A taxonomy for decentralized finance
基于文献分析，从战略、组织、技术三个视角构建了包含7个维度36个特征的DeFi分类体系，并应用于278家初创企业，发现多数聚焦以太坊和分析自动化，但去中心化治理应用较少。
Decentralized Finance (‘DeFi’) has gained tremendous momentum over the past three years by using novel approaches to disintermediating financial institutions in the provision of financial services. However, empirical research in this field is still rare, and a more comprehensive understanding of the domain is a missing component in academic research. This paper develops a taxonomy based on a comprehensive literature analysis to structure this emerging field systematically. The taxonomy includes three perspectives (strategy, organization, technology) and seven dimensions (blockchain, value proposition, token type, business process, price mechanism, protocol type, integration type) as well as thirty-six characteristics. The application of the taxonomy to 278 DeFi start-ups reveals that most of the DeFi start-ups focus on Ethereum (36.3%) and have a focus on analytics and automation (52%), while, surprisingly only a few incorporate decentralized governance approaches (3.3%), provide decentralized exchanges (14%) or integrate off-chain data.