The DeFi Collective - Biannual Report [H1 2026]

This report marks a change in how the Collective reports on its treasury. As announced when we entered turtle mode, we have moved from monthly reports to a biannual cadence — and this is the first of them, covering the first half of 2026, from January through June.

It is also the first treasury communication since our January 2026 report. The months in between were among the most consequential in the Collective’s history: we restructured the association, wound down DeFiScan, and unwound our PermaLP positions. This report consolidates that half-year.

For a full breakdown of our revenue streams, accounting methodology, and the principles behind these figures, please refer to the Reporting Policy.

Half-Year Financial Overview

The headline figures for the first half of 2026:

• H1 2026 Total Revenues: $59,306.74
• − H1 2026 Total Expenses: $177,831.58
• = H1 2026 Total Earnings: -$118,524.84

There is no way to dress that up, and we won’t try to: the first half of 2026 was a deficit half. It was also a deliberate one. The Collective spent these six months restructuring — reducing its cost base, offboarding the DeFiScan team, and refocusing on sustainability — and funded the shortfall from the reserves it had built precisely for a period like this.

The more important story is in the trajectory, month by month:

Expenses fell in every month but one, from $37,186 in January to $17,746 in June — a 52% reduction over the half. Earnings climbed in step, from a -$23,090 shortfall in January to a +$123.38 surplus in June, the first break-even month of the year. That is the turtle-mode plan, visible in the numbers.

Expenses

Contributor compensation is, as always, the overwhelming majority of the Collective’s spending — roughly $167,850 of the $177,832 disbursed over the half. Everything else is routine: $1,490 a month in recurring operational costs, negligible gas ($41 across the entire half, the benefit of batching and Layer 2s), a single $1,000 “Other” item in May, and no outbound donations.

The entire expense story of the half is the offboarding of the DeFiScan team:

• The step-down from roughly $34k a month (January–March) to about $26k in April reflects the offboarding of Yves.
• The further decline through to June reflects the winding down of the remaining DeFiScan effort. June was the last month in which we paid compensation to Emilien, the final DeFiScan contributor to be offboarded.

So the fact that expenses remained elevated even in June is expected, not a surprise: June still carried a full month of Emilien’s compensation. From July onward, contributor costs fall to the Collective’s lean core, and the expense line should step down again in the H2 report.

Revenues

Revenue in H1 came from two very different kinds of source.

The Collective’s recurring, productive income — the Layer 2 liquidity revenue earned by its veNFT voting positions — held remarkably steady at roughly $4,400 to $5,500 a month, even as the treasury was trimmed and simplified. It is, however, structurally lower than in the Collective’s expansion years: DEX volumes and emissions have compressed, PermaLP yield ended after January as those positions were unwound, and mainnet (L1) revenue is now sporadic.

The swing factor was donations, which are lumpy by nature and, per our Reporting Policy, only counted when actually received. Three inflows shaped the half: $7,086 in January (from the Liquity PIL initiative), $3,357 in May, and $13,414 in June. That June inflow is the single reason the month closed in the black — a useful reminder that, at the Collective’s new cost base, even modest donations now move the needle.

Assets

Despite the deficit, the Collective’s asset base held up over the half.

• Locked (veNFT) positions ended June at a face value of roughly $345k, close to where they began the year after the usual price-driven fluctuation.
• L1 liquid positions remained the Collective’s largest asset block, closing the half near $485k.
• PermaLP TVL went to zero, as those positions were unwound in Q1 and consolidated back into the main and grants wallets.

The whole point of the reserves the Collective spent the last two years building was to make a half like this survivable — without forced selling, and without disruption to the protocols we support. They did exactly that: the H1 drawdown was absorbed from reserves, by design, and the association remains solidly funded as it settles at its new, lower cost base.

Reporting Cadence

As a reminder, this is the Collective’s first biannual report. Treasury operations remain fully on-chain and auditable at any time — we have simply moved from monthly to twice-yearly consolidated reporting, in line with the turtle-mode announcement and the more passive way the treasury is now managed. The next report will cover H2 2026 (July–December).

Parting Words

The first half of 2026 was the hardest and most necessary stretch in the Collective’s history. We entered it spending nearly $37k a month and closed it at break-even, having roughly halved our costs while keeping both the treasury and the protocols we support intact. June’s small surplus is a single data point, not a victory lap — but it is the first hard evidence that the turtle-mode plan is doing what it was designed to do.

The goal for the second half is simple: hold the lower cost base, let the DeFiScan offboarding flow fully through the numbers, and rebuild a genuine surplus. Slow and steady.

— TokenBrice, on behalf of the treasury and liquidity management team of the DeFi Collective: Luude and myself.