The native XRP blockchain, the "XRP Ledger" does not have smart contracts built in. As such, XRP holders have not been able to participate in DeFi natively this whole time. Considering the amount of XRP that's held by retail, that's been a bit of a shame.

Flare Network to the rescue! They have managed to come up with a protocol whereby XRP can be synthesised (or tokenised effectively) on their platform so that it can be used for DeFi. This opens the gate for millions of XRP holders to earn yield from their tokens, amongst other DeFi things.

However, personally, I'm not overexcited about this like some other XRP fans are. I'm a little jaded by stuff like this. I've seen too many of these superstar protocols come out of nowhere and eventually either vanish or crash. Flare is looking good though, but it wasn't too long ago that we all celebrated UST ( Terra USD) for being "algorithmically pegged" to the dollar. It pretty much wanted to do what HBD has been successfully doing for years, and failed dramatically.

Having said all this, there is one bigger picture benefit of this for the XRP ledger which I talked about in the video

Peace & Love,

Adé