Over $250 Million Worth of BNB Caught up in DeFi Yield Farming Frenzy on Binance

The frenzy around decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols and applications is gradually making its way into centralized crypto trading venues.

Less than three days after Binance announced the release of its Launchpool service, users have now staked over $250 million worth of BNB tokens on the platform. The promise is that users would receive BEL tokens, the native token of the new DeFi project, Bella Protocol.

Over $250M worth of #BNB is being used to farm #BEL tokens!

Throw a ?‍? in the comments if you’re farming $BEL on https://t.co/QILSkzOI1K ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/lSikTx2Gn4

— Binance (@binance) September 9, 2020

Per its explainer article, the Bella Protocol provides a number of DeFi products (Bella Liquidity Mining, Flex Savings, One-Click Portal, and Lending) that bring the experience of traditional finance to crypto investors looking to get involved with yield farming, and other crypto-banking experiences.

The project already provides automated services, subsidizes gas fees, with a further promise of catering to both new and experienced users either on-chain or via its custodian service.

DeFi lands on CEXs

The large involvement of crypto holders in Binance’s newly launched DeFi yield farming offer arguably illustrates the potential market for investors who are interested in participating in DeFi but has stayed behind because of the complex processes involved.

A retail-focused crypto exchange like Binance has simplified the process, allowing users to get involved with a few clicks other than they usually would need to access other similar services on a typical cryptocurrency exchange dashboard.

One may also argue that it is only a matter of time until other centralized cryptocurrency exchanges, go down the same path in search of the gains associated with DeFi. A piece of strong evidence in that regard is how quickly centralized exchanges list and enable trading for DeFi-based tokens, irrespective of how many hours old the projects have existed.

Even Binance had come under fire for listing the DeFi token, SUSHI within three days after the project launched. The anonymous founder of the SushiSwap protocol has reportedly disappeared with investor funds, while the project has somehow survived.