What Is DeFi? Complete Beginner’s Guide to Decentralized Finance

Last Updated: November 3, 2026

DeFi, short for decentralized finance, is a set of financial services such as trading, lending, borrowing and earning interest that run on public blockchains through smart contracts instead of banks or brokers. You connect your own crypto wallet and deal with the code directly, so no company holds your money or approves your transactions. On November 3, 2026, DeFi protocols held about $82.1 billion in total value locked, according to DefiLlama (read at about 14:05 UTC), roughly 46% of the record DefiLlama recorded in November 2021. Stablecoins worth about $294 billion circulated across blockchains.

DeFi is open and transparent, but it is not safe in the way an insured bank account is. DefiLlama’s hacks dashboard records 233 attacks on DeFi protocols in 2026 through November 2, costing about $1.19 billion, and the two largest, on Drift and Kelp DAO in April, took about $588 million between them. Across all of crypto, including exchanges, DefiLlama counts $8.78 billion lost in 328 incidents this year, more than three times its 2025 total, mostly because of the October 29 Binance hack. Transactions usually cannot be reversed, deposits are not insured, and losses from bugs, scams or liquidations usually fall on the user. This guide explains how DeFi works, what the ecosystem looks like today, the benefits and risks of DeFi protocols in 2026, and how a beginner can start more carefully.

Key Takeaways

• DeFi replaces banks and brokers with smart contracts on blockchains such as Ethereum. You keep control of your funds, and you also carry the risk.
• DeFi held about $82.1 billion on November 3, 2026, according to DefiLlama, down about 27% since January 1 and about 43% from a year earlier. Ethereum holds about 54% of it. The largest protocols are Lido, Aave and Morpho, although Lido’s liquid staking deposits are counted separately from that total.
• The main uses are lending and borrowing, swapping tokens on decentralized exchanges, providing liquidity, staking and earning yield on stablecoins. Mainstream rates were roughly 2% to 5% a year on November 3, 2026.
• The biggest DeFi losses now come from stolen keys, compromised infrastructure and cross-chain bridges rather than classic code bugs. Both of 2026’s largest DeFi attacks, on Drift and Kelp DAO, began outside the core smart contracts.
• Safer habits matter more than any single tool: start small, stick to long-running protocols, use a hardware wallet, revoke old token approvals and treat unusually high yields as a warning sign.

DeFi in Numbers: November 2026

How Does DeFi Work?

DeFi runs on smart contracts, programs stored on a blockchain that execute automatically when set conditions are met. A lending contract, for example, holds the collateral a borrower deposits and releases a loan without anyone approving it. Because the code is public, anyone can check the rules.

You use DeFi through a self-custody wallet such as MetaMask, Phantom or a hardware wallet. The wallet holds the private keys that control your funds, and you connect it to a decentralized application, or dApp, through a website. Every action, from a swap to a loan, is a transaction you sign yourself. Our guide to custodial and non-custodial wallets explains the difference in more detail.

Three other building blocks hold DeFi together:

• Stablecoins, tokens pegged to a currency such as the US dollar, are the main unit of account for lending, trading and savings. Tether’s USDT ($178.7 billion) and Circle’s USDC ($71.1 billion) make up about 85% of the market, according to DefiLlama on November 3, 2026. See our explainer on stablecoins.
• Oracles feed outside data, such as asset prices, into smart contracts. If an oracle reports a wrong price, loans can be liquidated or drained. Our guide to blockchain oracles explains how networks such as Chainlink and Pyth work.
• Blockchains and layer-2 networks host the protocols. Ethereum holds about 54% of all DeFi deposits, followed by its layer-2 network Base, then Solana, BNB Chain and Tron, according to DefiLlama data for November 3, 2026.

Total value locked, or TVL, is the standard measure of DeFi’s size. It adds up the crypto deposited in DeFi smart contracts at current market prices, so it rises and falls with token prices as well as with real deposits. DeFi TVL fell from about $111.9 billion on January 1, 2026 to a 2026 low of about $65.6 billion on July 1, according to DefiLlama, recovered to the mid $80 billion range in October and stood at about $82.1 billion on November 3. Our explainer on what DefiLlama is shows how the tracker counts it.

What Does the DeFi Ecosystem Look Like in 2026?

