Fantom ecosystem tokens tumble as legendary DeFi builder Andre Cronje is leaving

Prominent developer Andre Cronje has quit the DeFi sector, according to an announcement today by his colleague Anton Nell, a senior solutions architect at the Fantom Foundation, who’s joining him in that decision without citing a reason. The price of YFI and other tokens where Cronje was involved plunged after reports of him leaving the industry.

Cryptocurrencies associated with Cronje’s projects, such as FTM and YFI, dove sharply after the surprise announcement – yearn.finance (YFI) plunged 13% from almost $20,000 to $17,000. Fantom (FTM) was down 15% over the past 24 hours, trading at $1.42 as of this writing. Solidly (SOLID), which only launched last week, has fallen 64.73% over the past day, now worth $1.13.

“Andre and I have decided that we are closing the chapter of contributing [sic] to the defi/crypto space. There are around 25 apps and services that we are terminating on 03 April 2022,” Nell tweeted on Sunday.

The applications – or websites that function as DeFi protocol front-ends – that will be discontinued by Cronje and Nell include yearn.fi, keep3r.network, multichain.xyz, chainlist.org, solidly.exchange, and bribe.crv.finance.

The Fantom Foundation pointed to its large team to minimize the impact of Cronje’s move.

Some contributors to projects associated with Cronje expressed surprise at the market reaction to the news.

“People burying YFI, you do realize Andre hasn’t worked on it for over a year? And even if he did, there are 50 full-time people and 140 part-time contributors to back things up,” tweeted banteg, a yearn developer.

Cronje has had a prolific career in crypto. According to his LinkedIn page, Cronje has held numerous positions within the community including technology head at the Fusion Foundation, a tech analyst at Lemniscap, and a code reviewer at news outlet Crypto Briefing. He has also developed and contributed to numerous DeFi projects including Yearn Finance, Curve Finance, and Fantom.

One source speaking under condition of anonymity and a former colleague of Cronje told Blockworks on Sunday he was impressed by the developer’s “inspiring work” who led by example.

“Andre is an impressive deep thinker with big questions,” the source said. “He is an important and positive influence…his departure will have an impact.”

Blockworks’ source also added that the crypto market, in general, tends to overreact to events such as these and that the projects outlined in Nell’s tweet still have “exceptional” people working there.

“They’ll still kick massive goals,” the source said.