DeFi, explained from first principles
The internals behind every DeFi decision you'll make.
Plain-English walkthroughs of 50+ protocols, free calculators built on the real smart-contract formulas, and side-by-side comparisons — so you can size a position before you commit capital.
Uniswap
Constant-product AMM, concentrated liquidity, and V3 tick math — the definitive walkthrough.
~18 min read
What you'll learn here
DeFi moves fast, and the gap between a protocol's marketing site and its on-chain reality is where capital tends to get lost. We read the smart contracts so you don't have to. Every walkthrough starts with the invariant a protocol enforces, the assumptions baked into its math, and the edge cases that trigger liquidations, slashings, or peg breaks in the wild.
You'll find the mechanics needed before clicking Confirm: how an AMM prices a swap when depth thins, what a health factor actually measures, why a lending pool can be drained by a flash loan, and when a stablecoin's backing stops being liquid. Our free calculators run the same formulas protocols execute on-chain, so the numbers here match what the contract will give you when you transact — no rounding, no simplified approximations, no hidden fee schedules.
Lending & Stablecoins
Aave
liveLending pools, health factors, liquidation cascades, flash loans, GHO.
Compound
livecTokens, interest rate models, governance, Compound III.
MakerDAO
liveCDPs, DAI stability mechanism, liquidation auctions, DSR.
Stablecoins
liveUSDC, USDT, Ethena USDe — reserves, peg mechanics, risk, yield.
DEXs & Trading
Uniswap
liveAMM mechanics, constant product, concentrated liquidity, V3 tick math.
Curve
liveStableSwap invariant, ve-tokenomics, gauge wars, Curve pool math.
Hyperliquid
liveOn-chain order-book L1, HyperBFT consensus, HLP vault, sub-second finality.
DEX Aggregators
live1inch, CoW Swap, routing optimization, solver auctions.
Staking & Restaking
Infrastructure
Emerging
Reference
How we build content
Each hub page starts from the protocol's own documentation, audits, and deployed contract source, then cross-checks governance forums and post-mortems for the mechanics that changed after launch. We verify every formula against the bytecode before it ships, date each page, and revisit whenever a protocol upgrades, a fork launches, or an exploit reveals something the docs glossed over. No paid placements, no tokens to shill — if something here is wrong, tell us and corrections go live the same day.