DeFi — or decentralized finance — is an ecosystem of distributed financial applications built on blockchain technology that utilize cryptocurrencies and other digital assets to remove the need for a single governing authority in financial interactions. This addresses multiple problems that exist in the current traditional financial system that was recently highlighted in the Reddit meme stock craze. First, blockchain technology allows for the near-instant transfer of assets and can potentially reduce the current T+2 settlement time from days to seconds. Second, due to the distributed nature of blockchain ledgers, no entity could singlehandedly block trades or close positions like various brokerages such as Robinhood recently did to mitigate their own risk.It’s not only the exchange settlement networks that are antiquated, current payment systems are similarly slow and expensive. In retail operations, the transaction doesn’t end at the swiping of your card at the register. There’s an entire back end system clearing those transactions, which is why there’s that ‘Pending’ section for recent purchases on your credit card bill. Additionally, sending money across international borders is not only slow, but riddled with fees. The current infrastructure that utilizes the SWIFT payment system (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications) can take an average of 3 to 5 days to settle and various intermediary banks along the way take unpredictable fees.This underpins the unfortunate reality that not everyone has access to strong financial systems. According to the World Bank, about 1.7 billion adults remain unbanked as of 2017. Even for those with a bank account, if the country’s economy is struggling (e.g., hyperinflation in Venezuela or Lebanon), banks or other financial institutions cannot reliably provide the same functions as those in developed countries. And this isn’t just a problem for those in developing countries; even in the United States, the Federal Reserve…