Sberbank, Russia's largest bank, is launching an Ethereum-compatible DeFi platform. Commercial transactions will be available by the end of April, and the project is currently in beta testing.
- Sberbank is Russia's largest bank and the third largest in Europe, with $559B in assets under management.
- DeFi
platforms enable banking transactions, such as lending, saving, and
investing, based on a distributed ledger, or blockchain, technology.
- Sberbank wants to make the Russian decentralized finance system the best in the world.
- "Make the Russian DeFi ecosystem No. 1," says Konstantin Klimenko, product director at Sberbank.
- The project will commence in two stages.
- Stage 1: Testing in March
- Stage 2: Launch at the end of April
- Users can log onto the system using their MetaMask wallets.
- Advocates argue that DeFi will reduce banking costs and potentially replace traditional banks.
- Critics
argue that DeFi only has a few real-world use cases, and the lack of
regulation makes it vulnerable to fraud and money laundering.
- Decentralization is
the transfer of control and decision-making from a centralized entity
(individual, organization, or group thereof) to a distributed network.
- Meanwhile, a centralized network is maintained and controlled by a single entity in a centralized location.
- Sberbank's
use of the term "decentralized" banking system is questionable since it
is a state-owned bank, meaning a centralized entity will fully control
the platform.
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