Rune Christensen and Guy Young on DeFi’s maturity, AI agents, and the battle for user capture

Rune Christensen, founder of Sky (formerly known as MakerDAO), and Guy Young, founder of Ethena, recently joined The Big Brain Podcast to explore how the DeFi ecosystem has matured, why centralization trade-offs are no longer taboo, and how AI agents and protocol generalization could transform the future of finance.The End of DeFi IdealismAccording to Rune, the wild-eyed, ideological phase of DeFi is firmly in the rearview mirror. What was once driven by lofty visions and decentralization maximalism has hardened into a grounded, value-based industry. “You used to raise a ton of money with big claims and crash the market,” Rune said. “Now it’s all about: can you run a sustainable business today if you want to change the world tomorrow?” Real-world assets—once scoffed at—have become essential to achieving that goal.Ethena’s Pragmatic RiseGuy credited Ethena’s rapid ascent to a clear-eyed willingness to embrace practical trade-offs. Unlike DeFi purists, he didn’t see decentralization as an all-or-nothing quality. “If you're just honest and transparent about the risks, users can handle that,” he said. “What matters is creating products that scale like software.” Ethena, he argues, succeeded not by reinventing the wheel, but by framing existing financial opportunities in more useful, composable formats—such as bringing fixed-income strategies on-chain and turning them into collateral.The Agent Era Is ComingBoth founders see the future of DeFi dominated not by human users, but by AI agents. Rune envisions a shift toward “hyper-rational, mercenary capital,” where smart agents optimize across protocols at machine speed. “You’ll run out of unsophisticated humans,” he quipped. Sky, his protocol, is preparing by enabling agent-driven applications and generalized frameworks that can target diverse user types, aggregate data, and adapt dynamically to changing incentives.DeFi's Next Frontier: Regulation, RWAs and Liquidity DominanceWith traditional finance moving on-chain, regulatory complexity is unavoidable. Guy predicts a split: some protocols will need KYC frontends for asset classes like credit or equities, while others will push ahead with more open models. Rune added that the ultimate competition is for liquidity and trust, not ideology. “Blockchain’s value is transparency and composability—it’s the only thing that creates truly global liquidity,” he said. Both believe hybrid stablecoin products like USDS and ENA will be the largest drivers of RWA demand in the coming cycle.As DeFi enters its next era, Christensen and Young represent a new archetype of builder: clear-eyed, product-focused, and unafraid to abandon old orthodoxy. Whether through agent-driven finance or regulated real-world assets, their protocols—Sky and Ethena—are shaping how capital will move in a world where decentralization is a spectrum, not a doctrine.For deeper insights from this conversation, tune into the full episode of The Big Brain Podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, and subscribe for future releases.Disclaimer: The Block is an independent media outlet that delivers news, research, and data. As of November 2023, Foresight Ventures is a majority investor of The Block. Foresight Ventures invests in other companies in the crypto space. Crypto exchange Bitget is an anchor LP for Foresight Ventures. The Block continues to operate independently to deliver objective, impactful, and timely information about the crypto industry. Here are our current financial disclosures.© 2025 The Block. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.