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Andre Cronje: The Lone Ranger's Network Odyssey

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AC has introduced the concept of "Fair Launch".

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Source: Gametaverse

"A very pale, chubby, bookish-looking child"

In the picturesque city of Cape Town, South Africa, Andre Cronje's upbringing was unique. Born into a traditional family, his father was a natural science teacher and his mother was a librarian. His older sister Tanja, five years his senior, remembers him as a "sweet little brother" who loved animals and outdoor activities. Despite occasional external criticisms that worried Tanja, it seems that Andre's childhood was not affected.

However, Cronje's memories of his childhood are somewhat bitter. He described himself as "a very pale, chubby, bookish child" who was bullied in a school that valued sports. But it was in this environment that he found a way to isolate himself - programming. He began exploring the world of programming by writing small games like Hangman, using the Pascal programming language. However, in his first computer science class, he already encountered a problem that he would often face in the future: no one could keep up with his pace, including the teacher.

The road to growth seems to be not always smooth sailing, but each stage is laying the foundation for his future career.

Half a year completed 3 years of computer courses

When the teenager Cronje entered Stellenbosch University to study law, he was full of aspirations to argue in court. However, soon the dryness and lack of practicality of law made him lose interest. The only thing that excited him was the simulation court, which was a very small part of the course. This made him start to rethink his future.

Just as he was feeling lost in the legal field, a chance encounter led him to the world of programming. At the time, his roommate needed a ride to Computer Training Institute for a computer science class, and Cronje began providing him with transportation. Gradually, he became interested in computer science and started attending classes at CTI. Soon after, he decisively switched to the field of computer science and completed three years of coursework in just six months, ultimately becoming a lecturer at Computer Training Institute.

Over the next decade, he ventured into multiple fields, including telecommunications, big data, mobile security, and fintech companies, serving roles in software development and engineering management. Each project and role honed his skills and broadened his perspective.

In 2017, the bull market of Bitcoin caught his attention and he began to pay attention to blockchain technology. At that time, he was already a senior software developer with a rich understanding of distributed networks. He began to study GitHub repositories and cryptocurrency whitepapers in his spare time. Gradually, he was attracted by the decentralized concept behind blockchain and the possible social changes it could bring. However, he soon realized that the "token culture" in the cryptocurrency field seemed to emphasize trading and financial elements too much, while ignoring the value of technology and products. This situation disappointed him, but at the same time, it also inspired him to explore more possibilities and laid the foundation for him to establish Yearn Finance in the future.

Uncle in the Cryptography Industry

With the end of the 2017 Bitcoin bull market, Andre Cronje's life underwent irreversible changes. As his business partner temporarily left him to go on a honeymoon, Cronje began to study blockchain technology on his own, delving into various whitepapers and GitHub repositories. He recalled, "If he hadn't gotten married and gone on a honeymoon, I might still be doing what I've been doing for the past five years." This was undoubtedly an opportunity for him to explore a new field.

In September 2020, in Laura Shin's podcast "Unchained", he recalled that the end of 2017 was a turning point because "it was the first time there were enough assets, enough protocols, and enough tools." From his LinkedIn profile, Cronje appears to be older than most people in the cryptocurrency field, having studied law before learning coding. But once he became interested in coding, he quickly mastered the skill at an incredible pace and soon found a job in the communications field, becoming familiar with distributed (although not decentralized) systems.

When he became interested in cryptocurrency, he started doing code reviews at Crypto Briefing and eventually joined an ICO-funded project called Fantom, a directed acyclic graph (DAG) blockchain project from South Korea. Even then, he was frustrated with the "token culture." In his March 2019 YouTube show "Oh Hey Matty," he expressed his feelings: "Too much time, energy, and capital are invested in tokens instead of products, which in the long run, benefit tokens."

However, he still accepted the challenge of helping people acquire more cryptocurrency through encrypted tokens.

iEarn's Birth

Cronje recalls that Yearn's original intention was actually very simple. He had his own small stablecoin investment portfolio and tried to manage it like a managed savings account. "90% of DeFi is figuring out how these protocols interact with each other." His preference for stablecoins stems from his dislike of the permanent loss problem that may be caused by dealing with non-stablecoin liquidity pools. For him, understanding the cryptocurrency market is too complex and risky.

