Buying crypto is the easy part. Knowing what to do with it is where most people get stuck.
I didn't plan on falling into DeFi. It started with a late-night Uniswap swap, a liquidity pool I didn't fully understand, and a few bucks in trading fees I earned while sleeping. That was enough. I started staking Cardano through Adalite.io. I set up Ethereum staking on my Ledger. I explored lending on Aave. And I watched governments try to shut the whole thing down while I was still figuring it out.
Understanding DeFi picks up where my first book, Introduction to Crypto, left off. If you already know how to buy and hold cryptocurrency, this book goes further — into decentralized finance, where you can lend, borrow, trade, and earn yield on your own terms.
Inside this book, you'll learn:
- What DeFi actually is — how smart contracts replace banks
- Lending and borrowing without a bank — how Aave and Compound work, how to earn interest, and the liquidation risks nobody warns you about
- Decentralized exchanges — why Uniswap is my go-to, how liquidity pools work, and why impermanent loss catches so many people off guard
- Staking for passive income — my experience staking Cardano on Adalite.io and Ethereum through Ledger, plus how liquid staking plugs into the rest of DeFi
- Yield farming — common strategies, leveraged farming, looping, and why those 500% APY numbers are almost always a trap
- Bitcoin as collateral — how exchanges now let you borrow against your BTC without selling, and why it's not the free lunch it sounds like
- The government's war on DeFi — the SEC's crackdown, the Tornado Cash case, and how the courts pushed back
- The banking lobby vs. stablecoin yields — why banks are fighting to strip yield provisions from the Crypto Clarity Act so Americans can't earn better returns than a savings account
- Operation Choke Point 2.0 — how the Biden administration coordinated with banks to cut crypto off from the financial system, and the politicians who led the charge
- DeFi security — smart contract exploits, rug pulls, token approvals, and how to avoid becoming someone else's exit liquidity
None of this is theory. I've used these tools, lost money figuring them out, and kept going anyway. Whether you're staking your first coins or trying to understand why your government doesn't want you earning 5% on stablecoins, everything I know is in here.
Also by Michael Meola: Introduction to Crypto and The Crypto Tax Survival Guide
