The current Infrastructure is controlled by centralized authorities, who work to make a profit for themselves. Everything from Banking to the internet is controlled by entities who sell your data or track you to your underwears.
Anyways, let's take a look of the decentralized alternatives to the traditional world. This includes everything from finance to domains.
Finance (DeFi)
Cryptonomist Source: Cryptonomist
The current hot topic in the Crypto world is the Defi, decentralized finance. DeFi is an umbrella term for the finance sector, dominated by the Ethereum network, where everyone is accessible to financial products without KYC or approval from a centralized authority. A
of $6.92 Billion is locked in the Defi space, which includes lending, derivatives, exchanges and many more. Let's take a look at the top ones in each category.
Lending
- Aave
The Defi world is currently dominated by Aave finance, a non-custodial protocol on Ethereum for decentralized lending and borrowing. Aave is the first of a kind protocol launched for lending in 2017 as ETHLend. Currently, a total of 200K ETH is locked in the Aave protocol for lending and borrowing.
They provide some innovative features like flash loans, where millions in uncollateralized loans could be taken.
To start using the Aave protocol, head over to the native web interface, app.aave.com.
2.Decentralized Exchanges (DEX)
Decentralized Exchanges are exchanges which operate in a trustless, Decentralized and non-custodial way. Those words simply mean that the users don't have to trust a third party for the trade, the exchange operates in a decentralized way and the users could hold on their crypto in their wallet during the trade. This will reduce the potential risks associated with centralized exchanges, like hacks, denial of funds or takedown by the governmental authorities etc. The users also won't have to undergo KYC to trade their funds
Curve.finance, Uniswap and Balancer Exchange are some of the Crypto DEXs which you should consider over Binance or Coinbase.
Curve.fi is the DEX powered by Ethereum which accounts for more than 1.1 Billion USD in trading volume. Curve.fi has a very unique user interface to swap ERC20 tokens easily. Curve uses token from the liquidity pools to complete the transaction. Users could provide liquidity to these pools to earn trading fees and different governance tokens like CRV and YFI.
Now, let's explore some other examples of decentralized alternatives.
Market place. (eBay)
Origin protocol offers an awesome alternative for peer to peer market place like eBay. Origins market place is powered of course by the Ethereum blockchain and the IPFS network, users will be able to accept payments in any ERC20 token and earn rewards for using their marketplace. Another product from the Origin protocol is dStore. dStore is an alternative to Shopify, which enables merchants to launch a censorship-resistant e-commerce website at little to no cost. Take a look at some of the dStore below.
store.brave.com store.solana.com kyber.ogn.app ighr.xyz
Content sharing (youtube)
The current content sharing world is dominated by youtube and Netflix, which are controlled by centralized cooperations. They will be changing rules and policies, demonetizing content or taking contents down without notice. They offer no transparency to source code, data processing or storage. There are a couple of alternatives to these platforms. LBRY.tv, Dtube or Dlive are some examples.
lbry.tv
LBRY is a decentralized, open-source protocol that is controlled by it's users. LBRY facilitates a similar experience to the aforementioned services but does it in a way that is entirely decentralized and censorship-resistant. LBRY can never deplatform, demonetize or arbitrarily change the rules on publishers or consumers, making it dramatically more trustworthy. Join LBRY today using this link.
VPN
Mysterium Foundation
VPNs are the best methods to protect your privacy during online activities. The users have to depend on a service provider to cover their asses. Many of the VPN service providers are claiming to offer free services by logging your data and selling it to ad companies. Whereas paid services are subscription-based and are compelled to give your data to regulatory agencies. The Blockchain-based P2P dVPNs are solving these issues which are experiencing a centralized VPN.
Orchid protocol and mysterium network offer dVPNs in a much affordable, zero-knowledged, trustless way. They offer iOS and Android apps with unlimited bandwidth. Users typically pay with crypto (OXT or MYST) for the data they use.
Mysterium
Mysterium Network is a P2P VPN. You pay to use a node’s IP and appear as though you are accessing services from a different geo-location from yours. Mysterium Network is made up of residential IPs. Mysterium nodes are run in homes, offices and cell phones across the globe. (Mysterium.Network) Check out the app from the Mysterium at mysterium.network/apps/
If you don't want to deal with the buying MYST tokens but need a subscription-based dVPN, then checkout portals.network. Portals is built on top of Mysterium framework to provide their service.
Orchid
The Orchid network enables a decentralized virtual private network (VPN), allowing users to buy bandwidth from a global pool of service providers. To do this, Orchid uses an ERC-20 token, OXT, a new VPN protocol for token-incentivized bandwidth proxying, and smart-contracts with algorithmic advertising and payment functions. Users connect to bandwidth sellers using a provider directory, and they pay using probabilistic nano payments so Ethereum transaction fees on packets are acceptably low.
Cloud storage (dropbox, G drive)
Storing your valuable data in the cloud is like wearing a transparent dress, the provider will be able to see the data stored on your account, manage your photos or sort them for your " convince" Internxt is trying to offer you a blockchain-based cloud solution, which is an end to end encrypted, secured by blockchain and allows you to pay with fiat if you need a premium. The free plan from Internxt offers 2GB free storage
Internxt encrypts and fragment files into different shards, and is stored in different nodes. no one Machine will ever have the full file. the Decryption files are stored locally that enables only you to access your files.
