Kelly Choos 
The announcement of the exit plans of André Cronje and Anton Nell, key personnel of Fantom Foundation, a blockchain platform for DeFi and crypto dApps, made the DeFi market jittery. The Fantom native token and all other tokens related to his project have since crashed up to 30%.
“André and I have decided that we are closing the chapter on the contribution
Cronje is a developer, while Nell is a senior solutions architect at the Fantom Foundation.
Their departure is not really a surprise. In the past, Cronje has often stated that he will leave the DeFi world. For example, in 2020, Cronje told Decrypt that he was “sick and tired of this space,” but he continued to work on a handful of DeFi projects.
Why frightened the market and what are the prospects?
As noted by Raj A Kapoor, Founder, India Blockchain Alliance, several apps, developed by the duo, will also be shut down with their releases. “The price fluctuation is a response to news that reiterates how critical an individual can be to the value of a crypto,” he told the Economic period.
Some pundits have also pointed out that any uncertainty related to major project founders tends to piss off the market as is the case with Fantom now. Investors are also pissed as the reason for the exit is also unclear.
However, this latest announcement could be more substantial. For starters, his partner Anton Nell leaves with him. And the fact that the official Fantom Foundation Twitter account also tweeted about his exit could mean his departure is set in stone.
Websites and apps like Yearn.fi and keep3r.network, multichain.XYZ, chainlist.org, solidly.exchange and bribe.crv.finance will also be dropped by Nell and Cronje.
While many people involved in the DeFi space were disappointed with their release, others pointed out that various developers were involved with both Yearn.Finance and the Fantom Foundation. Therefore, the impact of their departure may not have a long-term impact.
A Fantome developer, banteg tweeted: “People burying YFI, do you realize Andre hasn’t worked there in over a year? And even if he did, there are 50 full-time people and 140 part-time contributors to back things up.”
A former lead Ethereum developer, James Hancock, told Decrypt, “As long as the contracts are immutable or don’t require Andrew’s approval for changes, they will continue to work as deployed.”
Edul Patel, CEO and co-founder of Mudrex said Economic period that “…we might see a sell-off initially…one person’s exit only causes turmoil because of the sudden change.”
Smart contracts are self-executing pieces of code that are at the heart of any decentralized application. Most Defi apps are based on blockchain-based smart contracts that eliminate the need for central authorities (like Cronje) to operate and govern an app.
André Cronje’s involvement in DeFi
Cronje was a pioneer in the DeFi community. Along with his work on Fantom and Yearn.Finance, he has also been involved in other DeFi projects such as SushiSwap and Creamv2. Its goal has always been to create fintech solutions using blockchain technology to offer DeFi products and services to various people and entities.
Before entering the world of DeFi, he completed a three-year computer science course in just five months and was invited to stay as a lecturer at the Computer Training Institute Education Group. He worked there as a lecturer for more than a year.
In 2003 he also obtained his law degree from the University of Stellenbosch. He then developed Big Data and highly transactional infrastructures for telecoms before moving into cryptography and mobile security.
(Edited by : Jomy Jos Pullokaran)
