In this in-depth interview, we sit down with TokenBrice, a DeFi connoisseur who has been immersed in the space since its inception. Known for his work on a personal and community level, Brice has played a key role in organizing DeFi-focused meetups in France and sharing his insights through his blog, tokenbrice.xyz. He currently leads the DeFi Strategy at The DeFi Collective, a nonprofit that supports genuine, resilient DeFi protocols.

Throughout our interview, Brice shares his perspective on the biggest challenges facing the DeFi ecosystem, the importance of transparency in protocol evaluations, and how The DeFi Collective is positioning itself to drive the future of decentralized finance. Whether discussing the decentralization framework they are developing or reflecting on past lessons from the Terra collapse, Brice offers a candid, insightful look at the evolving world of DeFi.

You've been deep in the DeFi game since day one. What first got you hooked on decentralized finance, and how has your journey in the crypto space evolved over the years?

It was a bit of a slow discovery, like most people who come through a small door and progressively explore the Ethereum ecosystem, eventually discovering DeFi. When I got into DeFi, it was in a pretty basic and primitive state. It was Maker, Uniswap, and Bancor, and this was about it. However, as I learned more about DeFi and crypto in general, I grew fascinated with the core idea of autonomous immutable contracts and their implications for finance.

In particular, I was drawn to the transparency and unruggable lending conditions for example in borrowing. In traditional finance, terms often vary depending on who you are or how much you're worth. In DeFi, everyone has access to the same opportunities. DeFi lets anyone be a liquidator or engage in other protocol functions without needing permission. That openness is what makes it unique compared to the traditional financial system.

The DeFi Collective is all about pushing DeFi tech and projects forward. What unique edge do you think it brings to the broader DeFi ecosystem, especially in terms of supporting genuine DeFi and educating people about the space?

We like to say that the DeFi Collective is about "Using DeFi to better DeFi" in two dimensions. It’s about supporting the most resilient DeFi protocols and educating the community about them. But beyond the mission, it’s also about how we operate. We are a nonprofit association established in Switzerland, operating fully on-chain. All assets are managed on-chain, and we provide transparent monthly and quarterly reports on our treasury. Everything is public and governed by clear policies, setting a new standard for how associations can operate transparently.

An important thing to highlight is to show how much of a dollar donated to the Collective goes directly to supporting whatever its purpose is. That figure is hard to determine for most associations, but for the Collective, we know that about 80% of funds go directly to our activities. That’s a major difference compared to traditional organizations' 10-20%. If people want to learn more, they can check out deficollective.org.

Regarding our mission, we’re here to support decentralized and resilient DeFi protocols and foster an environment where more builders are encouraged to work in this way. By supporting protocols with these values, we believe we can inspire others to follow a similar path because they know the DeFi Collective will be an ally.

One of the exciting things you're working on is a framework to evaluate the decentralization status of protocols. Can you tell us more about that?

Yes, we’ve realized that it’s difficult for people to understand how decentralized a protocol really is. Some protocols are even misleading about their decentralization. So, we’re creating a framework and tools to evaluate this. We’ll release the first batch of reviews soon, but our goal is to get the community involved in producing these reviews. We want the DeFi Collective to focus on verifying reviews and ensuring they are factual, while the community helps build a database of decentralized protocols.

Governance in crypto is rarely what it promises to be. It often turns into a power game with a few players calling the shots. How does the DeFi Collective tackle governance issues, and what best practices do you push for?

We advocate for the eradication of governance as much as possible. We see it as an extremely detrimental endeavor to the space. Governance is not inherently bad, but it should be a last resort, not a first one. Unfortunately, many protocols default to governance too quickly, which leads to bloated, misaligned, and captured governance structures that fail to serve the protocol’s core interests.

We’ve been involved in some governance processes, but it’s a complex, messy endeavor. We’ve found that our time is better spent doing meaningful work rather than fighting entrenched interests in governance forums. We may revisit this in the future, but for now, we’re focused on other priorities.

Liquidity is a major challenge for DeFi protocols, especially new ones. How does the DeFi Collective help bootstrap liquidity for decentralized projects? Can you share a success story?

On the liquidity side, we’ve been much more successful compared to governance, and we have quite a few wins. One of our key concepts/activities of the Collective is managing liquidity-driving assets — locked tokens that direct emissions to chosen pairs on decentralized exchanges like Aerodrome, Velodrome, Ramses, and others. This allows us to provide long-term, sticky liquidity for the projects we support.

For example, we’ve worked with PoolTogether DAO to establish a solid liquidity base for the POOL token across multiple chains. We’ve also been involved in the DYAD stablecoin from the start, at one point holding several digits percentage of its liquidity. We realize it’s a chicken and egg problem. Bootstrapping liquidity early on is a major challenge for new protocols, and that’s where we focus our efforts because it’s where the Collective can make the most impact.

Blockchain tech keeps evolving, UX is getting smoother, but the average crypto user still chases the latest overhyped narrative and meme coins. Are you optimistic about the future of the space?

I remain optimistic, or I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing. Sometimes it can be depressing to see what captures the attention in the short term. However, real progress is being made over the long term in the important areas.

I’m not a big fan of the tendency to focus too much on UX. I don’t think UX is as horrendous as people make it out to be—it’s already in a decent place. The real question is about the use cases being tackled by the protocols and organization of the DeFi user community. This industry is being shaped as we speak, and the community’s involvement is crucial in shaping it in a positive direction.

Looking forward, what do you think are the biggest challenges and opportunities for DeFi, and how is the DeFi Collective positioning itself to address these?

One of the main challenges is helping users understand the risks and trust assumptions of the protocols they are using. As DeFi grows, it’s becoming more intricate, and protocols have different risk profiles. Users need to be able to assess the risks accurately. Our work at the Collective, evaluating the decentralization status of protocols, is part of addressing this challenge.

On one end of the spectrum, you have CeDeFi protocols where you rely on intermediaries or third parties to act in good faith. If they don’t, they could essentially seize control of your assets, much like in traditional finance. On the other end, when you interact with genuine DeFi protocols that are properly designed, they are immutable. The only real risk is smart contract failure. Otherwise, you have on-chain, verifiable guarantees that your assets cannot be seized and that the protocol operates within a defined scope.

By providing transparency and evaluations of decentralization, we can help users make informed decisions and avoid situations like the Terra collapse, where many users mistakenly believed they were using a safe, on-chain savings product. If more transparency had been available, the damage could have been minimized.

Finally, what can we expect from your talk at ETHSofia? Any sneak peeks or topics you're excited to dive into?

I’ll be focusing on the evaluation of decentralization stages for DeFi protocols and the work we’ve been doing at the DeFi Collective in that regard. The timing is excellent because our framework will be released shortly after my talk, so I’ll be able to give attendees a preview of our reviews, the framework, and more news about the DeFi Collective as we celebrate our one-year anniversary.