Among these, DeFi is at the forefront, powered by blockchain technology that allows borderless, permissionless, and trustless transactions. Major segments, however, remain lending, staking, and yield farming protocols, powered by native tokens incentivizing participation and governance in the protocols.
Aave and Compound are lending protocols that allow digital assets to be loaned or borrowed with no intermediary. Smart contracts automate the transaction so that competitive interest rates and rewards can be achieved. Tokens AAVE and COMP are native tokens in those protocols, respectively, serving for governance, liquidity incentives, and collateralization.
Staking protocols provide the avenue for participants to lock their tokens in a network for blockchain security and operations. Just a few of the popular examples where staking is important in their PoS consensus mechanisms are Ethereum 2.0, Solana, and Cardano. Stakers are incentivized with rewards paid in native tokens, which make staking an attractive, passive source of income while at the same time helping to enhance network stability.
DeFi goes a step further and does yield farming to help users maximize their returns through the provision of liquidity into such DEXs as Uniswap-UNI and SushiSwap-SUSHI. Farmers are rewarded with native tokens for providing liquidity, thus driving rich token economies.
All these protocols together democratize financial services, leveraging native tokens to align incentives and build community-driven participation in fueling innovation that makes DeFi a cornerstone of the crypto revolution.
Thanks
~ Nesaty