News linked to both this project and an event.
Odaily News: Andre Cronje, founder of DeFi platform Flying Tulip and creator of Fantom Network, stated that most DeFi protocols are no longer truly decentralized, with only a few niche areas still qualifying as DeFi. He believes DeFi has evolved into "on-chain finance" or "open finance." He pointed out that true DeFi should possess characteristics such as decentralization, immutability, and the absence of intermediaries, whereas the intermediaries in most current protocols have become corporations, taking on traditional financial institution roles such as decision-makers and risk committees. Cronje noted that this does not mean true DeFi has completely disappeared, as some protocols are still innovating. Data from DefiLlama shows that the total value locked (TVL) in DeFi has dropped from $167 billion in early October 2025 to $75 billion at the time of the original report over the past 10 months, a decline of more than half. In a working paper published in March, the European Central Bank (ECB) analyzed Aave, MakerDAO, Ampleforth, and Uniswap, finding that based on holding snapshots from November 2022 and May 2023, the top 100 addresses holding governance tokens in these protocols each controlled over 80% of the token supply. The ECB consequently questioned the level of decentralization of these DAOs and whether they should continue to be regarded as "fully decentralized" services exempt from the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA). (Cointelegraph)
According to Cointelegraph, Flying Tulip—a decentralized finance platform founded by Andre Cronje—has implemented a withdrawal circuit breaker mechanism. This mechanism delays or queues withdrawals during abnormal capital outflows, thereby limiting potential losses and buying time for the team to investigate. The mechanism operates differently across products: for the Perpetual PUT product, withdrawals may be reverted, requiring users to retry later; for ftUSD, withdrawals are queued and can be claimed after a delay. Flying Tulip states that this mechanism follows a “fail-open” design—meaning transactions continue to execute even if the safety mechanism fails.
Odaily News: Sonic Labs co-founder and Flying Tulip founder Andre Cronje posted on platform X, stating that his team is continuing to investigate the L0/rsETH incident. Preliminary reports indicate that approximately $200 million worth of rsETH was stolen, possibly due to a private key leak or configuration error. The related assets were subsequently deposited into Aave as collateral to borrow ETH (due to insufficient rsETH liquidity).Andre Cronje pointed out that the affected positions are technically still overcollateralized. However, if bad debt occurs, Aave's token mechanism and Safety Module will serve as the first line of defense to absorb the risk. Nevertheless, Aave has no mechanism to subsidize user losses, as doing so could trigger a bank run. Currently, Aave holds approximately $7 billion in ETH with an outstanding borrowing amount of around $100 million, so the overall impact of this incident is limited. Furthermore, prioritizing user liquidity, Flying Tulip has withdrawn all its ETH from Aave to its fund management wrapper contract. This action was taken because Aave's available liquidity had fallen below its set minimum threshold.