Basics

The tutorial has been designed so that any person who wants to learn about DeFiChain and already has basic knowledge of cryptocurrencies can do so.

Want to meet other community members? Check out "Connecting with the Community."

The Purpose of DeFiChain

DeFiChain specializes in decentralized finance (DeFi), so the project has built a blockchain that is specifically designed for this purpose.

DeFiChain currently offers the following features:

• Exchanging your assets, including tokenized cryptocurrencies and stocks.

• Collateral-backed loans (as mentioned above!)

• Providing liquidity for people who are swapping, earning rewards (this is known as liquidity mining)

• Running your own masternode, securing and processing transactions, earning rewards (commonly known as staking)

Now that you know more about DeFiChain, let's discuss how to buy DFI.

Buying DFI

(This is a short excerpt from the more comprehensive page DFI Exchanges.)

There are many different ways to buy DFI, from fiat (ex: USD/EUR), stablecoin (USDT/USDC), or crypto (ex: BTC/ETH).

• KuCoin (large exchange)

  • Offers stablecoin and Bitcoin trading

    • There are direct DFI pairs with USDT and BTC, the former of which has more liquidity, reducing potential trading losses due to slippage. Slippage is a loss caused when there is not enough liquidity to buy or sell coins at the price you want, causing a worse trade price than expected. It also does not require KYC, and can be used in the United States, Europe, and Asia. Check their Terms of Use for restricted locations.

    • For fees, check https://m.kucoin.com/vip/fee (mobile) or https://www.kucoin.com/vip/level. Make sure you review Class B fees, not the default Class A. Fees can also be temporarily reduced by using a referral code.

• Bittrex (small exchange)

  • Offers fiat, stablecoin, and crypto trading

    • You can also convert fiat to stablecoin to buy DFI through the USDT pair, or using Euros you can purchase DFI directly. Bittrex also offers direct Bitcoin to DFI trading and Ethereum-to-DFI trading. Although there are more options, the liquidity may be poorer than on KuCoin, and most users have chosen to use KuCoin.

    • For fees, check https://bittrex.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000199651-Bittrex-fees

• Cake DeFi (versatile platform)

  • Offers crypto trading 

    • Cake does not qualify as an exchange, but through the company it is possible to exchange various cryptos (BTC, ETH, LTC, DOGE, BCH) to DFI using DeFiChain's decentralized exchange (DEX). It is required to complete KYC to use Cake.

One of the most commonly used ways to purchase DFI is through KuCoin. Investors may use a bigger exchange, for example Coinbase or Binance, to first buy crypto from fiat, before sending it to KuCoin to buy DFI.

Withdrawing to Your Own Wallet

By getting your own wallet and moving your coins there, you eliminate the third-party risk of them having control of your coins. A common saying by many crypto investors is "not your keys, not your coins." If you choose to withdraw to your own wallet, always make sure to withdraw DFI based on DeFiChain's blockchain to the wallets below, not the "ERC-20" version! You will lose your DFI if you try to withdraw ERC-20 DFI to the wallets below.

DeFiChain offers both "light" and "full" wallets for users, you only have to choose which wallet best fits your needs. For a light wallet, which doesn't require full downloading of the blockchain (which is a lot of data!), you can download the DeFiChain Light Wallet (mobile) or DeFiChain Electrum (desktop). The latter also provides a variety of wallet types, which you may find useful as a more advanced user and can explore later, while the former is straightforward and easier for new users.

For a full wallet, a user must have all of the data downloaded from the blockchain, which can take some time and can be difficult to use. The only one available is a desktop wallet, but it isn't as commonly downloaded like the DeFiChain light wallet app for the reason above and it can be slightly more difficult for new users. The desktop wallet comes with what is known as a command-line interface, known as a CLI. The CLI is a more advanced user interface, which lets a user add more customizations to their transactions and has some additional features unavailable elsewhere. For now, beginners should stick to the DeFiChain light wallet, which is arguably the easiest to use and experiment with, before moving on to another wallet.

All of these wallets can be found here: https://defichain.com/downloads. Remember to be careful of what you download, and only download from official sites and sites that you can trust.

Creating Your Own Wallet

Here is a short tutorial with images for the DeFiChain mobile light wallet, which will help you create your wallet.

1. Download the mobile light wallet by selecting it from https://defichain.com/downloads. Once you download and start the app, you should see this screen:

2. You can now make your first wallet. You will be shown a screen to create your 24 word secret recovery phrase (seed phrase). Write it down offline, do not store it on devices with internet. Secret recovery phrases are the key to your money. Also, never give out this secret recovery phrase to anyone. The only person who can know it is you, if you give it away, you will enable access for someone else to take your funds.

As you may know, wallets must have two keys, a public key for people to send coins and tokens to, and a private key, which allows you (or others if you give it away) to send coins to other wallets. A 24 word secret recovery phrase simply makes it easier to write down/remember than a string of randomly-generated characters.

Once again, never share your words unless you want someone to have access to your funds!

3. After you are shown your words and have written them down, there will be a test to make sure you wrote down your words correctly. Complete the test and double-check your words.

4. You'll be asked to create a passcode, which will be used to secure your wallet and is required to make transactions. Remember this passcode and try to not use any other 6-digit passcodes you already are using. If your device can be accessed by someone and they can enter the DeFiChain Wallet app, they can enter your 6-digit passcode and send away your coins and tokens.

5. Wait for the passcode to be confirmed. It may take a minute or two.

6. You've finished making your wallet! You should now see this confirmation screen.

7. After viewing the confirmation screen and proceeding to the next page, you'll be left on the home page of the wallet, which will load every time you start up the app.

(there is a banner near the top of the screen, when there is important information, you will see it there)

8. Under the "DFI" bar that shows your balance, click "Get $DFI" and you can view a little tutorial to buy DFI, this shows up when you create your wallet.

9. Once you obtain your DFI just copy your address (public key, don't worry) and withdraw to your address. Make sure the address matches! Check in the beginning, middle, and end of the address! There is malware that will change the address you paste to another address and cause you to withdraw somewhere else. Be careful!

10. If you want to create another address linked to your seed phrase so you can keep coins and tokens separate, you can click on the wallet tab in the top right of the screen.

Want to continue reading? You can check out the next tutorial, Intro to DeFiChain Concepts.