
Recently, media outlet Rekt.news made high-profile allegations about Fantom Opera, a layer-1 blockchain, after the foundation’s technical advisor Andre Cronje and senior solution architect Anton Nell announced they would be exiting the crypto space entirely. Community concerns arose almost immediately after Nell tweeted“There are approximately 25 apps and services that we will be ending April 3, 2022.” In the now-deleted Rekt article, it claimed the following:
“Fantom, Solidly, SpookySwap, Abracadabra, Geist: multiple projects all entwined in a system designed to extract maximum value from a small group of insiders now steadily leaving the stage.”
On Friday, however, the Fantom Foundation released a statement alleging “factual errors”, “debunked claims” and “misinformation” from the Rekt piece. In particular, the Fantom Foundation stated:
“Andre and Anton have not ‘finished’ 25 projects. Instead, any involvement (such as the user interface) in these projects would be handed over to the existing teams, many of whom had developed and run independently.”
In addition, the foundation explained that neither Cronje nor Nell was a core developer at Fantom and that the entity itself was not involved in setting up any of the 25 projects (including, most notably, Yearn.finance) in question. It appears that, in part as a result of the pair’s departure, the total value on Fantom has fallen to $8.27 billion, from $11.26 billion on Sunday, the date of the announcement. The blockchain has processed more than 200 million transactions with more than 2 million active wallets since its inception.