Here’s Why Fantom (FTM) Tanked 20% and Its DeFi TVL Also Corrected 21%

Although the broader crypto market seems under pressure, Fantom (FTM) has extended its losses to a steeper 20% in the last 24 hours. FTM is currently trading 20.94% down at a price of $1.33 dropping to 37th rank by the market cap.

The latest price crash for Fantom comes as its lead DeFi builder – Andre Cronje – announced his sudden exit from the crypto space. This news has rocked the Fantom community causing a severe price crash for FTM. Andre’s business partner Anton also confirmed the news stating that they will be terminating 25 and services that they have built on Fantom. Anton wrote:

Andre and I have decided that we are closing the chapter of contibuting to the defi/crypto space. There are around ~25 apps and services that we are terminating on 03 April 2022.

On Telegram Andre also confirmed that they shall be completing all the handovers implying that the affiliated project will still be able to run independently of Andre.

FTM and Its Ecosystem Project Take Huge Hit

Most of the Fantom ecosystem projects witnessed a price crash of 20-30% instantly since the news broke out. As a result, the total value locked (TVL) on Fantom also dropped by 21%. Solidly turned out to be one of the most challenging projects for Andre and Anton and the burnout might have resulted in their sudden exit.

There was a heavy cashing out from the Solidly pools yesterday with Solidy TVL dropping 44$ and the Solidex TVL crashing 45%.

While the market has reacted very negatively to Andre’s exit, the Fantom Foundation has come up with an explanation. In its latest announcement, the Fantom Foundation noted:

We’re extremely grateful to Andre for all he did for crypto as a whole. However, Fantom isn’t and never was a one man team. The development of Fantom won’t be impacted by Andre’s decision. Big things are coming, as scheduled. We’re still on track to ship snapsync and a db upgrade in the short term and to release middleware improvements such as flat storage and the fvm.

Things might take time for the Fantom community to recover until we get someone who’s equally talented as Andre to build the Fantom ecosystem.