The DeFi ecosystem is a set of protocols that plug into each other on a few dozen blockchains. A beginner guide to the DeFi ecosystem starts with three layers: the chains that host the apps, the protocols that hold deposits, and the infrastructure, such as oracles and bridges, that connects them. DefiLlama tracked 6,913 protocols in its rankings on November 3, 2026, but a small group holds most of the money.

Largest DeFi protocols by total value locked, November 3, 2026

Source: DefiLlama protocol rankings, default settings, read at about 14:05 UTC. Lending and liquid staking dominate the list, which shows that most DeFi money sits in borrowing markets and staked ETH rather than in trading apps.

Largest blockchains by DeFi TVL, November 3, 2026

Source: DefiLlama chains data, about 14:06 UTC.

Two other parts of the ecosystem matter to beginners. Bridges and cross-chain messaging move tokens between these chains; they are useful but are also among the most attacked pieces of DeFi, as our guide to blockchain interoperability explains. Tokenized real-world assets, such as Treasury bill funds and private credit, are the fastest-growing link to traditional finance: DefiLlama put active tokenized RWA assets at about $30.15 billion on November 3, 2026. Our RWA tokenization news page follows that market.

What Can You Do With DeFi?

Rates are variable snapshots from DefiLlama’s yields data at about 14:07 UTC on November 3, 2026, not promises of future returns.

Lending and borrowing. Lenders deposit tokens into a pool and earn interest paid by borrowers. Borrowers must lock collateral worth more than the loan. If the collateral’s value falls too far, the protocol sells it automatically to repay the loan, which is called a liquidation.

Trading on decentralized exchanges. A decentralized exchange, or DEX, lets you swap tokens straight from your wallet. Most DEXs use liquidity pools priced by a formula instead of an order book. DeFi aggregators such as 1inch split a trade across many DEXs to find a better price. DEXs handled $279 billion of spot trading in September 2026, or 19.8% of the total, according to CoinDesk Data, and about $6.84 billion in the 24 hours to November 3, according to DefiLlama.

Providing liquidity. Liquidity providers deposit pairs of tokens into a DEX pool and earn a share of trading fees. When prices move, they can end up with less value than if they had simply held the tokens, a loss known as impermanent loss. Our guide to yield farming covers these strategies.

Staking, liquid staking and restaking. Liquid staking protocols stake ETH for you and give you a token that keeps earning rewards and can be used elsewhere in DeFi. Restaking reuses staked ETH to secure other services for extra rewards and extra risk, as explained in our guide to restaking.

Earning yield on stablecoins. Savings products and yield-bearing stablecoins pay a variable rate funded by borrowers, protocol revenue or trading strategies. The rate is never guaranteed, and the source of the yield decides the risk.

DeFi vs Traditional Finance

In short, traditional finance trades control and access for convenience and legal protection. DeFi gives you control and open access, but removes most safety nets.

DeFi Protocols: What Are the Benefits and Risks in 2026?

The main benefits of DeFi protocols in 2026 are open access, self-custody, round-the-clock markets and public, auditable rules. The main risks are hacks, stolen keys, bridge failures, liquidations, stablecoin depegs and the lack of any deposit insurance. Blockchainreporter’s summary below pairs each benefit with the risk that comes with it.

What the 2026 hack data shows. DefiLlama’s hacks dashboard counts 233 attacks on DeFi protocols from January 1 to November 2, 2026, with about $1.19 billion taken. That is only about 14% of the $8.78 billion lost across all of crypto in the same period, because the largest thefts hit centralized exchanges. By attack type across all targets, DefiLlama lists 36 key compromises (about $721 million), 34 bridge and cross-chain attacks (about $701 million), 54 access control failures (about $371 million), 58 token and share accounting bugs (about $251 million) and 42 oracle manipulation attacks (about $75 million).

Dated examples of each main risk in 2026, with loss figures from DefiLlama:

• Admin and access control takeover: Drift, a Solana trading protocol, lost about $295 million on April 1 after attackers used pre-signed security council approvals to seize admin control.
• Bridge and cross-chain message spoofing: Kelp DAO lost about $293 million on April 18 through forged messages on its rsETH bridge. Our report on Kelp DAO’s lawsuit against LayerZero covers the dispute that followed.
• Price manipulation of collateral: Tectonic, a lending app on Cronos, lost about $124.5 million on August 30 after an attacker inflated a thinly traded collateral token and borrowed against it.
• Stolen private keys: Step Finance (about $40 million, January 31), Humanity Protocol (about $32 million, June 8), Ostium (about $23.8 million, July 15) and AFX Bridge (about $24.2 million, July 22, a validator key) all lost funds after keys were compromised.
• Code bugs: Truebit lost about $26.4 million on January 8 to an arithmetic error in an old contract.

