked up with the price pegged to its original, it can be represented on another chain. It is said to be “wrapped” and is represented with a “w” in front, such as WBTC. The Synthetix network uses “s” in front of theirs

The wrapped token lives on its new chain, mainly for trading purposes. They can also be used for lending and borrowing too. The price of the wrapped crypto is tracked and applied, usually through an oracle.

Wrapped cryptocurrencies and assets are similar to stablecoins, except stables represent country currencies (fiat). Those have to be locked up too. These types of crypto are emerging for interoperability, which is the big buzz word for blockchains working together.

I feel that in the future, wrapped crypto and stablecoins will be needed less. Protocols keep emerging for fast swaps. Cross-chain bridge projects are also exploding in number. I see all this leading to a future where rapid interchange between coins, tokens, tokenized assets, and stablecoins is normal. We will choose whatever we want for payments and the swap happens immediately.

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SpookySwap (BOO) DEX and DeFi Platform – Explained

SpookySwap (BOO token) is the first decentralized exchange (DEX) to run on the Fantom Opera (FTM) blockchain network. The team is focused on cross-chain DeFi for swapping, farming, etc. Here’s my video covering the project:

The token was launched in early 2021 through an initial DEX offering and initial farm offering along with airdrops.

The SpookySwap platform contains many DeFi functions (listed below). It has also snagged big partners such as Yearn Finance, PaintSwap, AnySwap, and Beefy Finance to name a few. Their BOO token is used for governance of their protocol. Holders get a chance to vote on network changes, in other words.

SpookySwap Features

Important Spooky Links

The SpookySwap bridge is impressive, with support for Ethereum, Cronos, Harmony, BNB Chain, OKC, Polygon, Fantom, Arbitrum, and Avalanche blockchains. It continues to be the leading DEX on Fantom.

Time will tell if it can avoid the hacks that have plagued blockchain bridges in the past. There are also many projects working on interoperability such as Quant, Chainlink, ThorChain, etc. This competition may cut into the cross-chain markets. We wil see if the team’s hard work will pay off in the coming bull run.

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