Fantom Responds to Fake News Piece, Andre Cronje Departure

The Fantom Foundation has responded to misinformation spread by a debunked rekt article and clarified details surrounding Andre Cronje’s departure. 

The Fantom Foundation Speaks Out 

The Fantom Foundation is looking to set the record straight on recent rumors circulating the crypto space. 

The organization behind the popular Layer 1 blockchain released a statement Friday, addressing several factual inaccuracies published in a since-removed article from crypto news site rekt. 

rekt, a publication that specializes in covering hacks, exploits, and controversies in the crypto space, put out an article earlier in the week covering what it believed were several questionable FTM token transactions and DeFi builder Andre Cronje’s departure from the Fantom Foundation. However, members of the Fantom community quickly debunked the claims rekt made in its article, leading to the publication retracting it shortly after posting.

“We can’t know if this misinformation is being spread out of ignorance or malice,” the statement from the foundation reads, “but we do know that these inaccuracies have the potential to hurt the reputation of Fantom, the Foundation team, and perhaps most importantly, its community,” it said. The letter covers nine specific inaccuracies, many of which concern Cronje and his involvement with the Fantom Foundation.  

The statement explained that Cronje was never a core developer for Fantom and instead occupied an advisory role in the foundation. It also clarified how projects that Cronje created or ran in the past were not being “terminated” and had previously been handed over to teams developing and running them independently. “For example, both Multichain and Yearn.Finance have teams that have been operating [without Cronje] for years,” the post stated.

The Fantom Foundation also assured readers that its technology development is continuing as normal, contrary to the implications made in rekt’s article and Cronje stepping down from an advisory role. 

Speculation surrounding Cronje’s move away from crypto has ramped up since he announced his departure with fellow Fantom builder Anton Nell last weekend. In response, the tokens of several projects Cronje was affiliated with, including YFI, KP3R, and FTM were hit hard, dropping by as much as 20% in the hours that followed. 

The Fantom Foundation ended its note by saying that everything it does is driven by the notion that Fantom is not about one individual. While many crypto community members viewed Cronje as a poster child for Fantom, the reality is that he was one of many builders and developers contributing to the network’s success. 

Disclosure: At the time of writing this piece, the author owned FTM and several other cryptocurrencies. Andre Cronje is an equity holder in Crypto Briefing. He previously worked at the publication with Anton Nell.