Partnered With:

AC Dialogue Community: Don't invest in a project just because I joined

Read this article in 28 Minutes

"I'm not bullish on any algorithmic stablecoins"

Original article author: Andre Cronje and the Fantom community

Leo, BlockBeats

Recently, Andre Cronje, known as the "Father of DeFi", announced his return. As one of the earliest builders of DeFi track, AC announced his retirement in April last year by publishing an article "crypto is dead, crypto lives on", but its related news may bring some fluctuations to crypto. Especially Fantom. After AC's return, everyone also focuses on whether AC's return can regain the past glory of DeFi and bring better development to Fantom. Recently, AC launched infinite AMA activity. BlockBeats has compiled part of the content as follows:

Q: What is the timeline for the account abstraction (AA) features you mentioned in Medium?

AC:There are too many factors involved, and any software engineering schedule is highly variable, to predict that our internal goal is to be available at least on testnet and preferably mainnet by early Q3 or Q4. Since this involves a large number of breakthrough core changes, it requires coordination with third party providers using Fantom's downstream data. Even when AA goes live, wallet/developer /Dapp still needs time to integrate, so it also needs to take time into account. In fact, Until full integration and downstream service provision of AA is likely to take 2-3 years.

Q: Will Gas Abstraction come along with AA? Or is it too early?

AC:The full functionality of the Gas Abstraction which requires AA support will play a similar role in practice, part of which will be available when we release the Gas subsidy.

Q: What do you think of Tomb Finance (the algorithmic Stablecoin project linked to FTM)?

AC:I don't trust the algorithm Stablecoins, and neither do they.

Q: What about algorithmic stablecoins linked to FTM?

AC:It doesn't matter if it's on the hook, as long as it's algorithmic, or not fully secured.

Q: Is FVM (Fantom virtual machine) still developing normally? Can you provide any updates?

AC:Everything is on track and we are cautious about releasing updates. We don't want to release information too early because we want FVM to be a competitive advantage that we can secure.

Q: Hi, Andre, three questions:

-Why did you decide to partner with Danielle Sestagali (Frog Nation founder and Wonderland Link) in 2021, using the Ponzi of Wonderland (the deal on Frog Nation) to promote and hype, You know it's not sustainable and sooner or later a lot of people are going to lose money?

- Why did you push out Solidly like that, knowing that there would be many people who believed in you and made FTM their home, and they would all be affected?

- Why do you have a relationship with Harry (Harry Yeh, founder and managing partner of Quantum Fintech Group), the only thing Harry does is hurt his community?

Above these questions, I am not trying to discredit FTM because it is my only and favorite L 1 and I will always defend it because everything else is rubbish in comparison.

AC:In 2021, after Eminence, I was bombarded with a barrage of negativity, a big part of which was, "I don't care about users," or "I don't put users first." Danielle had managed to build what I thought was a very strong community, and after talking to him a few times, I believe he really cares deeply about community building and his audience, which is something I know and I don't. I'm not involved with Wonderland, but respect the work they do with Abracadabra (the DeFi protocol on Frog Nation) /MIM (the algorithmic Stablecoin launched by Abracadabra), And his work on Popsicle (the DeFi protocol on Ethereum), both of which are real products.

Danielle used to see Wonderland as a community-building exercise, but as you say, that's not sustainable, which is why I've never supported or been involved in it. To be honest, if it weren't for what happened to 0xSifu (Wonderland CFO), I wouldn't have any problem continuing to work with Danielle. Unfortunately, defeat means the door to cooperation is closed forever.

