Will This Experienced DeFi Founder Save FTM After Taking Over As CTO?

In five short months, FTM, the native coin of the Fantom Network, has been in free fall. In summary, the token is down a massive 70% from March highs but is presently stable, following a stream of supportive fundamentals.

A big part of the recent turnaround is due to a recovery in DeFi and capital flowing into the sector. According to DeFiLlama data, all DeFi protocols across multiple blockchains manage over $84 billion worth of assets. Though Ethereum leads, over $128 million of digital assets are tied to the interoperable Fantom Network reading from DeFiLlama.

As DeFi TVL stabilizes in the Fantom Network, though significantly lower than in 2021, attention has been paid to the change in leadership at Sonic (previously Fantom) Labs.

According to a press release, Andre Cronje, the founder of Yearn.Finance and an experienced DeFi developer is now the new Chief Technology Officer (CTO). The DeFi founder takes over from Quan Nguyen.

Cronje will spearhead the design and development of the blockchain with a keen focus on building a new bridging technology, The Sonic Gateway. This bridge aims to ensure that Sonic is interoperable and users can move tokens across multiple blockchains, including Ethereum.

Only time will tell how FTM evolves, looking at the development in the daily chart. As of mid-August, FTM is up 52% from August low. Most importantly, the token appears to be absorbing the selling pressure of the last five months.

Following the Multichain hack in 2023, the Sonic ecosystem and FTM face challenges. The attack on the Multichain Bridge saw hackers make away with roughly $125 million of assets, a massive blow. With the community hit hard, Cronje said the Fantom team was misled about the security of Multichain.

As Sonic Labs looks to fast-track development, they recently announced the Sonic Innovator Fund. The fund, seeded from the Sonic Foundation treasury, will offer support for top protocols migrating to their platform. To make this possible, they are also working with angel investors like the founders of Aave, Curve, and Compound.