Fantom News
Fantom Foundation Responds to the Departure of Andre Cronje and Anton Nell
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The Fantom community was dealt with bad news after Andre Cronje, one of the network developers and a key player in the entire decentralized finance (DeFi) sector, announced his departure from the project.
Before his resignation, Cronje was the technical adviser of the Fantom Foundation. Besides Cronje, Anton Nell, a senior solutions architect at the Foundation, also announced that he would be leaving the cryptocurrency sector.
Fantom Foundation issues statement on Cronje’s departure
Rekt News made several announcements on the departure of Cronje and Nell from the Fantom network. The Rekt article, which has since been pulled down, stated that “Fantom, Solidly, SpookySwap, Abracadabra, Geist: multiple projects all entwined into a system designed to extract maximum value for a small set of insiders who are now steadily exiting the stage.”
Nell had tweeted about his departure, saying that around 25 applications and services would be terminated on 3rd April next month. The Fantom Foundation has issued clarity by releasing a statement that will lay out the facts and discredit any false information published in the Rekt article.
In its statement, the Foundation stated that “Andre and Anton did not ‘terminate’ 25 projects. Instead, any involvement (such as user interface) in these projects was to be handed over to the existing teams, many of whom had been developing and running independently.”
The Fantom Foundation has also stated that the two were not core developers on the Fantom network. Moreover, the Foundation stated that it was not involved in creating any of the 25 projects that were mentioned.
The Fantom network seems to have been dealt a blow following the departure of the two developers despite the statement that the Foundation has put out. The total value locked (TVL) of the network has dropped from $11.26 billion last week to $6.02 billion at the time of writing.
The Fantom network has been gaining increased adoption over the past year, which has been reflected in the TVL. The network has risen up the ranks, and it is now ranking as the fifth-largest blockchain network by TVL, according to DeFiLlama. Since its creation, the Fantom network has processed more than 200 million transactions using over 2 million active wallets.
Andre Cronje and Anton Nell leave DeFi
Anton Nell published a tweet last Saturday saying that both he and Cronje would be leaving the Fantom foundation and the entire decentralized finance sector. Nell stated that the two would no longer contribute to the DeFi sector.
Nell tweeted,
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. Thank you to everyone that supported us over the past few years.
Nell did not mention why the two would be leaving the sector. Moreover, the duo has not stated whether they will contribute to other projects outside DeFi. Cronje has since deleted his Twitter account, and he has updated his profile on LinkedIn to show that he was no longer working at the Fantom foundation.
Besi9des Fantom, Cronje was also a contributor to Yearn Finance, one of the leading players in the DeFi space. Yearn Finance tanked after news of the developer’s departure from the project. However, just like Fantom, the Yearn Finance team has also responded.
Yearn finance is still operating as normal, with the lead developer of the network taking to Twitter to state that Cronje had not contributed to the protocol in over a year.
