Before revision: Decentralized finance (often stylized as DeFi) offers financial instruments without relying on intermediaries such as brokerages, exchanges, or banks by using smart contracts on a blockchain, mainly Ethereum .
After revision: Decentralized finance (often stylized as DeFi) offers financial instruments and operations through smart contracts on a programmable permissionless blockchain, thus minimizing the reliance on intermediaries such as brokerages, exchanges, or banks .