What changed since 2025: DefiLlama recorded $2.72 billion lost in 148 hacks in 2025, so 2026 has more than twice as many incidents and, counting the Binance exchange hack, more than three times the losses. For DeFi users, the lesson is the same as in 2025. Most large losses started with stolen keys, compromised servers or weak bridge settings, not with the lending or trading logic people usually worry about.

Is DeFi Safe? The Main Risks

DeFi is not safe in the way a regulated, insured bank is. CertiK counted $3.35 billion lost to hacks, scams and exploits across crypto in 2025, of which $1.45 billion came from the hack of the Bybit exchange. In 2026 it counted $1.32 billion lost across 344 incidents in the first half and $1.26 billion across 247 incidents in the third quarter, according to its reports as summarized by Cointelegraph. DeFi apps account for only part of these totals. In a report on DeFi protocols alone, Immunefi put 2025 losses at about $680 million, down 74% from $2.62 billion in 2022, according to The Block. These are the main risks behind the losses.

Smart contract bugs and price manipulation

A flaw in a protocol’s code can let an attacker drain funds. In January 2026, an attacker used a bug in a roughly five-year-old Truebit contract to take about $26 million in ETH. Code bugs are the most frequent type of attack but usually cost less per incident. In the first half of 2026, 204 code-vulnerability incidents cost about $152 million in total, according to CertiK. Audits lower this risk but do not remove it.

Price manipulation is a related threat. Attackers push up the price of a thinly traded token, post it as collateral and borrow real assets against it. The number of such attacks hit a record in 2026, according to blockchain analytics firm TRM Labs. On August 30, an attacker used this method to borrow about $120 million from Tectonic, a lending app on Cronos. The network halted and rolled back its chain, and about $9 million that had already left it was not recovered, according to Cronos. Our report on how Cronos halted its blockchain has the details.

Stolen keys and social engineering

Many of the largest losses do not involve a code bug at all. Attackers steal the private keys of a team’s wallets, trick the people who control them, or compromise the servers a protocol relies on. In the first half of 2026, wallet and key compromises caused $445 million in losses, more than any other attack type, CertiK found.

This was the pattern behind 2026’s two largest DeFi attacks. In April, attackers forged a cross-chain message for Kelp DAO’s rsETH bridge after compromising infrastructure used to verify it, taking about $292 million, according to LayerZero’s incident report. Investigators linked the attack to North Korean hackers. Earlier that month, Drift Protocol on Solana lost about $285 million, by Drift’s own count, after attackers tricked members of its security council into pre-signing hidden admin transactions, according to TRM Labs. Drift opened a recovery claims process on October 1, as covered in our report on Drift’s recovery claims.

Phishing, token approvals and wallet drainers

To use a dApp, you usually approve a contract to move your tokens. Scammers trick users into signing approvals or “permit” signatures on fake sites, then drain the wallet. Losses to this kind of wallet drainer fell sharply in 2025: Scam Sniffer counted $83.85 million stolen from 106,106 victims, down 83% from 2024. Phishing as a whole remains costly. CertiK counted $366 million in phishing losses in the first half of 2026, most of it from a few large social engineering operations. Our guide to airdrop scams shows common lures.

Liquidations

Borrowers can lose their collateral when prices fall quickly. On October 10, 2025, more than $19 billion of leveraged crypto positions were liquidated within 24 hours, according to CoinGecko, mostly futures bets on derivatives exchanges rather than DeFi loans. DeFi lending protocols processed more than $200 million of liquidations during the crash with almost no bad debt, according to research firm Sentora. If you borrow, keep the loan well below the limit and watch your health factor, the ratio most protocols use to show how close a position is to liquidation.

Stablecoin depegs

A stablecoin can trade below its peg if its reserves, collateral or strategy come under doubt. During the October 2025 crash, Ethena’s USDe briefly fell to $0.65 on Binance, a drop limited to that exchange, which later paid $283 million in compensation to affected users. In March 2026, the Resolv USR stablecoin lost its peg after an attacker who had compromised the project’s cloud infrastructure minted about 80 million unbacked tokens and extracted roughly $25 million.