Regarding Solidly, I think I communicated two things clearly (in hindsight, I should emphasize these) : First, Solidly was completely immutable, and even I couldn't update it after I deployed it, so there was nothing for me to do, and after I deployed it, I left. I did convey the point that Solidly was just a new primitive rather than a "project," but it seems that this was not appreciated enough or that I communicated problems. Those were my mistakes, which is why I tried to spend more time creating discussion environments, because I don't want this to happen again; Second, users can manipulate the system for their own benefit, but then they get burned because they have to accumulate large Solid positions (which cost them a lot of money) and then ultimately devalue their positions by working for their own benefit. I don't think any rational person would do that, but obviously I was wrong, Because Bebis and Roosh both ended up doing this, their platforms lost value. Since then, all forks have decided to centralize this part, and because the decentralized nature was its weakness, I still (perhaps naively) think Solidly was successful, Because it proves true decentralized governance doesn't work in real world environments (further code breakthroughs with new stable AMM, new weighted oracle, and ve tokenomics) and proves that users care more about "teams and projects" than primitives, having said that, I do regret the way things turned out, which is why I'm focusing more on communication this year (like this AMA).

I have no relationship with Harry Yeh, I have only met him at the Fantom Conference in ABU Dhabi, but I have always made it clear that Harry is not part of the Foundation or a core contributor.

I appreciate these issues, it's good to be able to talk about the good and the bad, I think it's better to talk about the bad because we can learn from them.

Q: Is there any progress on FUSD?

AC:At present, we have set up a dedicated team to first suspend FUSD and then reactivate it under the new structure. The current focus is only to liquidate and clean up bad debts, and significantly reduce bad debt verification. I expect this problem to be solved in Q 1.

Q: Do you know what people call Solidly V2? Does it do any good? Or is it just named after Solidly?

AC:I have not seen the Equalizer, but have seen projects like Equalizer/ Velodrome/SolidlyETH in my protocol and ecosystem studies, I am glad someone built on top of the original, and my only comment is, I think people are paying a little too much attention to the ve /bribe /vote improvement, which is the smallest improvement in the entire code base, but the bigger project is:

- New stable swap AMM formula;

- New time and liquidity weighted TWAR (Time weighted Average Reserve) mechanism, which is a more practical predictor for DeFi project than TWAP (time weighted average price);

- Fee splitting, the way fees are split means that agreements that incentivize liquidity can earn extra fees, for example, if you incentivize a pool, only veCRV holders get transaction fees, while for Solidly, you get these fees if you incentivize the pool.

I'd love to see more people expand and build on these in the future without focusing too much on the ve /bribe /vote, but again, I'd be glad to see more projects built on this, but I haven't seen anyone implement it as I expected, and I think there's a lot of improvement that hasn't actually been created yet.

Q: I'm glad you're back, January 2021 saw FTM price boom, market cap rise, conservative look, next bull market FTM will hit $10, how do you see it ranking, top 20 is our highest target? At the right time in the next bull market, I believe you can build community better than Danielle and see massive growth and adoption, curious about any ideas you have.

AC:We tend not to think about or worry about price, it is a lagging indicator, our KPI criteria are;

- Number of on-chain transactions

- The customer is willing to pay for Gas in the transaction

Our revenue is linked to the above two points. We do not measure it in dollars. If we improve these two KPIs, other lagging indicators will also increase.

Q: What's next for Fantom NFT Marketing Artion? Will it be actively developed or used for similar community-driven projects?

AC:We had a small team (about six people) working on Artion, but our goal was always to let this community take over, and when we started building Artion, we didn't have a strong market for NFT, PaintSwap did really well, and I thought maybe Artion might end up falling behind.

Q: Your post on Medium a few weeks ago said that it was okay to leave and join an encrypted project like BTC. My concern is whether the return of FTM is permanent or temporary? Because for some people, including me, investing in crypto is not just about the technology, but the people behind it, how many of us actually adopt encryption in real life? Very few, if I'm not mistaken. Most people invest in crypto projects just to get a return, I know you may not care about this space, you have mentioned in the past that you are here to build, but most investors are here to get more return.