On February 4, 2020, he wrote an article on Medium about launching iEarn (later renamed Y.Earn), describing how he had to personally bear thousands of dollars in expenses to get it online. At the end of the month, he wrote again, describing the various obstacles encountered during the launch process. Despite facing various challenges, he found the process "very interesting", and each challenge made the entire ecosystem more robust.

However, reality quickly poured cold water on him. Once, due to front-end issues, a user suffered losses after exchanging large assets. Cronje wrote an article titled "Building in #DeFi is just too bad," honestly expressing his feelings: "To be honest, this is bad. It's expensive, the community is very hostile, and users feel entitled."

Facing continuous criticism from the community and unrealistic expectations from users, he felt immense pressure. Cronje understood that he did not want to become a "bank that provides 24/7 technical and customer support".

收益农耕 101

translates to

Profitable Farming 101

in English.

In 2019, the cryptocurrency market was in a deep bear market, and people were only willing to hold stablecoins and wait for opportunities to buy low. Therefore, a significant demand was for risk-free appreciation of stablecoins. Initially, only currency markets such as AAVE, Compound, and dYdX could provide risk-free returns on lending.

iEarn has caused a sensation due to its implementation of automated yield optimization. Through yield optimization, users can earn substantial income by investing their cryptocurrencies in DeFi protocols for lending or trading, especially during times of cryptocurrency prosperity. However, this strategy, known as "yield farming," may require significant effort to seek returns.

Research firm Nansen found that most yield farmers abandon agreements after two to three days. Timing is key. The best yield farmers know exactly when to surge - or "charge" - and when to turn to the next agreement. iEarn automates this task - allowing users to pool their cryptocurrencies into smart contracts called vaults and rotate them through protocols such as dYdX, Aave, and Compound.

Later, the liquidity incentive war began. Compound was the first to fire with its COMP token, and the battle for liquidity began. Balancer followed closely with BAL, mStable introduced MTA, Fulcrum introduced BZX, while Curve was still waiting in the trenches to unveil CRV.

However, this makes profit farming more complicated, and simple profit-switching decisions are no longer sufficient.

Subsequently, the iterative new version renamed iEarn to Y.Earn (from 'I earn' to 'You earn'), and one month after the release of COMP, Cronje wrote "Yield Farming 101" on Medium, excitedly explaining how yield optimization becomes complex when stablecoin deposits also earn volatile growth tokens.

The liquidity incentive war has led to a huge increase in yEarn's locked funds, and this is just an appetizer before the main course. What really made yEarn a giant was the release of YFI.

公平发布

translates to

Fair Release

Usually, project founders reserve a portion of the tokens for themselves, but Cronje's method is a groundbreaking change. He introduced the concept of "Fair Launch," a token distribution method that does not reserve initial tokens. Scott Lewis, a member of the DeFi Pulse measurement project, commented: "Andre invented a new way to launch a project without funding. He proved that as long as you build something, then establish a community, and use the income from what you built to fund the team, you can launch a DeFi project."

On July 17, 2020, Cronje revealed his plan for his growth token YFI. Cronje's reputation soared because he did not reserve any tokens for himself. On Yearn, anyone who provides liquidity in some pools has the opportunity to receive YFI tokens, with no pre-mining, no reservation, and no advance notice to internal personnel. It can be said that Bitcoin has done the same thing, except that it rewards hash power instead of deposits, but this is still a matter of putting resources into the most desired contribution to a specific project.

Lewis said: "Dozens of projects inspired by Yearn have been launched in the same way. The success of YFI greatly reduces the barrier for builders to release their work."

Kulechov, the founder of AAVE in the encryption industry, said that team allocation is not only to extract wealth from decentralized applications, but also to maintain relevance. He said, "Many founders are always thinking: What if governance doesn't want to support me? What if they want to get rid of me? They have these fears."

