Author: Nancy, PANews After the brutal baptism of market cycles, very few survivors remain in the NFT sector. Even Flow, once a top performer, could not escape the fate of changing times and began to seek new growth points. On December 2nd, Flow announced its transformation into a democratized, consumer-grade DeFi platform, a strategic shift that has attracted significant market attention. Leveraging its large user base and unique technological advantages, Flow is attempting to adapt to market changes and save itself. However, whether it can secure a place in the fiercely competitive DeFi arena remains a huge question mark. Launching DeFi lending and wealth management products, and upgrading to a deflationary token. “Today’s DeFi is hostile; users must possess advanced technical skills to survive, with issues like slippage, MEV, and liquidation cascading effects constantly emerging. Every interface is designed for experts, forcing the rest to the margins. This is precisely the gap we aim to fill,” wrote Roham, CEO of Dapper Labs. In response to this situation, Flow's new goal is to create consumer-oriented DeFi, allowing ordinary users to enjoy the benefits of the crypto world without needing to be technical experts, and truly achieving an easy-to-use experience for mainstream users. Flow is building a series of network architecture components called "built-in protocols," which are more like public financial infrastructure directly embedded in the network layer. In the DeFi space, built-in protocols can provide shared liquidity across the entire ecosystem and integrate liquidity pools from various vertical sectors, avoiding liquidity fragmentation and allowing new projects to avoid the challenges of a cold start. Flow Credit Market (FCM), an automated lending protocol, is the first built-in protocol developed by the Flow Foundation. It utilizes Flow's native on-chain scheduling system to set periodic triggers without the need for external oracles, significantly reducing liquidation risk while increasing loan value (LTV), thereby bringing higher natural returns to both lenders and borrowers. Dapper Labs CEO Roham pointed out that traditional DeFi lending is typically highly punitive, only liquidating and charging penalties when a user's position is close to liquidation. FCM, on the other hand, employs proactive risk management, continuously monitoring each position on-chain automatically and rebalancing it before risks materialize. Internal risk simulations show that FCM has protected user deposits from liquidation during numerous major market crashes, while also reducing costs by up to 99.9% compared to lending protocols on other networks. To accelerate the launch of FCM (Financial Flywheel) services, Dapper Labs has launched Peak Money, a consumer-grade financial flywheel app aimed at becoming the next crypto gateway to 100 million new users. According to Roham, users can deposit cash or crypto assets (such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and FLOW) into Peak Money and earn higher returns than any bank (APY up to 25% for cryptocurrencies and 10% for cash), while funds can be earned and used at any time. The product has no minimum investment, no gatekeeper, no mnemonic phrase required, and no liquidation risks. Peak Money will release details of coverage for specific loss events upon official launch. Currently, Peak Money has an open waiting list. Furthermore, Flow's built-in protocols may be expanded to perpetual contracts, prediction markets, and other applications in the future, providing more user-friendly DeFi applications for mainstream consumers. To achieve sustainable value capture, Flow upgraded its token, transitioning to a deflationary token. The Flow Foundation's FLIP-351 proposal directly links network usage to network value. Each transaction burns tokens, creating scarcity through network activity and thus increasing token value. When the network consistently operates at approximately 250 TPS, the FLOW token will achieve net deflation. Even so, Flow's transaction costs remain lower than mainstream networks like Solana and Base. It's worth noting that the current price of the FLOW token has fallen by over 90% from its all-time high. What gives Flow the confidence and challenges in its cross-industry transformation into DeFi? The current DeFi market is in a phase of rapid growth and fierce competition. As the regulatory environment becomes more favorable, leading protocols are leveraging their first-mover advantage to solidify their positions, while traditional institutions with both compliance and funding advantages are also accelerating their entry, continuously raising the barriers to entry in the field. As one of the few crypto sectors with proven product-market fit (PMF), DeFi still has enormous growth potential. For Flow, which is attempting to transform from consumer-grade Level 1 to DeFi infrastructure, this is not only an opportunity for strategic restructuring but also a challenging "reboot." As a "newcomer" to the DeFi sector, Flow possesses a certain degree of confidence for its cross-industry transformation. On one hand, Flow didn't start from scratch; its accumulated experience in the NFT field provided a unique starting line. With the phenomenal application NBA Top Shot, Flow amassed a large user