AC:For the time being, my goal has always been to decentralize any project I'm involved in. "Decentralize" is the opposite of "team." History has proven that while I'm committed to encryption, I'm too emotional and personal, so if you're investing in a project because of me, I suggest you reconsider your investment. My mental health condition means that I need to "detox from anger" periodically, and sadly, I will continue to do so.

I also want to point out that I don't speak for the Fantom team, which has over a hundred people driving it, and just as the project has been moving forward in my absence, it will continue to move forward if I leave in the future.

Q: Assuming that Fantom will be one of the most user friendly, cheapest, most secure, fastest, and highest throughput blockchains, ultimately would one expect the use case for this kind of blockchain to appear outside of DeFi? Do you think it's close? Supply chain, voting, electronic medical record proof of concept, etc.? Does the FTM Foundation have a team focused on these features and/or building middleware products for companies that enable them to do anything with Fantom?

AC:This is a natural evolution of technology:

BTC is equivalent to - the original broadcast Internet, this version of the Internet is not consumer friendly, it is a broadcast protocol used to share critical static information in time of war;

Ethereum is tantamount to - moving towards interactive Internet, AOL, IRC, message boards, etc., until the software/hardware stack expands, the networks we have today couldn't have done that in that time;

Fantom genesis is tantamount to -- a step toward the dynamic Internet, where the early eBay, MySpace, Amazon (at this stage, high-frequency systems like Facebook, Twitter, tiktok, Instagram, etc., couldn't exist);

Fantom future is equal to -- high frequency, accessible decentralized network.

The first use of any technology is almost always in the currency (financial products), until the barriers to entry (fees) are lowered to the point where they are freely available. In the early days of the Internet, we used to pay huge access fees ($per Megabyte), not unlike Gas. Now we can get gigabytes of data for a few cents (this is the future).

The problem is that narrative is always faster than accessible reality. If from the beginning until now, BTC 2009 -- Ethereum 2015 -- Fantom 2019, Amazon and the rest of our everyday products have taken nearly 30 years to get to where they are today, and blockchain as a whole is only about 14 years old, It could be another 10 years before we reach a technical point where any application is usable.

So I think we are close, yes, I think "close" to the future is in 5-10 years, not a few months. Applications (outside DeFi) cannot exist until the base layer is ready, which is why we are pushing so hard for FVM + flat storage etc. We know that our consensus is that we can handle the throughput needed to support the requirements, but EVM can't. As a result, expecting to build these applications now is not actually feasible because the base layer needs to enable them first, and we will focus this year on removing EVM restrictions, which will push us closer to the ceiling, and then we can see such applications.

Trying to build future apps without the right foundation is a disaster, so now is the time to be patient and cautious.

Q: With the advent of the cheap and high-speed Ethereum L 2, do you think L 1 (like Fantom) is having problems with adoption and how to increase adoption? Also, have you considered institutional adoption/use cases, this is an area where I believe we are falling behind other L 1/2 like Polygon, again going back to my point that the technology is great but we need to increase the adoption rate.

AC:I don't think any other blockchain, side chain or L2 will cause adoption problems for Fantom, blockchain is not a zero-sum game, just like all other industries, you don't just have one phone brand, car brand, Internet provider, there's enough adoption for everyone.

Fantom is not currently focused on "adoption" (and, I think the word is now solidified into a meme), we haven't even finished our product yet, and with changes like account abstraction, economic abstraction, and FVM, there will be breakthrough changes like hard forks, and for that reason, We don't think it's wise to spend time and effort adapting to change, as you say institutional adoption, when I say institutional, I mean slow moving physical organizations, they don't like being forced to change their products, once deployed, they don't want to update/migrate, and it's not responsible to bring them into this round of change now.

I want to return the question to you. You said, "We need to increase adoption." Why? Wouldn't it make more sense to complete our roadmap before we turn our focus to adapting to change? Before optimizing the sales cycle, you finish manufacturing the car/phone/computer etc.

Q: I have three questions:

- I read your reply on FUSD above, is the team waiting for the US Stablecoin regulations?

