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The Technology of Decentralized Finance (DeFi)

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  • Auer, Raphael
  • Haslhofer, Bernhard
  • Kitzler, Stefan
  • Saggese, Pietro
  • Friedhelm, Victor

Abstract

Decentralized Finance (DeFi) is a new financial paradigm that leverages distributed ledger technologies to offer services such as lending, investing, or exchanging cryptoassets without relying on a traditional centralized intermediary. A range of DeFi protocols implements these services as a suite of smart contracts, ie software programs that encode the logic of conventional financial operations. Instead of transacting with a counterparty, DeFi users thus interact with software programs that pool the resources of other DeFi users to maintain control over their funds. This paper provides a deep dive into the overall architecture, the technical primitives, and the financial functionalities of DeFi protocols. We analyse and explain the individual components and how they interact through the lens of a DeFi stack reference (DSR) model featuring three layers: settlement, applications and interfaces. We discuss the technical aspects of each layer of the DSR model. Then, we describe the financial services for the most relevant DeFi categories, ie decentralized exchanges, lending protocols, derivatives protocols and aggregators. The latter exploit the property that smart contracts can be “composed†, ie utilize the functionalities of other protocols to provide novel financial services. We discuss how composability allows complex financial products to be assembled, which could have applications in the traditional financial industry. We discuss potential sources of systemic risk and conclude by mapping out an agenda for research in this area.

Suggested Citation

  • Auer, Raphael & Haslhofer, Bernhard & Kitzler, Stefan & Saggese, Pietro & Friedhelm, Victor, 2023. "The Technology of Decentralized Finance (DeFi)," CEPR Discussion Papers 18038, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:18038
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    2. Rainer Alt & Gilbert Fridgen & Younghoon Chang, 2024. "The future of fintech — Towards ubiquitous financial services," Electronic Markets, Springer;IIM University of St. Gallen, vol. 34(1), pages 1-13, December.
    3. Katja Neugebauer & João Almeida & João Alves & Carlos Bettencourt & Maria Bettencourt & Madalena Borges & Filipa Castilho & Sónia Correia & Gisela Fonseca & Mariana Júdice & André Leal & Afonso Marque, 2024. "Occasional paper on Decentralised Finance," Working Papers o202402, Banco de Portugal, Economics and Research Department.
    4. Dion Bongaerts & Thomas Lambert & Daniel Liebau & Peter Roosenboom, 2025. "Vote Delegation in DeFi Governance," Papers 2503.11940, arXiv.org.
    5. K Saengchote & C Castro-Iragorri, 2023. "Network Topology in Decentralized Finance," Documentos de Trabajo 20782, Universidad del Rosario.
    6. Junliang Luo & Stefan Kitzler & Pietro Saggese, 2024. "Investigating Similarities Across Decentralized Financial (DeFi) Services," Papers 2404.00034, arXiv.org.
    7. Stefano Balietti & Pietro Saggese & Stefan Kitzler & Bernhard Haslhofer, 2025. "Slaying the Dragon: The Quest for Democracy in Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs)," Papers 2511.09263, arXiv.org.
    8. Balietti, Stefano & Celebi, Can & Tercero-Lucas, David, 2025. "From crypto to NFTs: Identifying the new wave of digital investors," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 104(PA).
    9. Chemaya, Nir & Cong, Lin William & Joergensen, Emma & Liu, Dingyue & Zhang, Luyao, 2023. "Uniswap Daily Transaction Indices by Network," OSF Preprints ube2z, Center for Open Science.
    10. Peplluis R. Esteva & Andrés El-Fakdi & Alberto Ballesteros-Rodríguez, 2023. "Invoice Discounting Using Kelly Criterion by Automated Market Makers-like Implementations," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 11(7), pages 1-37, March.
    11. Auer, Raphael & Monnet, Cyril & Shin, Hyun Song, 2025. "Distributed ledgers and the governance of money," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).
    12. Bogdan Adamyk & Vladlena Benson & Oksana Adamyk & Oksana Liashenko, 2025. "Risk Management in DeFi: Analyses of the Innovative Tools and Platforms for Tracking DeFi Transactions," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 18(1), pages 1-31, January.
    13. Saengchote, Kanis & Putniņš, Talis & Samphantharak, Krislert, 2023. "Does DeFi remove the need for trust? Evidence from a natural experiment in stablecoin lending," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 40(C).
    14. Pietro Saggese & Michael Frowis & Stefan Kitzler & Bernhard Haslhofer & Raphael Auer, 2025. "Towards Verifiability of Total Value Locked (TVL) in Decentralized Finance," Papers 2505.14565, arXiv.org.
    15. Jodi Tommerdahl, 2025. "Understanding the Future of Money: The Struggle Between Government Control and Decentralization," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 18(2), pages 1-17, February.
    16. Pietro Saggese & Esther Segalla & Michael Sigmund & Burkhard Raunig & Felix Zangerl & Bernhard Haslhofer, 2025. "Assessing the solvency of virtual asset service providers: are current standards sufficient?," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 57(49), pages 8178-8193, October.
    17. Tristan Lim, 2024. "Predictive crypto-asset automated market maker architecture for decentralized finance using deep reinforcement learning," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 10(1), pages 1-29, December.
    18. Nir Chemaya & Lin William Cong & Emma Jorgensen & Dingyue Liu & Luyao Zhang, 2023. "A Dataset of Uniswap daily transaction indices by network," Papers 2312.02660, arXiv.org, revised Sep 2024.

    More about this item

    Keywords

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    JEL classification:

    • E42 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Monetary Sytsems; Standards; Regimes; Government and the Monetary System
    • E58 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Central Banks and Their Policies
    • F31 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Foreign Exchange
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G19 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Other
    • G23 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Non-bank Financial Institutions; Financial Instruments; Institutional Investors
    • L50 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy - - - General
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes

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