Decentralized finance (DeFi) is known for its unique mechanism design, which
applies smart contracts to facilitate peer-to-peer transactions. The
decentralized bank is a typical DeFi application. Ideally, a decentralized bank
should be decentralized in the transaction. However, many recent studies have
found that decentralized banks have not achieved a significant degree of
decentralization. This research conducts a comparative study among mainstream
decentralized banks. We apply core-periphery network features analysis using
the transaction data from four decentralized banks, Liquity, Aave, MakerDao,
and Compound. We extract six features and compare the banks' levels of
decentralization cross-sectionally. According to the analysis results, we find
that: 1) MakerDao and Compound are more decentralized in the transactions than
Aave and Liquity. 2) Although decentralized banking transactions are supposed
to be decentralized, the data show that four banks have primary external
transaction core addresses such as Huobi, Coinbase, Binance, etc. We also
discuss four design features that might affect network decentralization. Our
research contributes to the literature at the interface of decentralized
finance, financial technology (Fintech), and social network analysis and
inspires future protocol designs to live up to the promise of decentralized
finance for a truly peer-to-peer transaction network