Contagion between protocols

Because DeFi apps plug into each other, a failure in one can spread. After the Kelp DAO attack, the attacker posted stolen rsETH as collateral on Aave and borrowed about $190 million in ETH, according to research firm NYDIG. Aave Labs and risk firm LlamaRisk estimated Aave’s possible bad debt at $123 million to $230 million, depending on how the losses were shared. Lenders rushed to withdraw, Aave’s USDT and USDC pools were fully borrowed, and an industry recovery effort, DeFi United, gathered more than $300 million in commitments, many of them subject to governance votes.

Admin keys, rug pulls and fake projects

Some protocols can be upgraded or paused by a small group of key holders. That allows quick fixes after a bug, but it also means users must trust those key holders. In the worst cases, anonymous teams drain the funds themselves, which is known as a rug pull. Our guide on how to check if a meme coin is legit covers on-chain checks that also apply to new DeFi tokens.

The Biggest DeFi Hacks of 2026

Loss figures come from DefiLlama’s hacks dashboard, read on November 3, 2026, and can differ from project estimates.

The largest thefts of 2026 hit centralized companies rather than DeFi apps. On October 29, 2026, attackers took about $6.36 billion from Binance’s hot wallets, the largest crypto theft in DefiLlama’s records; the FBI attributed it on October 31 to TraderTraitor, a North Korean hacking unit, CoinDesk reported. Binance began a second phase of reopening withdrawals on nine networks from 04:00 UTC on November 3, according to its recovery updates, as our report on how Binance withdrawals reopen after the hack explains. Before that, North Korean hackers stole about $1.5 billion from the Bybit exchange on or about February 21, 2025, according to the FBI. In September 2026, the Bitget exchange lost about $387 million in a theft Chainalysis attributed to North Korea. That month, Blockstream’s Liquid Network also lost about 3,996 BTC to a software bug, and about 3,400 BTC were returned the next day. Our guide to blockchain security covers how these attacks work.

How to Start Using DeFi: A Step-by-Step Guide for Beginners

The safest way for a beginner to start using DeFi is to set up a separate self-custody wallet, fund it with a small amount, and try one simple action on a long-running protocol before anything else. Blockchainreporter’s beginner steps:

1. Learn the basics first. Understand wallets, seed phrases, gas fees, stablecoins and token approvals before you deposit anything. Our guide to what a seed phrase is is a good start.
2. Set up a self-custody wallet. Install a well-known wallet such as MetaMask, Phantom or a hardware wallet from the official website or app store, write the seed phrase on paper and never type it into a website. Our crypto wallets reviews compare options.
3. Choose one network. Start on one chain with low fees and deep liquidity, such as Base, Arbitrum or Solana, or on Ethereum if you can accept higher fees. Check the chain’s DeFi size on DefiLlama.
4. Buy a small amount on an exchange. Buy the network’s native token for fees (ETH or SOL, for example) and a stablecoin such as USDC, then withdraw them to your wallet, sending a small test transaction first.
5. Pick a long-running protocol. Use a protocol with years of history, large deposits, public audits and a bug bounty, such as Aave for lending or Uniswap for swaps. Bookmark its official website.
6. Try one simple action. Swap a small amount, or supply a stablecoin to a lending pool without borrowing. Read every wallet prompt and set a reasonable slippage limit.
7. Check the result on chain. Look up the transaction on a block explorer, then review and revoke any approvals you no longer need.
8. Only then add complexity. Borrowing, providing liquidity, yield farming and bridging between chains each add risk. Learn one at a time, and use the checklist below.

