Andre Cronje Says DeFi Has Become Onchain Finance

Decentralized finance was conceived as a system of immutable smart contracts that could deliver trading, lending and other services without intermediaries. Protocols have since added circuit breakers, contract pauses and risk committees to limit losses from exploits. While those safeguards may protect users, they also restore human discretion and centralized control, raising questions about whether many platforms still qualify as DeFi and how regulators should treat them.

Andre Cronje, founder of Flying Tulip and creator of Fantom Network, said during Chain Reaction’s X Spaces show on Aug. 13, 2026, that “true DeFi” survives only in small niches. Most protocols now resemble “onchain finance,” he said, because companies, curators and risk committees act as intermediaries. DefiLlama data showed total value locked across DeFi fell to about $75 billion from $167 billion in early October 2025, a decline of more than half in 10 months.