In the last 24 hours, the value of Fantom ecosystem tokens and value locked to DeFi protocols has decreased.
Fantom’s FTM token recovered some of its losses in the European morning hours following a collapse on Sunday following the announcement by DeFi architect Andre Cronje and his business partner that they would exit the crypto market as developers.
FTM fell 8% in the last 24 hours to as low as $1.32 in early Asian hours, more over 60% below its October 2021 lifetime high of $3.46.
As prices plunged earlier today, Foundation CEO Michael Kong addressed investor worries in a tweet. “The Fantom ecosystem is made up of hundreds of developers who are creating a slew of fantastic applications. They will persist,” he stated. “Anton, who collaborates with Andre, announced via Twitter that they were ‘terminating’ 25 projects. This was misconstrued. They are ‘terminating’ their role, but are transferring any operations they are already running to the existing teams.”
1/ As many of you are aware, Anton, who works with Andre, tweeted that they were “terminating” 25 projects. This was misunderstood. They are “terminating” their involvement, but handing over anything they run to the existing teams.
— Michael Kong (@michaelfkong) March 7, 2022
Multichain and Solidex, two of the largest Fantom projects in terms of total value locked, will retain their current development teams, Kong affirmed. “These initiatives are not intended to halt development. “Several of them have operated independently for years,” he explained.
FTM’s share price increased by ten cents in the hours following Kong’s tweets. Meanwhile, records suggest that price volatility cost FTM-tracked futures slightly under $6 million in losses.
Cultish cult
Cronje was one of the numerous developers that created Fantom and Ethereum-based products that gained a cult following. He was instrumental in the development of successful Ethereum initiatives such as Yearn Finance and Keep3r Network, in addition to working as an adviser to the Fantom Foundation until last month.
Tokens based on the Ethereum platform Yearn, one of Cronje’s early initiatives, had a market worth of more than $3 billion at their lifespan peak, trading as high as $90,700 from lows of $31 in 2020, according to data. YFI fell as much as 25% in the last 24 hours before recovering.
Yearn’s success sparked a ‘Cronje Effect’ in the cryptocurrency community. In recent years, projects developed by or for the developer have amassed millions of dollars within hours of their launch.
Unfinished ventures such as Eminence drew $15 million in funding prior to a full implementation. It was eventually used to steal the entire $15 million before hackers returned $8 million to Eminence’s deployer address.
Meanwhile, Yearn developers contended that the YFI market overreacted to the announcement, owing to Cronje’s absence in previous months.
“Do you realise Andre hasn’t touched it in almost a year?” tweeted Banteg, a pseudonymous Yearn developer. “And even if he did, he is backed up by 50 full-time employees and 140 part-time employees.”
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.
— banteg (@bantg) March 6, 2022
YFI appears to have stabilised about $18,100 as of this writing, down from $19,500 on Sunday.
Disclaimer: These are the writer’s opinions and should not be considered investment advice. Readers should do their own research.