How to Use DeFi More Safely: A 10-Point Checklist

1. Start small. Use an amount you could lose in full while you learn.
2. Separate your wallets. Keep long-term savings in a hardware wallet bought directly from the manufacturer, and use a separate wallet with a small balance for DeFi. Our comparison of hot and cold wallets explains why. Never share your seed phrase.
3. Type the address yourself. Use bookmarks for dApps and ignore links in ads, direct messages and replies, a common route to fake sites.
4. Check the track record. Look at how long a protocol has run, how its deposits have changed and whether it has been hacked before. Check which firms audited it and whether it runs a bug bounty, for example on Immunefi.
5. Check who controls the code. Find out whether contracts can be upgraded, who holds the admin keys and whether changes go through a timelock that gives users time to exit.
6. Read before you sign. Be wary of unlimited token approvals and “permit” or “setApprovalForAll” requests from sites you do not know.
7. Revoke old approvals. Tools such as Revoke.cash and the Etherscan token approval checker show which contracts can still move your tokens.
8. Ask where the yield comes from. Real yield comes from borrowers, trading fees or staking rewards. With mainstream rates around 2% to 5% in November 2026, a “fixed” or “guaranteed” double-digit rate is a warning sign.
9. Keep a buffer on loans. When you borrow, keep your collateral well above the liquidation level and set price alerts.
10. Spread your risk. Avoid putting everything in one protocol or one stablecoin. Some users buy smart contract cover from mutuals such as Nexus Mutual, which is not the same as regulated insurance.

For a wider approach to position sizing, see our guide to crypto risk management.

What to Do If You Are Hacked or Scammed

Crypto payments are usually not reversible, as the US Federal Trade Commission warns. Acting fast can still limit the damage:

• Move any remaining funds to a new wallet created on a clean device, and revoke approvals on the old one.
• Save the transaction hashes, wallet addresses, website links and messages involved.
• In the US, report the theft to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center and the FTC; investment fraud can also be reported to the SEC and the CFTC. Elsewhere, contact your local police and financial regulator.
• Tell the exchange where the stolen funds were sent. Exchanges can sometimes freeze them.
• Be wary of anyone who claims they can recover your crypto, especially for an upfront fee. The FBI warns that such offers may be another scam.

DeFi Rules in 2026

United States. The CLARITY Act, a market structure bill that includes protections for DeFi developers and self-custody, passed the House in July 2025. A Senate procedural vote on it failed 49 to 50 on September 15, 2026, so it is not law; the bill stays on the Senate calendar and could get another vote, Bitcoin.com News reported. Our explainer on the CLARITY Act covers the bill. Regulators have moved on their own. In an interpretation published jointly with the CFTC in March 2026, the SEC said protocol staking and liquid staking, as described, do not involve securities offerings. In April 2026, SEC staff said they would not object if certain websites, browser extensions and wallet apps helped users prepare trades in crypto asset securities without registering as broker-dealers, under set conditions. The relief applies only to tools that do not hold user funds, with users signing trades in their own wallets. In April 2025, Congress also overturned an IRS rule that would have treated DeFi front ends as brokers for tax reporting.

European Union. The EU’s MiCA regulation does not cover services “provided in a fully decentralised manner without any intermediary.” It does apply to companies or people that provide or control a service, even when part of it runs in a decentralized way. The European Commission’s 2026 review of MiCA asked whether and how to add rules for DeFi. ESMA, the EU’s markets regulator, recommended in its September 2026 response that firms giving customers access to DeFi protocols be regulated. We found no Commission legislative proposal on DeFi as of November 3, 2026.

DeFi gains are generally taxable, and our guide to crypto taxes explains the 2026 changes. Rules vary by country, so check with a tax professional.

How We Researched This Guide

We took market data from DefiLlama (total value locked, protocol and chain rankings, stablecoins, yields and the hacks dashboard) at about 14:05 to 14:07 UTC on November 3, 2026, and from CoinDesk Data and protocol websites. Loss data comes from DefiLlama and from reports by CertiK, Chainalysis, Immunefi, TRM Labs and Scam Sniffer. Hack details come from the affected projects’ own statements or post-mortems where available, and otherwise from blockchain security firms. Consumer protection details come from the FDIC, SIPC, FTC, FBI and SEC. Each figure is dated, and loss totals were compared across at least two sources where possible. No project paid to be mentioned.

Limitations

DeFi data changes daily. TVL counts differ between trackers: DefiLlama, for example, leaves liquid staking out of its chain totals by default, while other trackers publish much higher figures. DefiLlama also revises past figures as it adds or reclassifies protocols, so a date’s total can change after the fact. Security firms use different definitions, so their totals for stolen funds differ and are revised over time. DefiLlama’s hack tracker, for example, counts exchange hacks such as Binance’s alongside DeFi exploits, while some security firms report them separately. Loss estimates for single attacks can change as investigations continue. Yields shown are snapshots, not forecasts. This guide is for education and is not investment advice.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is DeFi in simple terms?
DeFi, or decentralized finance, means financial services such as trading, lending, borrowing and earning interest that run on public blockchains through smart contracts instead of banks. You use them from your own crypto wallet, so no company holds your money or approves your transactions. In return, you carry the risks yourself, including code bugs, scams and losses that cannot be reversed.

