After five years of deep cultivation in the DeFi world, Benedetto Biondi, founder of Folks Finance from Italy, led his team to achieve the significant milestone of TGE (token issuance). This mechanical engineer, honored in Forbes’ “30 Under 30,” has unique insights into DeFi: he believes that the biggest enemy of DeFi is not regulation or hackers, but its own complexity.

Table of Contents

• Introduction to Folks Finance CEO Benedetto Biondi
• Folks Finance solves the “original sin” of DeFi — high user entry barrier
  • Mobile App: addressing usability barriers + liquidity fragmentation
• Folks Finance future blueprint: connecting RWA+AI to make DeFi more mainstream
• Folks Finance operators

(Prequel: Folks Finance announced roadmap after TGE: xChain V2, mobile application, and new LST to lead the next growth wave)
(Additional background: Folks Finance announced the launch on Monad mainnet and launched a $35,000 incentive campaign)

The landscape of decentralized finance (DeFi) is akin to a magnificent cathedral built by engineers for engineers—its structure is highly intricate, yet the threshold for participation is towering. Participants look upon it with awe, symbolizing how high the barrier to entry for mainstream users actually is. Over the past five years, this emerging financial sector has promised a future of transparency, efficiency, and permissionless access, but it also imposes a hefty “cognitive tax” on every visitor trying to step in. In this long-running “user education” campaign, Folks Finance CEO Benedetto Biondi presents an almost heretical, but more fundamental conclusion: when a tool requires large-scale education, the thing that truly needs transformation is not the user, but the tool itself.

Folks Finance CEO Benedetto Background Introduction

Ben, with a background in precision mechanical engineering, earned a spot in Forbes 30 Under 30 in 2024. Starting from the DeFi Summer five years ago, he has been conducting a thorough “experience reconstruction” of DeFi through first principles. The team he leads, Folks Finance, has ambitions beyond becoming just another powerful lending protocol in the market. Their goal is to encapsulate and abstract the core operations of DeFi—such as cross-chain bridges, liquidity routing, private key management, and smart contract interactions—like a Porsche-level horizontally opposed engine—completely. Ultimately, they aim to present users with an ultra-simplified, highly responsive, and high-performance “cockpit”—a seamless mobile app. This marks a paradigm shift from “function-oriented” to “experience-first.”

Folks Finance solves the DeFi “original sin” — high user entry barrier

Question: You repeatedly mention mobile apps and simplifying user experience, even suggesting DeFi products should be so simple that “no education is needed.” This is a powerful viewpoint; could you elaborate on your product philosophy?

Benedetto: The past five years have taught me a lot. We’ve been dedicated to educating users, even founding a “Folks Academy,” which might be the only DeFi product with its own academy. But deep down, I’ve always understood: if you want a tool to be widely adopted, what you need is not education, but to make that tool so simple that users don’t need to be educated at all.

I believe that “education” itself is merely treating the symptom of a disease—“DeFi is too hard to use”—a disease that shouldn’t exist. Blockchain, smart contracts, these should be hidden behind an app as underlying technologies, not obstacles in front of users. My philosophy is that, as builders, we have the responsibility to handle all the complexity. Users need results, not processes. That’s why we are fully committed to developing a mobile app that, through partnerships with custodial solutions like Fireblocks, guarantees asset security while providing an extremely streamlined experience—allowing users to enjoy DeFi benefits without worrying about the technical intricacies.

Mobile App: addressing usability barriers + liquidity fragmentation

Question: You completed TGE after November 6 and mentioned that this is not the end, but a new beginning. In the post-TGE era, what are Folks Finance’s construction priorities?

Benedetto: For us, “continuous development” is always the core value driving protocol growth. TGE is an important milestone, but our work is just beginning. We will continue building excellent DeFi tools, focusing on our cross-chain lending protocol V2. Our goal is to maintain industry leadership, making it simpler, more user-friendly, supporting more chains, more integrations, and providing more customizable DeFi strategies. Additionally, the development of the mobile App is also a top priority. We believe DeFi is an excellent way to manage digital assets, so we must make it easier than ever to use.

Question: Folks Finance is known for cross-chain lending and has deep collaborations 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 inefficiency. Imagine thousands of independent small liquidity pools in the market, which lead to larger trading slippage and worse lending rates. Our goal is to break down these barriers and create a unified liquidity market.

To do this, we aim to challenge the standard model of DeFi lending over the past five years—like multi-chain independent markets exemplified by Aave. Under that model, moving assets across chains requires manual bridging and paying double the gas fees, which is a headache for users.

We believe liquidity should be shared, and chains should be interoperable. With message passing technologies like Chainlink CCIP and Wormhole, we can fully abstract the complexity of cross-chain operations. It’s like going to a bank for a loan—you don’t care whether the money comes from the head office vault or a branch; you just want to get the money. The same applies in our lending protocols: you might borrow USDC from another chain, but you won’t notice. You just enjoy seamless service. That’s how we address fragmentation—by unifying it at the core.

Folks Finance future blueprint: connecting RWA+AI to make DeFi more mainstream

Question: Looking beyond 2026, apart from optimizing existing products, will Folks Finance venture into RWA (Real World Assets) or AI integration? What roles do these hot sectors play in your blueprint?

Benedetto: Absolutely, both are crucial parts of our future strategy.

We are very optimistic about RWA. We are the first to list tokenized gold and silver as collateral for lending protocols. In the future, we will invest more in this area. Currently, we are researching how to address technical issues like RWA asset liquidation and redemption cycles in a safe and compliant manner, as well as their regulatory pathway as securities. Our goal is to turn RWA into high-quality collateral for lending stablecoins, introducing more stable asset sources into DeFi.

As for AI, we are equally interested. It will be integrated into our mobile app, serving as an intelligent financial advisor. AI can automatically switch between different DeFi tools based on user-set risk preferences, seeking the best risk-return strategies. This will greatly lower the barrier for users to participate in complex DeFi strategies, making advanced gameplay accessible to the masses.

Folks Finance operators

Question: You once said, “Business is negotiation.” As CEO, do you have any key experiences to share when negotiating with partners?

Benedetto: The best advice I can give to other founders is: Ask those who have done this before you. In the business world, there’s always naive beginners, and everyone is considering their own interests. So, you need to be responsible for yourself. I always suggest seeking feedback from experienced people—you can ask, “What is a reasonable price for doing this?” Others will share their experience. Asking for free can save you a lot of money and help you make better decisions. Many people are too shy to ask, but I believe the only stupid question is the one never asked.

Question: For entrepreneurs, much of the time is lonely—even the person sleeping next to you may not understand your current situation. How do you find balance between the busy business world and family life?

Benedetto: That’s a very tricky question, especially during critical phases of the business. I am fortunate that my wife is very supportive and understands that I am fully immersed in work. But you must find balance; otherwise, work will consume you from within. Work is part of life, but not all of life. We need to live with balance, and that’s very important.

(End of interview)

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