base. Although its popularity has declined significantly from its peak, the accumulated traffic remains substantial. According to official data, Flow has over 41 million total accounts and over 1.1 million monthly active users. Meanwhile, according to DeFiLlama data, as of December 3rd, Flow's TVL reached $107 million, a 187.1% increase since the beginning of the year. Meanwhile, Flow boasts technological advantages, being designed specifically for large-scale consumer applications. Its low-barrier, low-cost, and high-throughput on-chain environment naturally aligns with the high-frequency trading needs of DeFi. In October of this year, Flow also launched two key upgrades, Forte and Crescendo, aiming to address scalability, deep innovation in DeFi, and cross-chain interoperability issues, further providing technological support for ecosystem transformation. Forte's core goal is to completely eliminate the reliance on off-chain bots or centralized custody services for complex on-chain financial logic. All automation (limit orders, dynamic interest rates, strategy vaults, etc.) runs securely directly on-chain, making it easier for developers to build complex financial applications. Crescendo upgrades Flow with Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) equivalence, enabling seamless interoperability with Ethereum-based applications and protocols. Flow claims to be one of the few blockchains capable of supporting millions of daily active users (DAU) without incurring high or unpredictable gas fees. However, Flow's transformation still faces considerable challenges. On one hand, all new public chains face the challenge of a liquidity cold start. Although Flow has a significant user base, it mainly consists of NFT users, most of whom have already left the market. How to re-attract these users and convert them into DeFi users remains highly uncertain. On the other hand, the ecosystems of leading public chains are already quite rich and have formed barriers. Flow needs to quickly attract high-quality developers and build innovative applications that are recognized by the market in order to form a sustainable positive cycle of ecosystem. More importantly, Flow has long been labeled by the market as an NFT public chain. To break this stereotype, Flow must present a successful DeFi application case to prove its suitability for the financial sector. Overall, the technical architecture and user base add more certainty to Flow's "re-entrepreneurial" endeavor. However, the success of this transformation hinges on Flow's ability to activate dormant NFT users through a compelling DeFi narrative and break down liquidity barriers.Author: Nancy, PANews After the brutal baptism of market cycles, very few survivors remain in the NFT sector. Even Flow, once a top performer, could not escape the fate of changing times and began to seek new growth points. On December 2nd, Flow announced its transformation into a democratized, consumer-grade DeFi platform, a strategic shift that has attracted significant market attention. Leveraging its large user base and unique technological advantages, Flow is attempting to adapt to market changes and save itself. However, whether it can secure a place in the fiercely competitive DeFi arena remains a huge question mark. Launching DeFi lending and wealth management products, and upgrading to a deflationary token. “Today’s DeFi is hostile; users must possess advanced technical skills to survive, with issues like slippage, MEV, and liquidation cascading effects constantly emerging. Every interface is designed for experts, forcing the rest to the margins. This is precisely the gap we aim to fill,” wrote Roham, CEO of Dapper Labs. In response to this situation, Flow's new goal is to create consumer-oriented DeFi, allowing ordinary users to enjoy the benefits of the crypto world without needing to be technical experts, and truly achieving an easy-to-use experience for mainstream users. Flow is building a series of network architecture components called "built-in protocols," which are more like public financial infrastructure directly embedded in the network layer. In the DeFi space, built-in protocols can provide shared liquidity across the entire ecosystem and integrate liquidity pools from various vertical sectors, avoiding liquidity fragmentation and allowing new projects to avoid the challenges of a cold start. Flow Credit Market (FCM), an automated lending protocol, is the first built-in protocol developed by the Flow Foundation. It utilizes Flow's native on-chain scheduling system to set periodic triggers without the need for external oracles, significantly reducing liquidation risk while increasing loan value (LTV), thereby bringing higher natural returns to both lenders and borrowers. Dapper Labs CEO Roham pointed out that traditional DeFi lending is typically highly punitive, only liquidating and charging penalties when a user's position is close to liquidation. FCM, on the other hand, employs proactive risk management, continuously monitoring each position on-chain automatically and rebalancing it before risks materialize. Internal risk simulations show that FCM has protected user deposits from liquidation during numerous major market crashes, while also reducing costs by up to 99.9% compared to lending protocols on