PitchBook Analyst Note: DeFi Primer

How decentralization will disrupt—and democratize—the future of finance

"Disrupt finance" has been the watchword of many fintech startups in the past decade. Yet even the most innovative of the bunch still rely heavily on traditional financial infrastructure, limiting their ability to be truly disruptive.

Decentralized finance (DeFi), on the other hand, poses a far more systemic threat. DeFi runs on public, open-source, and permissionless blockchains, eliminating the intermediaries on which legacy financial services rely. Our latest analyst note provides a rundown of the DeFi space, its principles, and its possibilities.

Key features

• A market map of the DeFi ecosystem, covering segments such as lending, DEXs, and derivatives
   
• A breakdown of DeFi blockchain platforms, products, and projects
   
• Data on the record-breaking venture investment in DeFi—and why we believe it has reached an inflection point