3 High-Value Base DeFi Plays

If you're not using these applications on Base, you could be leaving serious money on the table…

Base isn’t just another Layer 2. It has quickly become a go-to blockchain for serious crypto users looking to access all that DeFi has to offer. Whether you're seeking access to off-chain investment opportunities, hunting for premier yield opportunities, or trying to best the market with leverage trading, Base is where the action is happening.

Here are the top 3 Base apps you should explore today! 🔥👇

💱 Backed Finance

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About:

Founded in 2021, Backed Finance is crypto’s preeminent security tokenization platform. This protocol bridges the gap between TradFi and DeFi to offer onchain exposure to traditional assets, such as stocks and bonds.

Every issued Backed Finance token, or bTOKEN, is backed 1:1 by the asset it represents. To mitigate the risk of misappropriation, the underlying securities reserving Backed assets are held by licensed third-party custodians.

As freely transferable ERC-20s, bTOKENS can be purchased by anyone and used in conjunction with existing DeFi primitives, like decentralized exchanges. Unfortunately, only approved “Backed clients” (i.e.; non-US and non-sanctioned investors) can mint and redeem these assets, which may lead their price to deviate from that of the security they are intended to represent.

Backed Finance tokenized securities have been available across multiple networks – including Ethereum, Polygon, Arbitrum – for years at this point, but the recent deployment of bCOIN on the Base network brought these products back into the spotlight as a regulated way to acquire stock and bond exposure onchain.

How to Use:

A complete list of available Backed Finance tokenized securities can be found on the protocol’s website under the “Product” section. There, you can view all available bTOKENS and the blockchains on which they are issued.

Before acquiring any bTOKEN – particularly the more complex token types representing bond or exchange-traded fund ownership – it is important to understand what you are actually purchasing. Copy the security ticker symbol, then research it online to conduct diligence on the investment opportunity.

Once you have determined which bTOKEN(s) you want to purchase, click the blockchain symbol corresponding with the network you want to purchase the tokens on under “smart contracts.”

From here, you will be directed to a block explorer that displays information about the selected bTOKEN, including its contract address. Copy this bTOKEN contract address, then input it into a decentralized exchange (like Uniswap or CoWSwap) to purchase securities onchain!

✈️ Aerodrome

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About:

Aerodrome isn’t just one of the best places to earn yield on Base: it is one of the best places to earn crypto yield, period!

With a novel token incentive design that decouples liquidity provider yields from actual swap fees, Aerodrome consistently serves up market-leading yields for a variety of crypto assets and has become a frequent flyer in weekly Bankless top yield opportunity releases for good reason.

Aerodrome’s tokenomics combine the unique aspects of Curve/Convex liquidity mechanics with the passive market making technology pioneered by Uniswap, encouraging long-term oriented holders to lock their tokens.

Via Aerodrome’s incentives market, users can lock crypto tokens as rewards for veAERO voters that direct emissions towards a designated pool, producing a functional Aerodrome liquidity bribery market and an additional source of income for veAERO participants.

How to Use:

AERO holders can lock their tokens for up to four years to receive veAERO, which enables them to determine how AERO emissions are allocated (longer lock periods correspond with greater veAERO voting power). Voters for a specific pool will earn all swap fees generated from the pool and can receive additional bribe payments for their votes.

Alternatively, for users looking to generate income from their crypto asset portfolio, Aerodrome offers a number of different liquidity pools for various token pairings. By depositing into these pools, Aerodrome liquidity providers earn the inflationary AERO incentives, which are allocated by veAERO voters.

🔱 Avantis

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About:

Avantis is a perpetual futures exchange backed by leading crypto venture firms that offers up to 500x leverage on crypto assets, foreign currencies, precious metals, and commodities to traders on the Base network.

While the Avantis exchange only accepts USDC for trading collateral, it offers an in-app money market via integration with Morpho, which enables depositors to borrow USDC margin against their crypto collateral.

As with any onchain perpetual exchange, liquidity providers are the lifeblood of Avantis; in exchange for their service, LPs earn organic yield from all trades on Avantis. Compared to the industry standard of a single liquidity pool – as seen with GMX’s GLP or Hyperliquid’s HLP – Avantis implements a novel tranched design for its liquidity providers, enabling them to optimize between risk and reward with junior and senior loss capital pools.

To balance the books for its liquidity providers, Avantis may encourage traders to take the opposite side of the bet as prevailing sentiment with “Loss Rebates,” a unique mechanism that provides contrarian traders with a guaranteed rebates of up to 20% on their trading losses for helping to bring platform open long and short interest into equilibrium.

How to Use:

For onchain degens looking to trade with leverage, all it takes is a few clicks in the Avantis “Trade” page to access hundreds of available markets!

While insane 500x leverage is only available on select foreign exchange pairs, Avantis offers 100x leverage on majors BTC and ETH, meanwhile, its altcoin and commodity markets offer up to 50x leverage.

Alternatively, level-headed individuals seeking to generate passive income from degen demand to speculate can provide liquidity with Avantis LP vaults to earn platform fees from making markets. While Avantis "junior” vaults earn higher fee revenues than “senior” vaults, junior LPs are exposed to losses when traders profit.

Receive detailed instructions on how to trade or provide liquidity on Avantis in the Bankless Airdrop Hunter!