other networks. To accelerate the launch of FCM (Financial Flywheel) services, Dapper Labs has launched Peak Money, a consumer-grade financial flywheel app aimed at becoming the next crypto gateway to 100 million new users. According to Roham, users can deposit cash or crypto assets (such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and FLOW) into Peak Money and earn higher returns than any bank (APY up to 25% for cryptocurrencies and 10% for cash), while funds can be earned and used at any time. The product has no minimum investment, no gatekeeper, no mnemonic phrase required, and no liquidation risks. Peak Money will release details of coverage for specific loss events upon official launch. Currently, Peak Money has an open waiting list. Furthermore, Flow's built-in protocols may be expanded to perpetual contracts, prediction markets, and other applications in the future, providing more user-friendly DeFi applications for mainstream consumers. To achieve sustainable value capture, Flow upgraded its token, transitioning to a deflationary token. The Flow Foundation's FLIP-351 proposal directly links network usage to network value. Each transaction burns tokens, creating scarcity through network activity and thus increasing token value. When the network consistently operates at approximately 250 TPS, the FLOW token will achieve net deflation. Even so, Flow's transaction costs remain lower than mainstream networks like Solana and Base. It's worth noting that the current price of the FLOW token has fallen by over 90% from its all-time high. What gives Flow the confidence and challenges in its cross-industry transformation into DeFi? The current DeFi market is in a phase of rapid growth and fierce competition. As the regulatory environment becomes more favorable, leading protocols are leveraging their first-mover advantage to solidify their positions, while traditional institutions with both compliance and funding advantages are also accelerating their entry, continuously raising the barriers to entry in the field. As one of the few crypto sectors with proven product-market fit (PMF), DeFi still has enormous growth potential. For Flow, which is attempting to transform from consumer-grade Level 1 to DeFi infrastructure, this is not only an opportunity for strategic restructuring but also a challenging "reboot." As a "newcomer" to the DeFi sector, Flow possesses a certain degree of confidence for its cross-industry transformation. On one hand, Flow didn't start from scratch; its accumulated experience in the NFT field provided a unique starting line. With the phenomenal application NBA Top Shot, Flow amassed a large user base. Although its popularity has declined significantly from its peak, the accumulated traffic remains substantial. According to official data, Flow has over 41 million total accounts and over 1.1 million monthly active users. Meanwhile, according to DeFiLlama data, as of December 3rd, Flow's TVL reached $107 million, a 187.1% increase since the beginning of the year. Meanwhile, Flow boasts technological advantages, being designed specifically for large-scale consumer applications. Its low-barrier, low-cost, and high-throughput on-chain environment naturally aligns with the high-frequency trading needs of DeFi. In October of this year, Flow also launched two key upgrades, Forte and Crescendo, aiming to address scalability, deep innovation in DeFi, and cross-chain interoperability issues, further providing technological support for ecosystem transformation. Forte's core goal is to completely eliminate the reliance on off-chain bots or centralized custody services for complex on-chain financial logic. All automation (limit orders, dynamic interest rates, strategy vaults, etc.) runs securely directly on-chain, making it easier for developers to build complex financial applications. Crescendo upgrades Flow with Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) equivalence, enabling seamless interoperability with Ethereum-based applications and protocols. Flow claims to be one of the few blockchains capable of supporting millions of daily active users (DAU) without incurring high or unpredictable gas fees. However, Flow's transformation still faces considerable challenges. On one hand, all new public chains face the challenge of a liquidity cold start. Although Flow has a significant user base, it mainly consists of NFT users, most of whom have already left the market. How to re-attract these users and convert them into DeFi users remains highly uncertain. On the other hand, the ecosystems of leading public chains are already quite rich and have formed barriers. Flow needs to quickly attract high-quality developers and build innovative applications that are recognized by the market in order to form a sustainable positive cycle of ecosystem. More importantly, Flow has long been labeled by the market as an NFT public chain. To break this stereotype, Flow must present a successful DeFi application case to prove its suitability for the financial sector. Overall, the technical architecture and user base add more certainty to Flow's "re-entrepreneurial" endeavor. However, the success of this transformation hinges on Flow's ability to activate dormant NFT users through a compelling DeFi narrative and break down liquidity barriers.