In just two months, TVL has grown rapidly to nearly $1 billion, and four months later it reached an astonishing $7 billion. Meanwhile, the price of YFI has increased by tens of thousands of times, reaching $40,000. This is a huge success.

Eminence Thunderbolt

The success of YFI has made many people rich, and the Cronje concept sector has emerged in the market as a result. Even a casual like on his Twitter account can cause a rise in related currencies, and risks are also accumulating.

In September 2020, Cronje revealed a new Web3 project called Eminence, which he described as a DeFi protocol for the gaming metaverse. The night before going to bed, he posted a vague announcement on Twitter (with only an art image, no hyperlink).

The morning sun filled the room, and Cronje woke up from his sleep to find shocking news - even though Eminence did not have a user interface or frontend yet, users had already deposited 15 million DAI into the project. He couldn't help but laugh, but there was bitterness in his laughter. Users had found his open-source smart contract in the digital jungle and exchanged tokens directly into the contract.

However, good luck didn't seem to last long. At the same time, another user discovered a vulnerability in the code and stole all of the $15 million funds. Cronje, feeling resentful, stared at the screen with conflicting emotions. Shortly after, a mysterious user returned $8 million to a Yearn finance contract, making things even more confusing.

The failure of Eminence has caused a huge uproar in the community. Many people questioned and criticized Cronje's decisions, and his incomplete and untested application caused losses to investors. He had hoped that Eminence would become a pioneering project that combines non-fungible tokens (NFTs) with trading card games. His love for games and exploration of new things drove him to reveal information about the game on Twitter, causing fans to search frantically.

However, the sudden flash loan attack caused the loss of 15 million dollars, and Cronje's heart seemed to be pierced by the harsh reality.

In a later article titled "Interpreting My Relationship with DeFi," Cronje wrote, "The openness of these systems is a double-edged sword. I still need to think more about this." This seems to foreshadow some uncertainty about the future and also reflects his deep understanding and reflection on open systems. In his exploration and experimentation in the digital space, every step he takes seems to be showing us the infinite possibilities and challenges of the unknown world.

"We are giving away these worthless tokens for free"

In the ever-changing world of decentralized finance, the figure of Andre Cronje shines like a twinkling star. His unconventional personality and unpredictable creativity have become a hot topic among people. However, behind every hero, there is an unknown monologue, with unspoken confusion and anxiety.

In that turbulent September, Andre had a live exchange with Sergey Nazarov from Chainlink. During the exchange, he spoke earnestly, "People are making enviable fortunes through the new Ponzi scheme we invented, which is governance tokens. We give away these worthless tokens for free, yet for some reason, people are willing to buy them, and then the next wave of people come along to buy the tokens from the previous wave."

Obviously, Andre's words reveal a conflicting attitude towards the industry and its culture, despite his contribution of highly valuable governance tokens to this field. He is well aware of this fact, but also feels confused about it. Whenever someone asks him why the YFI token has such a high value, he always chooses to evade the question.

His Twitter profile succinctly showcases his approach: "I test in prod." "Prod" here refers to the final stage of the software development lifecycle, where code is polished and refined through multiple testing environments before being exposed to the real world. In these few words, Cronje summarizes his operating style - he rapidly builds software solutions to tackle the constantly emerging challenges in the decentralized finance (DeFi) space, often with warnings to the brave souls who venture to use his projects.

He once expressed his philosophical thoughts in a tweet: "Declaration: When I build software, it is for myself. If you really want to interact with it, please be careful, there will be errors. The interface is to make my life easier. I will make mistakes. If you don't understand it, please don't use it."

In these few words, Cronje opened the window to his worldview and work philosophy. He is not a programmer bound by fixed rules. His goal is clear, to solve problems, even if it means his methods may disrupt traditional software development norms. In his world, facing problems and responding quickly is more important than spending time in a perfect testing environment.

Upon closer inspection, this approach surprisingly shares a striking similarity with Musk's five-step work method. Over time, each decision and action is like a puzzle piece that comes together to form Cronje's unique masterpiece in the DeFi world. Each twist and turn adds color to his legendary story, and each reflection becomes a driving force for his continuous improvement. In the boundless digital realm, his journey is far from over.