Originally published in the NOWNodes blog.

DeFi projects are the brightest spot in the whole cryptocurrency market today. It is attracting many new users to the crypto world. It has the potential to revolutionize the global financial services sector. As per DeFi Prime, there are around 100 DeFi projects currently. DeFi Prime is a popular online DeFi project tracking website.

We had already covered seven most Interesting DeFi projects to look forward to in 2020. Yet, seven weren’t enough. The DeFi market has many more projects that are worth exploring. Hence, we bring you a few more top DeFi projects for 2020.  

#1. DIA

DIA is the short name of Decentralized Information Asset. It is based in Switzerland. The DIA team aims to increase the adoption of transparent open-access data and oracles. Experts are calling Decentralized Information Asset as the Bloomberg of the crypto world. DIA has a token which incentivizes its user community. Hence, it will act as a kind of governance token within the DeFi ecosystem of the DIA. 

Experts consider DIA to be one of the most promising projects of today. The DIA token was made available for the crypto community from August 4. Many high-profile VC companies are backing Decentralized Information assets. One of the most prominent VC backing DAI is Outlier Ventures. 

#2. Augur

What happens when a prediction market leverages the viewpoint of masses? That’s exactly what Augur does. Augur is a prediction market DeFi protocol. The unique thing about Augur is that it utilizes the masses to gain collective predictions from them. 

There are two main parts of the philosophy on which Augur DeFi is based on. First of which is to make prediction markets adopt democratic principles. The other one is crowd wisdom. Augur believes in the strength and benefits of the crowd wisdom in general. Anyone who wants to see the future (yeah, we mean it!) can head over to Augur. A user can create a particular market on the Augur platform. Soon after creating a market, there will be hoards of people participating in it. 

Are you wondering – what is a prediction market? It is a market where people trade on the event outcome rather than any particular product or service. It is not as if the prediction market is something new. The prediction market has been in existence for many years. Yet, only a few professional traders or very few people knew about it. Augur is changing that now. 

The native token of Augur is known as REP. It is an ERC-20 token. There’s a reason why the native token of Augur is known as Reputation. It is because a user is staking their reputation on the Augur platform with every action of the Augur platform. A user can lose and gain REP on Augur. 

#3. Synthetix 

Synthetix is among the top five DeFi players currently. At the time of writing, Synthetix is at the third position in the list of DeFi projects with the most value in USD locked in its smart contract. A user can bet on many assets on Synthetix. Assets such as stocks, crypto, precious metals, currencies, among many others are available for betting on the Synthetix platform. 

So, what’s the most interesting thing about the Synthetix project? The Synths mimic real-world assets. Yes, that’s correct. The Synths mimics and brings the real-world asset to the Ethereum blockchain. 

The Ethereum blockchain imparts Synth with the ERC-20 token properties. Yet, holding a Synth does not mean that you own a real word asset. The Synthetix platform only allows its users to bet on the value of the real-world asset. It does not grant the ownership of the real-world assets in full or part. 

#4. Balancer

Balancer has been in the DeFi space since March 2020. It is based on the Ethereum blockchain like the majority of the DeFi projects. Its native token is known as BAL. The Balancer protocol offers automatic market-making to its users. It operates in a way similar to the traditional market makers. But, Balancer is a fully automatic market-making protocol. Hence, there are some differences between them.

So, how do traditional market makers operate? They provide liquidity in the market by buying and selling financial products or instruments. A traditional market maker profits from the difference in the prices during the bid and ask. On the other hand, Balancer is an automatic market maker. It means that the Balancer protocol is governed under the rules set by an algorithm. 

Of course, Balancer is not the first DeFi protocol to come up with automatic market-making. Curve Finance and Uniswap are already offering it. Yet, there’s something that has allowed Balancer to create a niche of its own. 

The Balancer offers support for a higher number of assets per individual market currently. The current number of assets that Balancer can support per market stands at 8. Balancer also has an advantage in terms of trading fees. It offers custom trading fees to its users, which is set by the pool creator. 

#5. Nexus Mutual

The Crypto industry has seen many hacking cases for the last few years. Many crypto investors have lost their crypto funds because of these reasons. There’s an issue with the crypto industry as a user has no one to call when they lose their funds or when someone steals it. 

With the advent of Ethereum and smart contracts, the issue went from bad to worse. Many of the smart contracts store user funds in Ether. Hence, hackers can access it and steal the funds by leveraging bugs and other loopholes. One such case happened with DAO as the hacker stole 3.6 million Ether after hacking DAO. 

Nexus Mutual started operations in May 2019 to provide insurance coverage to crypto token holders. It allows its users to contribute capital to the risk-sharing pool. In return, Nexus Mutual offers future rewards to anyone who inputs capital in the ride-sharing pool. Hence, Nexus Mutual has adopted a community-oriented insurance model.

The aim of Nexus Mutual is to put the power of insurance in the hand of an individual. They want to disrupt the insurance sector by empowering the individuals to take matters in their own hands. Nexus Mutual has no terms and conditions regarding who can participate in the risk-sharing pool. Hence, anyone can join in. A user who inputs ETH into the pool is rewarded with NXM tokens. It is the native token of the Nexus Mutual. 

#6. bZx

bZx is a DeFi protocol. It is built on the Ethereum blockchain. bZx offers its users an option to indulge in margin trading and lending. Many experts have compared the bZx protocol to dYdX, another popular DeFi project. Yet, there’s a difference between them. The main difference between bZx and dYdX lies in the bZx protocol’s use of tokens. 

Currently, there are three tokens within the bZx protocol. They are pTokens, iTokens, and BZRX tokens. Each of these tokens plays an important role in the functioning of bZx. All the tokens offered by bZx are ERC20 tokens. bZX offers multiple benefits to the Ethereum traders. 

The bZx protocol allows any Ethereum traders to borrow from the protocol at attractive rates. At the same time, bZx allows Ethereum traders to lend their ETH on their platform. In return, the Ethereum traders receive interest on it. 

At the time of writing, the bZx protocol has a $553.1K value locked in the smart contract.