After five years of dedicated work in the DeFi world, Benedetto Biondi, founder of Folk Finance from Italy, led his team to achieve the significant milestone of TGE (token issuance). This mechanical engineer, who was named one of Forbes' "30 Under 30" lists, has unique insights into DeFi: he believes that DeFi's biggest enemy is not regulation or hackers, but its own complexity.
The landscape of decentralized finance (DeFi) resembles a magnificent cathedral built by engineers for engineers—its structure is incredibly sophisticated, but the barriers to entry are extremely high, inspiring awe in participants and reflecting the exceptionally high barrier to entry for the general public. Over the past five years, this emerging financial sector has promised the world a transparent, efficient, and permissionless future, but it has also levied a hefty "knowledge tax" on every visitor attempting to enter. In this protracted "user education" movement, Folk Finance CEO Benedetto Biondi has proposed a seemingly heretical, yet more fundamental, conclusion: when a tool needs to be educated on a large scale, what truly needs to be transformed is not the users, but the tool itself.
Background information on Bendetto, CEO of Folk Finance.
Ben, with a background in precision mechanical engineering, was named one of Forbes 30 Under 30 in 2024. Since the DeFi Summer five years ago, he has been conducting a complete "experience reconstruction" of DeFi using first principles. His company, Folk Finance, has ambitions far beyond simply becoming another powerful lending protocol. What they are doing is thoroughly encapsulating and abstracting the complex underlying mechanisms of DeFi—cross-chain bridging, liquidity routing, private key management, and contract interaction—ultimately presenting users with an extremely simple, responsive, and powerful "cockpit"—a seamless mobile application. This is a paradigm shift from "function-oriented" to "experience-first."
Folk Finance addresses the "original sin" of DeFi—high barrier to entry for users.
Interviewer: You've mentioned mobile apps and simplifying the user experience multiple times, even suggesting that DeFi products should be so simple they "don't require education." That's a strong point. Could you elaborate on your product philosophy?
Benedetto: These past five years have taught me a lot. We've been working hard to educate users; we even have a "Folk Academy," which is probably the only DeFi product with an academy. But deep down, I've always understood: if you want a tool to be widely adopted, what you need isn't education, but making the tool so simple that users don't need to be educated at all.
I believe that "education" itself is merely treating a ailment called "DeFi is too difficult to use," a ailment that shouldn't exist in the first place. Blockchain and smart contracts should be technologies hidden behind apps, not obstacles placed before users. My philosophy is that we, as builders, have a responsibility to handle all the complexities. Users need results, not processes. That's why we've poured our efforts into building this mobile app, which, through partnerships with custody solutions like Fireblocks, will provide users with an extremely simple experience while ensuring asset security, allowing them to enjoy the benefits of DeFi without worrying about the complex technical details.
Mobile Apps: Solving the Dilemma of User Barriers and Fragmented Liquidity
Interviewer: You completed TGE after November 6th, and you said this wasn't the end, but a new beginning. What are the key development priorities for Folk Finance in the post-TGE era?
Benedetto: For us, "continuous development" is always the core value driving the protocol's growth. TGE is an important milestone, but our work has only just begun. We will continue to build excellent DeFi tools, with a focus on version V2 of our cross-chain lending protocol . Our goal is to maintain our industry leadership, making it simpler and easier to use, supporting more chains and integrations, and providing more customizable DeFi strategies. Furthermore , the development of our mobile app is also a top priority. We believe DeFi is an excellent way to manage digital assets, so we must make it easier to use than it is now.
Interactive Zone: Folk Finance is known for its cross-chain lending and has deep partnerships with Chainlink and Wormhole. How do you leverage these technologies to solve the fundamental "liquidity fragmentation" problem in DeFi?
Benedetto: "Liquidity fragmentation" is a major reason for DeFi's inefficiency. Imagine thousands of independent, small liquidity pools in the market; this leads to increased slippage and worse lending rates. Our goal is to break down these barriers and create a unified liquidity market.
Therefore, we want to challenge the standard model of DeFi lending over the past five years, namely the multi-chain independent market like Aave. In that model, if you want to operate between different chains, you have to manually bridge and pay double the gas, which is a headache for users.
We believe liquidity should be shared, and chains should be interoperable. Leveraging messaging technologies like Chainlink CCIP and Wormhole, we can completely abstract away the complexities of cross-chain transactions. It's like taking out a loan from a bank; you don't care whether the money comes from the head office or a branch; you just want the money. Similarly, in our lending protocol, the USDC you lend might come from another chain, but you're completely unaware of it and only enjoy seamless service. This is how we solve the fragmentation problem—by unifying it at the underlying level.
Folk Finance's Future Blueprint: Connecting RWA and AI to Make DeFi More Accessible
Dynamic Zone: Looking ahead to 2026 and beyond, besides optimizing existing products, will Folk Finance venture into RWA (Real-World Assets) or AI integration? What role do these two hot sectors play in your blueprint?
Benedetto: Of course, both are important components of our future strategy.
We are very optimistic about RWA . We are the first lending protocol to list tokenized gold and silver as collateral. We will invest more in this area in the future, and are currently researching how to securely and compliantly address technical issues such as RWA asset liquidation and redemption cycles, as well as their compliance path as securities. Our goal is to establish RWA as a high-quality collateral for lending stablecoins, introducing a more stable source of assets to DeFi.
We are also interested in AI . It will be integrated into our mobile app, acting as an intelligent financial advisor. AI can automatically switch between different DeFi tools based on the user's risk preferences, finding the optimal risk-reward strategy for the user. This will significantly lower the barrier to entry for users participating in complex DeFi strategies, making advanced gameplay accessible to everyone.
Folk Finance operators
Interviewer: You once said, "Business is negotiation." As CEO, what key experiences can you share when negotiating with partners?
Benedetto: My best advice to other founders is always this: ask people who have done it before you . There's always naivety in the business world, and everyone is looking out for their own interests. So, you need to take responsibility for yourself. I always suggest seeking feedback from experienced people. You can ask, "What's a reasonable price to do this?" They'll share their experience. Asking questions for free can save you a lot of money and help you make better decisions. Many people are just shy about asking questions, but I think the only foolish questions are those that are never asked.
Dynamic Zone: For entrepreneurs themselves, much of the time is lonely; even the person sleeping next to you every night may not understand your current situation. How do you find a balance between the busy business world and family life?
Benedetto: This is a very tricky issue, especially during critical times for the business. I'm lucky that my wife is very supportive and understands how completely I'm immersed in my work. But you have to find a balance, otherwise work will consume you from the inside out. Work is a part of life, but not the whole of life. It's important that we live in balance.
(End of interview)
