Cryptocurrency seems to be everywhere. It’s gone from an obscure, abstract technological concept to a household word in only a few years. At the same time, decentralized finance has evolved to offer crypto owners the kind of services and earning strategies that traditional financial institutions have for fiat currency. DeFi platforms refined their business models and improved their user experience, but if you’re new to this world, you still might still find it too complex and confusing.

Just understanding the basics can be bewildering. Ask your tech friend about blockchain and you’ll hear that it’s a brilliant computer networking invention that has revolutionized finance as well as many other industries. Beyond that, you probably won’t understand a word they’re saying. If cryptographic hash functions and hard forks sound more like they’re referring to food than finance, it’s understandable why you’d be wary of putting your assets into cryptocurrency or trusting a DeFi platform.

Don’t give up, because you don’t need a degree in computer science to take advantage of the opportunities crypto offers.

Blockchain is fundamentally a digital ledger that’s verified and stored on distributed, transparent public networks instead of a centralized institution. It’s secure – many users would argue it’s more secure than traditional systems – because it’s immutable. Transactions can’t be changed, reversed or duplicated because they’re part of a chain that’s recorded on a broad network, and the more established the chain the more impossible it is to alter.

Smart contracts are programs or a set of computer algorithms that automatically execute transactions on a blockchain when certain conditions are met. Since they’re transparent, all parties are aware of the conditions and immediately know when the transaction is completed, without any intermediary. Simple and elegant, right? Let’s move on to decentralized finance.

DeFi is the innovative industry that provides financial strategies for this new system. Most utilize the established blockchain Ethereum and develop decentralized applications or dApps to run on it. DApps are essentially smart contracts with an interface for users. Now, let’s see how one platform, Nimbus, puts this all together.

Nimbus acknowledges that some of their smart contracts are not unique because they share parts of the same logic with other platforms, such as Uniswap. Nimbus is unique in that it combines these parts to work efficiently for their users, all on one platform. They realize that most users don’t want to visit numerous different platforms or learn how to use multiple tools, so Nimbus offers their products with a simple step-by-step user interface.

Nimbus also develops its own distinctive products, such as the first yield-generating NFT. While other platforms offer NFTs that represent ownership in unique assets such as digital art, the Nimbus n-NFT functions like a personalized financial strategy that automatically distributes assets across products. This saves their users time and fees while mitigating risk, and optimizing yields. With another product, the Nimbus IPO hub, users will gain access to IPO shares with digital assets, and without a brokerage or their exorbitant fees. Users will also benefit from the IPO Hub’s sophisticated evaluation mechanisms and relevant analytics.

Many DeFi platforms outsource the development of smart contracts, particularly in their initial phase. Nimbus avoids outsourcing because they believe it is one of the most common mistakes made by start-ups. While there may be a few good reasons to outsource temporarily, like quickly launching a new product in the market to see if it will work or for legal issues, the most critical problem that occurs is lack of control. If a product is developed and held by the outsourced technical team, a company doesn’t have control of the technology and it doesn’t have the product. However, if there are coding errors, the company will suffer the financial repercussions, and these can be massive.

To avoid this scenario, prevent errors and loss of control, the Nimbus Platform had carefully assembled a dedicated in-house development team. They believe that it is critical to analyze and closely examine their smart contracts to make sure they function without flaw. Nimbus developers are trained to be aware of the vulnerabilities of smart contracts to correct any errors. While all Nimbus smart contract developers must also know financial basics, they don’t need a background in finance since the company believes in the importance of multifaceted perspectives.

When you know something about how blockchain works, it’s easy to see why crypto has revolutionized currency and finance. It may be time to learn more, and a platform like Nimbus can help.