DeFi trailblazer Andre Cronje returns with ‘weird psyops’ Medium post

A lengthy Medium post titled “The Crypto Winter of 2022” from DeFi trailblazer Andre Cronje has stirred controversy among the community.

The piece goes into detail on the market drawdown, particularly the triggering events that accelerated capital outflow from the space – namely, the Terra collapse and the wave of CeFi bankruptcies that followed.

Cronje wrote about the need for regulatory reform to address the problem of “asymmetrical information.” He also touched on potential solutions borrowed from TradFi, such as the involvement of central banks in supervising and insuring the crypto industry.

“The lack of transparency in these exchanges and investment funds — where consumers don’t actually know what is being done with their funds, or understand what they are told — is clearly a problem of asymmetrical information.”

Twitter profile @MJP.sol, a co-founder of cryptocurrency trading platform Archax, commented that it was ironic Cronje’s platforms operated on information asymmetry. Yet, he is now calling for the practice to end.

Sped read the article. Man who extracted 1bn from ecosystem through information assymetry, now talks about regulation and insurance to stop the asymmetry.

— MJP.sol (@mjpldn) October 25, 2022

Is Andre Cronje back?

Cronje is known as a pioneer of DeFi and is responsible for creating numerous projects, including Yearn Finance, Keep3rV1, and Sushiswap.

However, his public comments on “toxic” DeFi culture rattled industry advocates, leading him to quit the space and pulling the plug on many of his projects.

In March, associate Anton Nell announced that the pushback had become too much for him, culminating in the final “rage quit.” He added that the decision to leave the industry had been building “for a while now.”

“Unlike previous “building in defi sucks” rage quits, this is not a knee jerk reaction to the hate received from releasing a project, but a decision that has been coming for a while now.”

Even at the time of Nell’s announcement, speculation was mounting that Cronje would return at some future point.

Internet sleuths attempt to connect the facts

Following the crypto winter Medium post, posted October 25, some have taken this as a sign Cronje is about to make a comeback.

However, speculation is mounting on whether Cronje made the post. Numerous observers, including @ivangbi_, have commented that the post was signed off by Megan Dyamond, a member of the Commercial Team at Cape Town-based attorneys Dunsters.

Others chimed in to make sense of the matter, saying Dunsters provides legal and compliance advice on cryptocurrency and that one of its Directors is Henriette Cronje. Researcher Larry Cermak said Henriette is Andre’s sister.

Unable to determine the motivation behind the post, @DegenSpartan commented that he is 99% sure it is not from Andre, adding some “weird psyops [is] going on.”