Dozens of Tokens Crumble as DeFi ‘Godfather’ Calls it Quits

Dozens of popular tokens have plunged after Andre Cronje, a prominent DeFi (decentralised finance) developer, decided to stop contributing to the sector, as per a March 6 announcement from his colleague Anton Nell.

Nell shared the news via his personal Twitter saying both he and Cronje were “closing the chapter” of contributing to the DeFi space:

Andre and I have decided that we are closing the chapter of contibuting to the defi/crypto space.
There are around ~25 apps and services that we are terminating on 03 April 2022.
1/3

— Anton Nell (@AntonNellCrypto) March 6, 2022

Most of the tokens that crashed in price were associated with the collaboration of Nell and Cronje across DeFi protocols and DApps (decentralised applications).

Fantom (FTM) plunged 17.5 percent, while Yearn.finance (YFI) fell 13 percent and the tokens from Solidly (SOLID), an Automated Market Maker (AMM) that only launched a week ago, went down as much as 75 percent.

DeFi Godfather ‘Closes the Chapter’ in Crypto

Neither Nell nor Cronje gave a specific reason for their departure from the DeFi sector. Nell said only that: “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.”

Cronje did provide some hints ahead of his departure. Last week he deleted his Twitter and updated his LinkedIn account to reflect he was longer working at Fantom.

Most users reacted in anger to the duo’s departure and some were pointing fingers at a possible rug. However, The DeFi Edge, a popular member within the crypto Twitter community, defended Cronje’s position by guessing he was “fed up” with the DeFi space – especially after the reception of the SOLID protocol, which he was reportedly left alone to work on, handling the PR, marketing, and the project’s community.

Andre Cronje is the Godfather of DeFi.

He & his partner are leaving the DeFi space and will be shutting down several of their projects.

Rugpull?
WTF happened?

Here are my thoughts:

— The DeFi Edge 🗡 (@thedefiedge) March 6, 2022

Hundreds of users were spreading FUD about the future of the projects related to Cronje, such as his brainchild Yearn.finance, claiming the project is now “dead”, but they failed to realise he hasn’t worked in the protocol for over a year now and that it has a large team of contributors and developers that backs it up.

The Fantom Foundation said on Twitter that Cronje’s departure doesn’t mean the end of the project, as it was never a one-man team – rather, it has hundreds of developers and contributors building on Fantom.

The team effort is what allowed Fantom to become one of the most utilized and loved decentralized networks in world.

Hundreds of developers build on Fantom daily and 100k+ unique address use Fantom every day.

Contrary to some popular belief, Andre wasn’t a core dev at Fantom.

— Fantom Foundation (@FantomFDN) March 6, 2022