Fantom TVL slumps as colleague tweets Andre Cronje is quitting DeFi

The Fantom ecosystem has suffered a sharp drop in total value locked (TVL) after reports emerged that star developer Andre Cronje was quitting the decentralized finance (DeFi) space.

Data from DefiLlama shows that the TVL for the Fantom DeFi ecosystem is down more than 20% in the last 24 hours. This decline coincides with Anton Nell, a Fantom Foundation developer, tweeting on Sunday that both he and Cronje were exiting the crypto space, without stating reasons for their departures.

Cronje was previously reported to have quit DeFi last year, only for those reports to have proven false – or at least premature. The developer didn’t immediately respond to messages from The Block today seeking clarity on the situation.

Apart from quitting the industry, Nell’s tweet also announced they were terminating 25 apps and services on April 3, including the recently launched Solidly exchange. As previously reported by The Block, the Solidly launch was a major contributor to Fantom temporarily becoming the third-largest DeFi ecosystem among popular Layer 1 chains.

Solidly and its yield optimizer protocol Solidex contributed the largest TVL slump following news of Cronje’s exit. The removal of liquidity from these projects saw their TVLs fall more than 30% over the last 24 hours.

Fantom’s native coin, FTM, also took a nosedive during the period, sliding 20% from $1.71 to $1.32. FTM has since recovered somewhat and is trading at $1.44 as of the time of writing.

According to the Fantom Foundation, Nell and Cronje’s exit doesn’t sound the death knell for the network. Tweeting on Sunday, the Foundation stated that development on the chain will not be impacted by Cronje’s exit from the ecosystem.