The evolution of DeFi: How to further optimize user experience?

Author: DeFi Investor Source: thedefinvestor Translation: Shan Ouba, Golden Finance

To be honest, the current on-chain user experience (UX) sucks, especially for newcomers.

It is estimated that about 500 million people have purchased cryptocurrencies on centralized exchanges (CEX). But among these 500 million people, I would say that less than 10% have completed at least one on-chain transaction.

Now there are dozens of highly scalable blockchains, L2 gas fees have become negligible, and there are many interesting on-chain applications (dApps) worth trying.

In my opinion, the next logical step for DeFi to achieve mass adoption is to build UX solutions that can provide a similar Web2-friendly user experience on-chain. Luckily, some of these solutions have started to emerge in the past few months.

Over the past few days, I have tested a few of them. Today, I would like to introduce the new on-chain UX solution that I found most interesting?

1. Coinbase Smart Wallet

Coinbase Smart Wallet is built to simplify the user onboarding process. It is indeed a great product in terms of user experience.

Here are its salient features:

• Simple onboarding process - You can access your wallet using fingerprint, Face ID, or Google Chrome profile

• The protocol can pay for gas fees on your behalf

• Support batch transactions

• Integration with Coinbase account - You can use your Coinbase CEX account balance to pay for your Web3 wallet transaction fees

With Coinbase Smart Wallet, you can start on-chain transactions in less than a minute. You can go from having no wallet to minting an NFT in 35 seconds.

2. Fuse

Fuse is Solana’s first smart wallet and went live earlier this week.

Fuse simplifies the process of creating a personal Smart Account on Solana to a few clicks, and has a number of interesting features:

• Gas Abstraction - Fuse acts as a "gas tank" and pays gas fees on your behalf

• Spending Limits - Define spending limits for any token and timeframe. This feature is particularly helpful for security

• Wallet Recovery - Use anything from an email to a cold wallet as a two-factor authentication (2FA) system

• Intuitive CEX-style UI

According to the CEO of the company behind Fuse, Fuse aims to be a Web3 savings account, rather than focusing on ecosystem integration like Phantom.

3. Infinex

Finally, let’s talk about Infinex.

Infinex is a UX layer project created by the founders of Synthetix, a well-known OG DeFi protocol. Infinex is a game changer in terms of user experience. Here are the reasons:

In addition to its Web2-style wallet authentication capabilities (which Fuse and Coinbase Smart Wallet also support), Infinex Wallet also features chain abstraction.

“Chain abstraction” refers to the fact that Infinex Wallet makes cross-chain transfers effortless, eliminating the complexity of the bridging process.

Imagine being able to transfer your assets from a Solana dApp to an Arbitrum dApp without using a cross-chain bridge. That’s what Infinex enables.

In addition, the wallet will also feature many in-app integrations. However, Infinex is still in the mainnet testing phase at the moment, with only a few integrations live.

Those are the three new UX solutions I want to introduce today.

We are still in the early stages of DeFi mass adoption, but the development of projects like Infinex, Fuse, and Coinbase Smart Wallet makes me optimistic about the future.

DeFi already provides crazy yield opportunities that traditional financial investors can only dream of. The goal now is to make the DeFi world easy for ordinary people to enter.

Chain Alpha

Pendle becomes the top five DeFi protocols in TVL

Pendle is one of my most promising DeFi projects.

In early 2024, Pendle's TVL was less than $250 million. Now its TVL is close to $7 billion.

As long as its team continues to integrate popular protocols that offer very attractive yield opportunities, I expect the protocol to continue to grow.

The Latest in DeFi

• ZKsync launched the ZK token. 17.5% of its token supply was allocated to airdrops

• Symbiotic, a new major heavy staking protocol, went live. Less than 24 hours after launch, its TVL exceeded $240 million

• Solana's first smart wallet Fuse went live. Fuse offers wallet recovery and 2FA

• Fantom’s new airdrop proposal is live

• Berachain’s public testnet bArtio B2 is live. Interacting with it may make you eligible for an airdrop

• Polygon launches community grant program to distribute 1 billion $POL tokens over the next decade. MATIC will soon transition to the POL ticker

• Solana Labs launches Bond, a tech stack for businesses looking to launch customer loyalty programs on Solana

• Lido launches “heavy collateral vault” in partnership with Symbiotic. Symbiotic is a new restaking protocol backed by Paradigm

• Optimism launches permissionless proof-of-fault in an effort to become more decentralized

• pSTAKE Finance launches its token $PSTAKE on Blast in partnership with Thruster

• Massa Labs announces Massa decentralized DNS. Massa’s on-chain network hosts the frontend and backend of dApps directly on the blockchain

• Arbitrum proposes BOLD upgrade to become Phase 2 Ethereum Rollup. BOLD will improve network security by enabling anyone to become an Arbitrum validator

• Sociocat launches its “Question and Earn” incentive program

• deBridge launches deBridge P2P, an OTC desktop platform for DeFi. deBridge P2P allows OTC trading on 13 chains entirely on your terms

• Wormhole launches staking for $W token holders. Rumored first 10,000 W stakers will receive Monad airdrop

• Binance Labs invests in Ethereum L2 project Zircuit