Decentralized finance in recent weeks has received a lot of media attention, some for the wrong reasons, due to various hacks in which some of its flagships have been victims.
But that doesn't damp the enthusiasm around this segment of the new crypto/web3/metaverse galaxy, which wants to shake up the traditional structures by which we do business, have fun, and interact with each other.
Basically, this new technological universe wants to change all our social, economic, and even political, interactions.
But to achieve these ambitious projects, DeFi relies on developers. One of the most prolific of them has just bowed out of the industry.
Andre Cronje, a legend behind several decentralized finance apps, known as dApps, has decided to close the chapter on his involvement with the industry, according to a colleague, Anton Nell, a senior solutions architect at Fantom Foundation.
'Closing a Chapter'
"Andre and I have decided that we are closing the chapter of contributing to the defi/crypto space," Nell posted on Twitter. 'There are around ~25 apps and services that we are terminating on 03 April 2022."
Nell explains that this decision is not a fit of anger but well thought out. He does not, however, say why Cronje and he decided to distance themselves.
"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."
"Thanks you to everyone that supported us over the past few years," he concluded.
Cronje seems to have truly turned the page. He has updated his LinkedIn page, which now shows that he left his last DeFi project, Yearn.Finance, in February.
The two couldn't immediately be reached for comment.
Rug Pull?
The news of his departure was very badly received by investors, who sold the cryptocurrencies attached to dApps and protocols to which Cronje was associated.
The native token of Yield vault protocol Yearn.Finance had recently fallen by more than 12% from the announcement but was slowly recovering. Cronje-founded Iron Bank lending-platform token was also down, as were tokens from DeFi Automated Market Maker (AMM) and Keep3r.
Other cryptocurrencies associated with Cronje have also taken a beating, such as Fantom Ecosystem (FTM), SpookySwap (Boo), LiquidDriver (LQDR), and Geist Finance (GEIST).
Cronje's relationship with decentralized finance is complicated.
"There is distinctly a conflict in the space at the moment, that I am struggling to concisely summarize, and as such, I have no idea how to actually address it," Cronje wrote in his blog in October 2020.
"But I do consider the conflict a human one, and not a technical one, I don’t foresee ETH [ethereum blockchain] disappearing, and I don’t foresee builders stopping, and I will continue to build,' he continued.
"Some of it will be useful, some of it will end up failures. But I think there is more value in trying, even if it is a failure, than all the critics deeming it so."
His departure was widely commented on in social media, where many users felt that his withdrawal was akin to a scam for investors who had invested in projects with which he was associated.
"Announcing the pull publicly," wrote one user on Reddit referring to rug pulls, a scam in the crypto space that occurs when developers of a cryptocurrency project — typically a new token — abandon it unexpectedly, taking users’ funds with them.
"Bold move cotton, let's see if it pays off," the same user added.
Another user agreed: "In another world, they rug pulled small investors over drama."
"The great crypto rug pull," said another user.
