Decentralized finance (DeFi) unlocks financial freedom for everyone. No gatekeepers. No middlemen. Just direct access to raw financial innovation, supercharged by radical transparency and composability.

The promise is nothing short of revolutionary. Banking the unbanked, cutting remittance costs, and democratizing finance, all while streamlining global markets and even inventing new, better forms of money.

Still, for most, DeFi is largely unusable. Users just don’t have time to navigate the convoluted, ever-changing landscape of apps, terminology, and evolving risk/reward.

DeFi deserves to be used by the whole world, not just early adopters and true believers.

So, how do we get there?

Breaking down barriers

To realize its promise, DeFi needs to be less like a full time job and more like a long-term investment — just set it and forget it, no matter who you are, no arcane knowledge needed.

Reserve unlocks easy access to DeFi by abstracting away complications. One-click minting (bottom) handles multiple transactions (top) under the hood to optimally assemble a diversified RToken.

The Reserve protocol enables this vision by breaking down three key barriers to entry into DeFi:

1. DeFi is daunting. Information overload makes DeFi unapproachable. Everyday investors don’t have time to keep up with “flavor of the week” apps and incentives, scour social media for alpha, or monitor for hacks, depegs, or rug-pulls. Investing should be dead simple.
2. DeFi is disjointed. Too often, DeFi feels like a piecemeal hodgepodge of apps and services: on-ramps, chains, wallets, and dApps, each with their own unique interfaces and idiosyncrasies. A unified user experience is sorely needed.
3. DeFi is dangerous. Despite major progress in risk monitoring and audits, DeFi is still riddled with scams, hacks, and depegs. Beyond the tough-to-swallow tail risk, threat monitoring can be an enormous time sink.

By pushing unnecessary complications to the back-end, the Reserve protocol isolates these pain points and offloads them away from the end user.

Easy, safe, effective DeFi.

RTokens: a single interface to all of DeFi

RTokens act like a standardized interface to all of DeFi — a single point of entry to top opportunities, with yield-chasing and depeg risk offloaded to Reserve Rights (RSR) stakers on the back end.

Instead of mastering the ins and outs of multiple DeFi platforms, RTokens let users pick their favorite flavor of DeFi — stablecoin lending, market-making, liquid staking — and earn diversified yield with a single click.

RTokens offer a single point of entry to a wide range of DeFi products. The Reserve protocol supports 70+ tokenized assets that anyone can freely combine to create custom RTokens.

From there, the pains of position management are delegated to RSR stakers. Stakers earn a portion of an RToken’s yield in exchange for governance and security — pledging their RSR as emergency first-loss capital while managing the RToken’s configuration and collateral.

RSR stakers make RToken investing simple by managing asset allocations and backstopping losses.

This separation of concerns unlocks two RToken “superpowers” that enable “set it and forget it” DeFi investment:

RTokens are shape-shifting

RSR stakers manage the collateral composition of RTokens, and can sub in better yielding, more liquid, or safer assets whenever necessary. This takes yield chasing and position management out of the hands of RToken holders, who just hold a single token while stakers handle the rest.

RTokens are self-healing

Staked RSR also acts as an emergency backstop — sold off to cover losses if collateral depegs. This mitigates potential losses for RToken holders, and incentivizes RSR stakers to maintain safe collateral. Since stakers are the first ones “on the hook” if collateral defaults, they’re incentivized to monitor risks proactively — one less thing for RToken holders to worry about.

RTokens offer a single, simple interface to all of DeFi: one-click access to safer, sustainable yield. But what about users who aren’t quite ready to dive into DeFi?

Easy access through fintech app integrations

Fintech app integrations allows users to earn RToken yield without interacting with the blockchain. No wallet, no chain explorer, no dApps — just DeFi yield wrapped in a familiar app format.

UGLYCASH allows users to earn RToken yields through their banking and payments app, no blockchain needed.

Reserve Protocol shares revenue with RToken integrators, who can then share it with their users. On-chain interactions all happen behind the scenes, giving users low-friction access to RToken yield through a simple app interface.

DTFs: Just buy the haystack

“Don’t look for the needle in the haystack. Just buy the haystack!”

John C. Bogle, Vanguard Founder

As crypto markets grow increasingly complex, zeroing in on particular investment theses grows increasingly difficult. Today, over 4 million crypto tokens are traded on DEXs — up over 200% this year — with at least 3,500 tokens boasting a $1M+ market cap (source: GeckoTerminal, CoinGecko).

Exponential growth in the number of tokens traded on decentralized exchanges (as of November 2024).

Clearly, no one person can keep track of them all.

Enter Decentralized Token Folios, or DTFs, a new crypto index platform coming soon from the Reserve Protocol. DTFs allow anyone to create a tradeable portfolio of tokens — like TradFi index funds — that tracks any theme, trend, or market sector with a single token.

So, instead of scouring social media, whitepapers, or DEXscreener for concentrated bets on particular theses, investors can just choose from thematic DTFs that target their preferred narrative— memecoins, AI, DePIN, DeFi, GameFi, DeSci, etc.

DTFs let users focus on the narratives they care about, offloading the tedium to portfolio curators.

Meet Reserve, wherever you’re at

Whether it’s yield farming, saving, or trading you’re after, the Reserve protocol offers straightforward access to all that DeFi has to offer.

Interested in learning more?

• Check out our new user guide— no experience necessary!
• Explore top RTokens and yield opportunities on Reserve Register
• Follow Reserve on 𝕏 (formerly Twitter) and Farcaster, or join the Reserve Discord server for more in-depth discussion