With $200 million in funding, DeFi founder AC makes a high-profile comeback with Flying Tulip

Original Title: "That Man is Back! This Time, He Wants to Raise 1 Billion USD"

Original Source: BitpushNews

Just when everyone thought Andre Cronje had faded out of the crypto scene, the legendary figure known as the "Father of DeFi" has returned. This time, he comes with a brand new project—Flying Tulip, which today announced a $200 million funding round.

What’s even more special is that Flying Tulip has introduced a brand new mechanism: users can destroy tokens at any time and retrieve their principal. This means participants have a "downside protection" while still enjoying unlimited upside potential.

Who is Andre Cronje?

If you experienced the DeFi Summer of 2020, you’ve definitely heard his name.

Andre Cronje is the founder of Yearn Finance (YFI)—a legendary developer who sparked the DeFi boom with just code. YFI was once hailed as "the fairest token" because he didn’t reserve any share for himself at the time.

But after several project booms, community disputes, and security incidents, Cronje faded from the public eye in 2022. Until today, when he returns with Flying Tulip.

What is Flying Tulip?

Editor’s Note: "Flying Tulip" literally means "Flying Tulip." The tulip is the most famous symbol of a financial bubble in history (the "Tulip Mania" of the 17th century was the earliest speculative bubble).

Cronje named the project Flying Tulip, which is both self-deprecating and a declaration: the crypto world may be like tulips, but this time, he wants to make it truly "fly." In other words, Flying Tulip aims to turn what once represented a "bubble" into something more stable, real, and vibrant through on-chain mechanisms.

According to the official documentation, Flying Tulip aims to build a fully on-chain financial platform, integrating many functions familiar to crypto users—stablecoins, lending, spot trading, derivatives, options, and insurance—all within one system.

Simply put, it wants to be a "one-stop DeFi platform," allowing users to:

· Earn yields by depositing tokens;

· Borrow tokens for leverage;

· Go long or short;

· Even hedge risks through on-chain insurance.

And all of this is done within a unified account system, without the need to frequently switch between different platforms.

A New Token Issuance Mechanism

The most eye-catching feature this time is Flying Tulip’s "Onchain Redemption Right."

Traditionally, once users participate in a token issuance, their funds are locked regardless of price fluctuations.

But Flying Tulip offers a "programmable redemption" mechanism—

All participants can destroy their $FT tokens at any time and retrieve their principal (such as ETH).

The system will automatically return funds from a separate on-chain reserve pool. This design is somewhat like an on-chain insurance mechanism, ensuring investors don’t "lose everything" while retaining upside potential.

However, it’s important to note that the official team reminds users this is not a "guaranteed principal" or "deposit insurance"—the reserve pool is limited, and whether the redemption right can be exercised depends on whether there are sufficient funds in the pool.

Funds Are Not Locked: Using Yields to Fuel Growth

In the pitch materials presented to investors, Cronje mentioned that while this design seems to make the funds unusable, in reality, Flying Tulip plans to invest these funds into on-chain yield strategies, such as Aave, Ethena, Spark, and other mainstream DeFi protocols.

Their goal is to achieve an annualized yield of about 4%. Based on the planned fundraising cap of $1 billion, this would generate about $40 million in interest income per year.

This yield will be used for:

· Paying protocol incentives;

· Buying back $FT tokens;

· Supporting ecosystem growth and marketing.

Cronje described it in investor materials as follows: "We use recurring yields to drive growth and incentives, use perpetual put options to protect investors’ downside, while retaining unlimited upside potential for the token—this forms a self-reinforcing growth flywheel."

No Team Allocation

Another major highlight is that the Flying Tulip team has no initial token allocation. All of their income comes from the project’s real revenue, which is used to buy back $FT tokens on the market and release them according to a public plan.

In other words, the team only gets rewarded if the protocol actually makes money and users actually use it. This puts the team and investors on the same boat—the more popular the project, the more they earn.

Strong Capital Backing, Targeting $1 Billion Fundraising

Flying Tulip has already completed a $200 million private fundraising round, with investors including:

· Brevan Howard Digital

· CoinFund

· DWF Labs

· FalconX

· Hypersphere

· Nascent

· Republic Digital

· Susquehanna Crypto, etc.

Next, they will conduct token issuance across multiple chains, with a total fundraising target of up to $1 billion.

Summary

The emergence of Flying Tulip brings back memories of 2020, when "code changed finance." The difference is, this time Andre Cronje wants to do more than just innovate products—he wants to make DeFi more trustworthy and sustainable. After DeFi’s bear market reshuffle and trust collapse, Cronje’s return may not only mark the comeback of a developer, but also signal the potential reignition of a new DeFi cycle.

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