-fWallet is ok for now, but are there any plans to update fWallet as DeFi suite?

- Will FTM gains from Gas tokenization be locked in, vested or only pledged as options over a period of time?

AC:Thank you for your question. Currently, our team has not taken any action according to the US Stablecoin regulations, but if anything happens, we will pay close attention to it and make adjustments accordingly. There are plans to upgrade fWallet after the account abstraction is published; No, teams are free to use it as they want, it's just their source of income, so we don't want to limit it.

Q: Hi Andre, can you share some FTM Foundation DeFi protocol names? If not, can you share some protocol names that you think are secure enough for beginners?

AC:Everything is high risk without a secure protocol, but some of the protocols we use include: Curve, Convex, Geist, SpookySwap, Beets, and Multichain.

Q: How has your opinion of Fantom changed since the tweet?

AC:I believe Ethereum was more focused on L2 than how to extend their base layer, and while they were focused on their base layer, we worked together. Now that they've shifted their focus to L 2, what they're doing won't help us, and what we're doing won't help them (when we're no longer focused on EVM), this year, we'll see a huge divergence between the two as both head in their own new direction, Fantom focusing on UX and base layer extensions, Ethereum is focused on L 2 and relayer UX.

Q: Hi Andre, a question that has been bothering me for a while, isn't it more logical that by standard the verifier gets more APR than the principal, especially the extra cost required to run the node, sure, you get some extra benefit from the person who delegated it to you, but that doesn't happen any more as the stakes go down and the verifiers go up. One last interesting question, where will Fantom be in 5 years?

AC:The verifier does get more than the principal, but it's up to the individual verifier to decide, if they want to, they can charge zero, that's their right, it's not up to us.

Fantom 5 years from now needs a more modest posture, Fantom is now the Internet equivalent of the early 1990s, you know very well that you are entering the Internet age, you need dial-up modems, RJ11 cable, waiting for dial-up, you need custom browsers, and even then access was slow and expensive, In 20 years, users won't care if they're in the Internet age, because the Internet has always been available, and given the technological advances, I believe we can achieve this with Fantom in the next five years instead of 20.

Q: I want to ask you about the future of Solidly? Will there be plans to reopen or compensate users? I have a suggestion that users interact with popular Dapps in Fantom, which may reward NFT or others.

AC:There are no plans for Solidly in the future, which presents immutable cryptographic primitives rather than a project in which I no longer Yearn or Keep3r.

Q: I have two questions for you:

- Is FTM Foundation considering lifting the cap on 3.175b tokens and launching a dynamic emission model similar to Ethereum? This may reward the verifier for many years to come. The reason for this problem is that there is no guarantee that the verifier will make a profit from the transaction fees alone after the token distribution is over;

- As a DeFi expert, what do you think of Uniswap V3 and related optimizer projects such as Popsicle Finance? If I remember correctly, the V3 no forking license expires in April, which means some forking is likely to happen, including Fantom, and Popsicle can also deploy optimizers if needed, since V3 liquidity management is too complicated for the average user, there will be a clear use case for V3 optimizer, But are these optimizers profitable, because I've seen many reports that users are more likely to make money on V3 LPing than they are to lose, Popsicle rarely makes money with Fragola V3 optimizer, and right now, the team seems to be working on JIT integration to reduce its losses, what do you think about that? Maybe you talked about this concept with Danielle Sesta before.

AC:It will be interesting to see first if we can significantly increase the charge to offset the emissions, probably soon, if we can get to 2-4% APY on the charge we can stop the emissions, we can even stop it before the supply reaches 3.175b, but that will require more data.

Uniswap V3 has the option of an extension, but I think they will probably enforce it unless they release V4 before April, in which case V3 will be dead, though it's too early to tell, concentrated liquidity also means concentrated erratic losses (or rather, just losses), This is an advanced system led by power users. Not everything in life is too simple.