Yearn Finance founder returns to the cryptocurrency world: This time he wants to raise $1 billion

Just when everyone thought Andre Cronje had faded from the crypto world, the legendary figure known as the "Father of DeFi" has returned. This time, he's back with a brand new project—Flying Tulip. Today, he announced the completion of a $200 million funding round and plans to launch a public token sale. Even more unique is that this public offering comes with an unprecedented mechanism: users can destroy tokens and withdraw their principal at any time. This means that participants' downside risk is "bottom-line protected," while upside returns remain uncapped. Who is Andre Cronje? If you experienced the DeFi summer of 2020, you've undoubtedly heard of him.

Andre Cronje is the founder of Yearn Finance (YFI) - a legendary developer who set off the DeFi craze with just code. YFI was once hailed as the "fairest token" because he did not reserve any share for himself at the time. However, after several viral projects, community disputes, and security incidents, Cronje retreated from public view in 2022. Until today, he has reemerged with Flying Tulip. What is Flying Tulip? Editor's Interpretation: "Flying Tulip" literally means "flying tulip." Tulips are the most famous symbol of bubbles in financial history (the 17th-century "Tulip Mania" was the earliest speculative bubble). Cronje named the project Flying Tulip, a bit of self-deprecation and a declaration of purpose: the crypto world may be like a tulip, but this time, he wants it to truly "fly." In other words, Flying Tulip aims to make what once represented a "bubble" more stable, more real, and more resilient through on-chain mechanisms. According to official documentation, Flying Tulip aims to build a fully on-chain financial platform, integrating many familiar features of crypto users—stablecoins, lending, spot trading, derivatives, options, and insurance—into a single system. Simply put, it wants to be a "one-stop DeFi platform" that allows users to: deposit coins to earn income; borrow coins for leverage; go long or short; and even hedge risks through on-chain insurance. All of this is done in a unified account system, without the need to frequently switch between different platforms. A “refundable” token public sale The most eye-catching thing this time is Flying Tulip’s “Onchain Redemption Right”. Traditionally, once users participate in a token public sale, their money is locked up regardless of the price of the token. However, Flying Tulip offers a "programmed redemption" mechanism—all participants can destroy their $FT tokens at any time and recover their invested capital (e.g., ETH). The system automatically returns funds from a separate on-chain reserve pool. This design acts as an on-chain insurance mechanism, ensuring that investors don't suffer a complete loss while also preserving upside potential. However, it's important to note that officials caution that this isn't a "guaranteed return" or "deposit insurance"—the reserve pool is limited in size, and redemption rights depend on sufficient funds within the pool.

Funds are not locked up: use returns to feed growth

In the roadshow materials shown to investors, Cronje mentioned that this design seems to make the funds unusable, but in fact Flying Tulip plans to invest this money in on-chain income strategies, such as Aave, Ethena, Spark and other mainstream DeFi protocols.

Their goal is to achieve an annualized return of approximately 4%. Based on the planned financing cap of $1 billion, it will generate approximately $40 million in interest income each year.

This income will be used to:

• pay protocol incentives;

• buy back $FT tokens;

• support ecosystem growth and market promotion. Cronje described it in his investor materials as follows: “We use recurring returns to drive growth and incentives, and perpetual put options to protect investors from downside risks while retaining the token’s unlimited upside potential – this forms a self-reinforcing growth flywheel.” The team has no reserved shares. Another highlight is that the Flying Tulip team did not receive any initial token distribution. Their income comes entirely from the project’s actual revenue, which they use to repurchase $FT tokens on the market and release them according to the public plan.

  In other words, the team can only get rewards when the protocol is actually profitable and users actually use it. This puts the team and investors on the same boat - the more popular the project, the more they earn.

  Target US$1 billion in financing

  Flying Tulip has completed US$200 million in private financing. Investors include: Brevan Howard Digital, CoinFund, DWF Labs, FalconX, Hypersphere, Nascent, Republic Digital, Susquehanna Crypto, etc. Next, they will launch public offerings simultaneously on multiple chains, with a target total financing of up to $1 billion. Conclusion The emergence of Flying Tulip evokes memories of the 2020 era when "code changed finance." The difference is that this time, Andre Cronje aims not only to innovate products but also to make DeFi more trustworthy and sustainable. After DeFi experienced a bear market reshuffle and a collapse of trust, Cronje's return may not only be a developer's comeback, but also a signal: a new DeFi cycle is expected to be reignited.