Bob dives into the DeFi world

Bob wakes up, takes a shower, and drinks his traditional cup of coffee in the morning. He feels kind of old-fashioned as he is sitting there with a real newspaper in his hands, but he really enjoys reading an actual newspaper, instead of just staring into the tiny monitor of his mobile phone.

While Bob reads his paper, he can hear the mailman throwing a letter into the mailbox. He doesn't get many letters, so he puts on some slippers and walks out to the mailbox. It is a letter from his bank. What do they want?

Bob finds a knife and cuts open the envelope. What a feeling! You will never get that feeling when you open an email, will you? But, his enthusiasm quickly disappears as he looks at the content of the letter. It is a statement showing the activities on his bank account for the last three months. But, it is not a statement for his usual bank account that he uses for daily usage. Instead, it is a "hidden" bank account he just keeps in case of emergency. But, what is going on?

Three months ago, the balance of the account was 1234 USD, but now, it is 1200 USD? What has happened? How did 34USD disappear when he didn't spend a dime? As he looks through the details, he can see all sorts of costs applied by the bank. There is a fee for keeping the account, and then he actually got a negative interest for keeping his money in the bank. Bob wants to throw something at someone! If he leaves his money in the bank, it will be like giving the money as a gift to the bank, slowly handed over to them within some years.

Time to go crazy - diving into DeFi

Bob is so fed up with his bank, so he plans on withdrawing his money at once and place them somewhere else. But, where to go? He quickly goes to Google.com and looks for possible solutions. Which is the best bank available? During one of his search requests a word shows up that he hasn't heard about before - DeFi. It almost sounds like Defcon! But, Bob has some minutes left before going to work, so he looks into DeFi, which doesn't have to do with Defcon or war, but about banking without banks. How is that even possible?

After spending 30 minutes of reading, he has written down so many keywords about DeFi that he doesn't know where to start. The most crazy thing about all of it, is the fact that as a part of the DeFi boom he just discovered, people simply staking or keeping their money in cryptocurrency exchanges can even enjoy quite nice interests, just for keeping their money there. That is entirely different from his normal bank!

Bob is a bit skeptical to cryptocurrencies, but here he can actually stake his USD and Euro and receive an interest, and if he is willing to take some risks, he can even get a loan using the same method, without using a real bank. It sounds scary to Bob, but he also sees a lot of advantages of entering the money business without using a 3rd-party bank as an intercessor.

By the time he has finished, he is late for work... seriously. He just opened an account on Binance, the cryptocurrency exchange that seems to be the most popular currently (based on his research). He set up a bank transfer with his remaining money from the account, and since he lacks patience, he also deposited 500USD using his credit card. His deposit is already active, and he is staking some if it flexibly (giving him a 4% interest rate), and he has also added some to so-called "launchpools", and those are actually giving him an interest of 40% currently). How does it work? He adds his Dollars into a pool, and by keeping them there, he is awarded with other cryptocurrencies which he can either keep or sell. How come he didn't discover this earlier?

Bob cannot believe this to be really true, but he knows one thing for sure... by the time he returns home from work, he is gonna dive much deeper into this DeFi thing. It might actually change his entire way of thinking about money, at least, so he feels right now!