DeFi architect, technical advisor to the Fantom Foundation and founder of Yearn Finance Andre Cronje has left the decentralized finance (DeFi) space reeling after deactivating his Twitter account.
Cronje's long-time colleague at the Fantom Foundation, Anton Nell, testified in a March 6 cheep that both he and Cronje were leaving the crypto space altogether. However, concerns have been raised about the fate of the 25 or so decentralized apps (dApps) and services that have been operating until now. Fantom Opera is a layer 2 Ethereum scaling solution.
Andre and I have decided that we are closing the chapter on contributing to the defi/crypto space.
There are about ~25 apps and services that we will be canceling on April 3, 2022.
1/3โAnton Nell (@AntonNellCrypto) March 6, 2022
Affected apps and services include yearn.fi, keep3r.network, multichain.xyz, chainlist.org, bribe.crv.finance, and the new solidly.exchange.
Community reaction to Nell's announcement has been generally sympathetic, with many understanding that the duo likely needed a mental break from the immense rigors of their work. Other disgruntled investors have not been as kind to her words as token prices and TVL tanks.
Fantom CEO Michael Kong clarified the consequences of Cronje and Nell's resignation. Although Cronje was instrumental in founding many projects, Kong said in a March 7 cheep that โthese projects are not closing the development. Some of them have been running independently for years.โ
Yearn Finance lead developer Banteg also weighed in to assure users and investors that Andre's departure had little consequence for the day-to-day operation of the DeFi yield aggregator.
People burying YFI, do you realize Andre hasn't worked on it for over a year? And even if it did, there are 50 full-time people and 140 part-time collaborators to support things.
- banteg (@bantg) March 6, 2022
Yearn's price (AND FI) and Fantom (FTM) crashed immediately after Nell's tweet. YFI is currently down 10% at $18,187 while FTM is down 20% at $1.33 according to CoinGecko.
Although the total value locked (TVL) on Yearn has been fairly stable at $3 billion, Fantom TVL is down 40% since March 3 to $7.16 billion. The TVL of Cronje's latest project, Solidly, has fallen 68% since March 3 to $735 million today according to desecration.
Cronje has been one of the most influential figures in DeFi since his rise to prominence within the crypto space. His contributions to the industry have been so profound that market analyst The DeFi Edge on Twitter lamented his departure, saying โAndre Cronje is the godfather of DeFiโ in a March 6 tweet.
Andre Cronje is the godfather of DeFi.
He and his partner are leaving the DeFi space and will be shutting down several of their projects.
Carpet?
WTF happened?Here are my thoughts:
โ The DeFi Edge (@thedefiedge) March 6, 2022
Related: YFI's Andre Cronje disappeared after 'death threats'. Will 'love' bring him back?
Signs that Cronje was planning to leave the space became abundantly clear last week when all of his tweets were removed from his account, followed by a full deactivation.
Dani Sesta, a core member of Wonderland (TIME) and Abracadabra.money (MIM), has signed on to market Cronje's latest project, Solidly.
However, since Sesta had to give up Solidly to deal with a crisis in Wonderland, Cronje had to be the face of the project. The stress of such a load may have been too great, prompting The DeFi Edge to writes:
โWas this a CARPET? No. I see a developer who signed up to build but didn't sign up for all the bullshit and drama that comes with it. It got to a tipping point where it wasn't worth it to him anymore."
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