Steemit Crypto Academy - Week 7 - Post for @gbenga

Hello awesome people, how is everyone doing today, the week is almost over and I hope everyone is doing great as we prepare for the new coming week. So so excited to be part of this lecture and be a part of this week’s course. Really enjoying the lectures so far and for me, I find it as a great way to continue expanding my knowledge more and more on blockchain, cryptocurrency and related topics. This week’s topic covers Defi and Yield Farming… Like we have seen so far in the world of blockchain and cryptocurrency, DeFi has been the major talking points.

Before we delve into the main topic for today which is write about a project based around DeFi, I will like to first give a brief explanation about DeFi and what they are, so as to set the base for the main topic…

What is Decentralized Finance or DeFi?

DeFi, this has remained one of the resounding terms for months now since it came into the limelight. Almost everyone in the crypto space at the moment have been talking about DeFi and how amazing it has been. It is gotten so big that a lot of the biggest projects in the crypto space at the moment operates on DeFi.

DeFi which is just the short form of Decentralized Finance is simply decentralizing the financial system. It is as simple as that. It basically means giving control to people rather than being controlled by a central entity or authority like we have in the current financial system.

Whenever the term DeFi is mentioned, it just means the decentralized version of the financial system. Almost everything that operates on the current centralized financial system is on DeFi which has shown shown to have all it takes to disrupt the current centralized financial system and bring full decentralization to the financial system and to users.

The DeFi space and has proven to work effectively and efficiently as well since it is being powered by the blockchain and inherits all the benefits of what blockchain technology and cryptocurrency have to offer. On DeFi, we have DEX for peer to peer and secure exchange of cryptocurrency assets, we have Wallets which gives users control of their keys and funds, we have features like staking, lending, borrowing, interests… these are all elements that are part of DeFi.

In this post, I will be focusing on the wallet aspect of DeFi. Since DeFi is simply the decentralized version of the centralized financial system, that runs on the blockchain, A crypto wallet is a great example of a DeFi protocol because it gives users control of their funds and keys. More like users being their own bank and having full control of their funds. The DeFi wallet I will be writing about is Myetherwallet.

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DeFi Wallet – Myetherwallet

Wallets in cryptocurrency are one of the aspects of cryptocurrency that everyone in the crypto space already know about. In fact, without a wallet, cryptocurrency cannot be stored, it is the only way to store and hold cryptocurrencies, that is why it is one of the first things people know when they come into the crypto space and own cryptocurrencies.

When we talk of wallets in cryptocurrency, there are various types of wallets; web wallets, mobile wallets, desktop wallets, hardware wallets and paper wallets… Wallets can also be categorized as software wallets, hardware wallets and paper wallets… it can also be categorized as custodial wallets and non-costodial wallets.

It is important to know that not all wallets are part of DeFi. Costodial wallets are not part of DeFi and only Non-costodial wallets are part of DeFi. Any wallet that gives you full control over your keys and funds is part of DeFi because the whole essence of DeFi is decentralization and giving users full control.

Myetherwallet is a very good example of a DeFi compactible wallet that has been around for a long time now… it is regarded by many as one of the best wallets in the DeFi space that runs on the ethereum blockchain which is considered the king of DeFi. Like a lot of other web wallets, myetherwallet is basically a web protocol gateway for interacting with the ethereum blockchain and is great for ethereum and ethereum tokens.

A lot of DeFi projects runs on the ethereum blockchain because of its decentralization, security, features and smart contracts which is one of the key elements of DeFi. The ERC-20 token is one of the main tokens of a lot of the DeFi projects, utilizing ethereum’s capabilities and features and there are not that many wallets that is compatible with ERC-20 tokens than Myetherwallet.

One of the key features and benefits of Myetherwallet is its simplicity, ease of use and compactibility with a lot of ERC-20 and ethereum based tokens. Myetherwallet has proven to be a very secure and reliable wallet in the DeFi space.

DeFi Wallet (Myetherwallet) Characteristics

• Non-Custodial – You are your own bank, which means you have full control of your funds. You decide when and how to transfer or send your funds.

• Private Key/Seed Phrase – Not your keys not your funds is one of the statements that has been in the crypto space for long. In DeFi, users have control of their funds and a wallet that provides users with their private keys or seed phrase, gives users full control of their funds and assets.

• Accessibility – One of the key aspects of DeFi is accessibility which means being able to access it anywhere anytime. A DeFi wallet like Myetherwallet is accessible to anyone at any time.

• Open Source – Being open source means that it is free and open for anyone to contribute and have access to the protocol which is great for DeFi. MyEtherWallet is a free, open-source, client-side tool for interacting with the Ethereum blockchain network in an easy and secure way.

• Compatible – This is key for DeFi because of the numerous projects that are springing up in the DeFi space. Myetherwallet is a highly compatible wallet when it comes to ethereum and eth based tokens. For DeFi, ethereum is king for now. Also, myetherwallet is compatible with a lot of DeFi DApps making it easy to connect and interact with other applications in the DeFi space.

How to Make Use of Myetherwallet

Mytherwallet is one of the easiest and straight forward web3 wallet heavily used in DeFi. In my opinion, Myetherwallet still remains one of the best web wallets for ethereum and ethereum based tokens and one of the most reliable as well. I’m going to be showing how to set up myetherwallet and some of the main features of the wallet that you will be making use of most of the time…

Creating a Myetherwallet Wallet

• To create a wallet on myetherwallet, first visit https://www.myetherwallet.com – It is always important to confirm that you are on the correct right URL before you proceed.

• On the homepage, click on create a new wallet

• Next, you will be provided three options to select how you want to be accessing your wallet… the three options are Mew wallet, keystore file and mnemonic phrase also known as seed phrase.

• For this setup, I will make use of the mnemonic or seed phrase method

• Select by mnemonic phrase and your 12 word seed phrase will be displayed.

• Ensure to keep this seed phrase safe. Write it down in their correct order. This phrase allows you access to your wallet and gives you have full control of your assets.

• After that, choose on I wrote down... Ensure that you have written it down before proceeding...

• The Next screen is the verification section
• Verify and input your mnemonic phrase in their correct order
• Once you have completed that, you can move to the next step

• You myetherwallet have been created successfully

Unlocking the myetherwallet

• To Unlock the myetherwallet, go to unlock wallet and click on it
• Since we selected mnemonic phrase at the setup stage, we will have to use the mnemonic phrase option to unlock the wallet.
• Click on the mnemonic phrase option and continue

• Fill in the phrases in their correct order and proceed

• After that, accept the terms so as to move to the next step
• Choose any of the wallet address from the listed options and click on access my wallet.

• Congrats, you have successfully unlocked your myetherwallet.
• Once your wallet is unlocked, you will see your dashboard that shows your token balances and ethereum based tokens in your wallet.

• The most used features is the send and swap features and the ability to add custom tokens

• The send feature allows you to transact with the blockchain network by sending transactions, either eth or eth based tokens to another ethereum address.

The Swap Feature

This is an amazing DeFi feature of the Myetherwallet because it allows you and provides the gateway to swap between different tokens and coins right inside of the Myetherwallet interface.

Adding custom is also another very cool feature of myetherwallet.
Myetherwallet comes with a huge list of pre-added tokens... However, there are times when you need to add a custom token, especially new DeFi tokens. To add a custom token, click on the add custom token on the side of the web wallet and type in the contract address of the token, the symbol and decimals as well.

Cc:
@steemcurator01
@steemcurator02
@steemitblog
@gbenga