✋ Andre has had enough
DeFi developer Andre Cronje is quitting crypto for good.
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The Big Story
Prolific crypto developer Andre Cronje, best-known for creating Yearn Finance and Keep3rV1, is exiting the DeFi space with his longtime collaborator and senior solutions architect at the Fantom Foundation, Anton Nell.
Nell revealed the decision on Twitter, where he also said that about 25 “apps and services” would be terminated on 3 April 2022.
While the termination he referred to was regarding their contribution to the space, it was enough to trigger a massive panic selling in Fantom, Yearn, Solidly and several other cryptocurrencies.
Fantom (FTM) plunged 17.5%, while Yearn Finance’s token (YFI) dropped nearly 12.6%. But Keeper Network’s token (Keep3r) and Solidly (SOLID)—which launched last week—suffered the biggest losses, falling around 35% and 65% respectively.
But some contributors to projects linked with Cronje were surprised by the market reaction.
For those keenly following the space, the signs were pretty obvious. Back in January, Cronje wrote a Medium blog post where he expressed his anger with getting rich quick schemes in crypto.
"In crypto, you vote with your money. If you keep voting for low energy scams, get rich quick schemes, or low effort forks, you will only get more of those," he said.
Then last month, one Twitter user noted that Cronje deleted his Twitter account and updated his LinkedIn profile to reflect his departure.
Not a kneejerk reaction
While the announcement may seem similar to Cronje's previous rage-quitting reactions, Nell said that this time it's different and final.
“Unlike previous ‘building in defi sucks’ rage-quits, this is not a knee-jerk reaction to the hate received from releasing a project, but a decision that has been coming for a while now.”
So far, the community's overall reaction has been largely sympathetic considering that he was burdened with marketing Solidly after the exit of Daniele Sestagalli, a fellow collaborator who was originally responsible for handling PR for the launch of project ve(3,3) but landed himself in controversy, pushing all the marketing responsibilities on Cronje. Here's a thread that explains more about this situation.
Regardless, those heavily invested in the project were hugely disappointed with his decision. "I feel rugged in terms of communication. We were just told that ‘websites will be terminated,’” miroyato, a pseudonymous DeFi investor told Decrypt.
Some even compared it to a rug pull—an event where creators stop backing their projects which has now morphed to mean any developer decision that leads to a fall in price. However, one Twitter user responded to the claim, saying that's it not the case.
The show goes on
From a practical perspective, Cronje's exit won't affect the operations of protocols he was involved with.
Shortly after Cronje's exit announcement, Fantom Foundation tweeted to assure the community that the decision will not harm the project's development in any way, adding that while Cronje was the "big picture guy,” he wasn't one of the core developers. Even the lead developers of Yearn Finance said that the decision won't affect the protocol as Cronje hadn't contributed for almost a year.
Cronje has been an influential figure in the DeFi space ever since the launch of Yearn Finance in July 2020. And while he's contributed to several DeFi projects since then, his relationship with the space hasn't been so smooth. But the recent market reaction to the news does highlight some uncomfortable questions surrounding their decentralized nature that the entire crypto community needs to address.
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