Wellfield Technologies (WLFD.V) dropped a roadmap today about what’s coming down the pipe for them in 2022, and it makes for some good, curious reading.

If you’re not familiar, Wellfield is maybe the first real publicly-traded company operating in the decentralized finance space that’s trying to make the connection between the retail crowd and the somewhat insular world of DeFi. That’s not to say there aren’t others, but they don’t have the roadmap and wherewithal that WLFD does.

“Over the past year we have been focused on developing solutions both with Seamless and MoneyClip, to make DeFi part of consumers’ daily financial lives while overcoming some of the larger technical and usability challenges that exist within DeFi today. During 2022, we will continue to build on these efforts, filling in gaps with decentralized protocols involving the ethereum and bitcoin blockchains,” said Levy Cohen, CEO of Wellfield.

The company laid the foundations in 2021 coming online with the venture exchange with two load-bearing products ready to go. These are Seamless and MoneyClip, which work in tandem to build bridges between traditional finance to DeFi. They’re going to continue their buildout of the MoneyClip app, which is their second layer application brand that puts all of DeFi’s products—from bank accounts to liquidity pools and more—into one application. They’ve brought on a team of folks from the fields of global payments, finance, tech and computer science to get this done.

A Seamless launch

The company’s roadmap made provisions for their launch of decentralized protocols on both the ethereum and bitcoin blockchains. Seamless, you’ll remember from earlier stories, is the product that makes a connection between Bitcoin and Ethereum to allow for transactions and transfers, allowing transactions in the Ethereum ecosystem to be made using Bitcoin.

Wellfield is intending on expanding on this solution to address what’s presently going on in DeFi.

And what’s that?

Bitcoin hodlers are looking for ways to stretch their investment beyond mere hodling. Seamless intends on launching a solution that will allow bitcoin to be compatible with DeFi without needing the owner to give up custody of their asset to an intermediary. The solution could mean greater liquidity for bitcoin investors, and help remake Bitcoin into a cash flowing asset instead of the digital gold you hold and never use. You know? More of a currency with use value instead of a store of value. Like Nakamoto wanted it to be in the beginning.

Trading across blockchains

Now here’s what’s really interesting.

At present, DeFi forces users to rely on intermediaries—specifically cryptocurrency exchanges—to perform asset trades and swaps across blockchains. There’s a growing demand for more ethereum-based decentralized exchanges (DEX) to meet the core promise of DeFi, which is, of course, decentralization. Specifically, because most of DeFi isn’t actually decentralized. At least not yet. Wellfield’s plans or 2022 include extending the services that DEX’s offer for one blockchain, to all chains.

That’s what I’m looking forward to hearing more about.

The Future isn’t evenly Distributed

Decentralized finance is still in a neonatal state. We have a lot of keen folks trying to do legitimate business without much government oversight, which of course, draws illegitimate types trying to enrich themselves off the backs of the legit types. But ostensibly, DeFi is more than payments and permissionless services. Many folks believe it has the potential to reinvent global finance, making way for a new digital economy and metaverse, and the company wants to be a part of that.

They don’t have the tech for it yet. Seamless and MoneyClip do their part, but they’re ultimately going to need more. And really, the functions they serve aren’t sufficient to plumb the depths of everything Defi can do.

Here’s a few options:

Distributed Identity: Moving away from a centralized to a decentralized model for identity will be necessary for the growth of the digital economy, including Web 3.0. The company will be trying to find a way to get involved here.

Deeper integration with DeFi Communities and Ecosystem: Wellfield has the tech to make the connection between DeFi and Traditional Finance, but it doesn’t have the relationships with the folks in DeFi who will be required to completely facilitate this aim. Not yet. They will be integral to the success of the company, and the technology itself.

What we have here is strong direction and a sufficient roadmap to fulfilling the company’s promise.

Good deal.

It would seem from the price trajectory since their debut in November that other folks have recognized the inherent value of a company operating in the DeFi ecosystem. And why not?  Market cap’s at $211 million, which is still dirt cheap compared to where they’re probably going to be next year, assuming they hit all their milestones.

—Joseph Morton

Full disclosure: Wellfield Technologies is an equity.guru marketing client.