Is DeFi safe in 2026?
DeFi is still far riskier than a bank account. DefiLlama counts 233 attacks on DeFi protocols in 2026 through November 2, costing about $1.19 billion, and the two largest, on Drift and Kelp DAO, took about $588 million. There is no deposit insurance, transactions cannot be reversed, and stolen funds are often never recovered, so start small and use established protocols.

What are the benefits and risks of DeFi protocols in 2026?
The benefits are open access for anyone with a wallet, self-custody, markets that run around the clock, public code and market-set yields of roughly 2% to 5% on mainstream assets. The risks are hacks, stolen admin keys, bridge failures, liquidations, stablecoin depegs and the absence of deposit insurance. In 2026, most large DeFi losses began with compromised keys or infrastructure.

What are the biggest DeFi protocols in 2026?
On November 3, 2026, the largest DeFi protocols by total value locked were Lido at about $22.0 billion, Aave at about $16.4 billion and Morpho at about $11.2 billion, followed by Binance staked ETH, Spark and JustLend, according to DefiLlama. Ethereum hosted about 54% of all DeFi deposits, ahead of Base, Solana, BNB Chain and Tron.

What is a DeFi wallet?
A DeFi wallet is a self-custody crypto wallet, such as MetaMask, Phantom or a hardware wallet, that holds your private keys and connects to decentralized apps. Unlike an exchange account, no company can freeze it or restore access, so losing the seed phrase means losing the funds. Crypto.com’s app formerly called DeFi Wallet was renamed Crypto.com Onchain in November 2024.

How do people make money with DeFi?
The main ways are lending tokens for interest, providing liquidity to exchange pools for trading fees, staking and holding yield-bearing stablecoins. On November 3, 2026, mainstream rates were roughly 2% to 5% a year, for example 4.16% on USDC at Aave on Ethereum and 2.30% on Lido’s staked ETH. Much higher yields usually mean extra risk rather than free money.

How is DeFi different from traditional finance?
In traditional finance, banks and brokers hold your money, check your identity and can reverse some mistakes, and deposits are insured up to set limits. In DeFi, smart contracts replace those institutions. You hold your own funds, and services run around the clock for anyone with a wallet, but there is no insurance and no one to reverse errors.

What are DeFi aggregators?
DeFi aggregators are apps that search many decentralized exchanges or lending markets at once and route your transaction to the best available price or rate. Trade aggregators such as 1inch, Jupiter and CoW Swap split a swap across several pools to lower costs. Yield aggregators move deposits between protocols automatically. They save time but add another layer of smart contract risk.

Can DeFi transactions be reversed after a hack?
Usually not. Blockchain transactions are final, and there is no bank that can cancel a payment. Recovery depends on attackers returning funds, exchanges freezing stolen coins or law enforcement tracing them. Victims should save transaction details, report the theft to the police or, in the US, to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center, and avoid paid recovery services.

What is TVL in DeFi?
TVL, or total value locked, is the value of all crypto deposited in DeFi smart contracts, measured at current market prices. It is the most common gauge of DeFi’s size. DefiLlama put total DeFi TVL at about $82.1 billion on November 3, 2026, about 46% of its own November 2021 record of $177.5 billion. TVL can fall simply because token prices fall.

How do beginners start using DeFi step by step?
Learn how wallets, seed phrases, gas fees and approvals work. Set up a self-custody wallet, buy a small amount of a network’s native token and a stablecoin on an exchange, and send them to the wallet. Then pick a long-running protocol, try one simple swap or deposit, check the transaction on a block explorer and revoke approvals you no longer need.

What do you need to start using DeFi?
You need a self-custody wallet, some of the network’s native token to pay transaction fees, and the tokens you want to use. Most people buy these on an exchange and send them to their wallet. Start with a small amount, use well-established protocols, bookmark their official websites, and learn how approvals, slippage and liquidations work before borrowing or committing larger sums.

This guide is for information only and is not financial or investment advice. DeFi carries a high risk of loss, including total loss through exploits, scams, liquidations or price swings. Do your own research and never invest more than you can afford to lose.