DeFi is now a multi-billion industry. New pro-client DeFi solutions are now active, disrupting the old financial order by leveraging smart contracting and decentralized networks. As of early May, there were over 210 unique DeFi dApps on Ethereum.
At the same time, there had been significant growth in the number of DeFi protocols launching in competing smart contracting platforms like Binance Smart Chain (BSC) and those pegged to Bitcoin.
In total, DeFi dApps on Ethereum alone have a Total Value Locked (TVL) of over $75 billion. Due to scalability and fee challenges in Ethereum, more projects are launching on alternative platforms like BSC.
The BSC is a public chain by Binance -the world's largest exchange by client count - and boosts of negligibly low transaction fees, favoring yield farming.
The Top-5 DeFi Yield Farming Protocols
Although considered the Wild West of crypto because smart contracts are still a new technology that's still gaining traction and not globally adopted, yield farming remains attractive.
To simplify, yield farming in DeFi is the process of earning more tokens from your tokens. "Farmers" do this by searching for the highest yields possible and can at times involve employing complicated strategies of moving tokens across protocols for return maximization.
As the DeFi competition heats up, these are the top-5 yield farming protocols to watch out for in 2021:
1. Pera Finance
Based on the BSC, Pera Finance is a DEX-based yield farming and options trading protocol with a custom sorting algorithm technology built around decentralized trading competition.
By introducing daily competition - where active participants stand to win upwards of $4.5k - the Pera Finance protocol aims to link traders and liquidity providers to completely and sustainably unlock yield farming for traders.
From a security point of view, Pera Finance smart contracts -with inbuilt volume oracle used to measure trading activity and to reward the top-10 traders - have been audited by Halborn, a reputable blockchain security firm.
PERA incorporates deflationary and inflationary features. The token has been tested in multiple finance models for sustainability.
2. Goose Finance
Goose Finance is a BSC-based DEX that incorporates both AMM and yield farming mechanics. It forked from PancakeSwap, but most of its features are from SushiSwap—another swapping and yield farming protocol on Ethereum. EGG is the protocol's primary token.
Goose Finance introduced changes to the ordinary AMM structure, further enhancing it using two unique deflationary mechanisms to attract users and build liquidity. Through what they call a "second generation yield farming structure," Goose Finance aims to create sustainable yield farming.
3. Reflect Finance
Based on Ethereum, Reflect Finance "reimagines the concept of DeFi yield generation." Its native token is the deflationary RFI token. In making yield farming traders-focused, Reflect Finance's smart contracts can automatically block pools or exchange wallets from farming and earning fees.
All fees generated are distributed to RFI token holders. At the same time, RFI owners can stake their tokens and earn more yields without forfeiting those generated by the protocol.
4. JetFuel Finance
The BSC-based, deflationary yield farming and aggregator protocol combine the best features of leading DeFi dApps on Ethereum like Compound, Harvest and Yearn Finance. The dApp presents them on the interoperable and scalable BSC for an all-in-one DeFi ecosystem.
Its native token is FUEL, a digital asset that is deflationary, burning 1 percent per transaction.
It is a BSC-based AMM-powered DEX with inflationary yield farming that incentivizes the formation of deep liquidity pools. Because of deep liquidity, the protocol easily facilitates trustless swapping, generation of synthetics, derivatives trading and more.
Its base token, SPARTA, provides an oracle-free pricing mechanism.