AC said: The pitfalls I've encountered, you all (shouldn't) step in again

This article is sourced from: Medium

Author: Andre Cronje,

Compiled by: Katie Gu, Odaily Planet Daily

Recently, Yearn.finance founder Andre Cronje hinted at a possible comeback on his social media platform. Additionally, Andre Cronje updated his position on his LinkedIn page, showing that he has been serving as Vice President of Memes at Fantom Foundation since November 2022. After a long silence, AC spoke today, summarizing many past lessons (with a photo of CZ as the cover image). Is he going to provide some industry advice for Binance and FTX?

Pits I’ve Fallen Into

Fantom------Tokenomics. The team itself does not have enough funding, and the "top 10" projects have highly centralized and controlled tokenomics. Investors (especially retail) need to plan for this.

Yearn------Compared to the founder, I feel more like the person who planted the seed, nurturing a more capable community to take over.

Eminence------Do not test during the production phase. Testing is effective in the early stages, but it becomes ineffective when the product is fully launched. I used the same testing methods when I took projects from 0 to 1.

Keep3r------Manage expectations. From day one, I knew Keep3r could never achieve the scale that Fantom aspired to; it should be a small, accessible, decentralized DevOps platform. It indeed achieved this, but people expected another Yearn or Keep3r to be born. People were pleased with the (product) results but disappointed by the expectations and pressures it placed on the tokenomics.

Fixedforex------It performed excellently at first, maintaining strong principles, but it was launched in the same cycle as USDN, UST, etc., and ultimately failed in competition by trying to replicate the success of its rivals. The current team is still trying to recover.

Solidly------Its AMM is great, and I am still very pleased and proud of its design, but decentralization is the failure point; you cannot have both decentralization and complexity at the same time. Successful forks from Solidly's codebase have, to some extent, centralized user participation. Simple cases can be decentralized, but complex cases cannot. Participants are irrational, and their behavior does not align with the best interests of the ecosystem. If you do not establish a penalty mechanism, chaos will ensue.

Don’t Get Caught in Others' Narratives

The value of the Fantom Foundation wallet once exceeded 1.5 billion euros. There were rumors that I exited the crypto space with 1 billion dollars due to my connection with these wallets. This is false, but because I did not refute these false statements on Twitter, people assumed it was true. I posted a meme about the metaverse, and then I should build the metaverse on Fantom.

Social media often fuels the fire, so the most absurd stories can become real stories unless you are prepared to defend against anyone with violence and radicalism.

Be cautious of those who violently and radically attack anyone who stands against their lies. I wish to block this narrative, but the problem is that blocking them is also a narrative.

Do not idolize people or projects; accept criticism and discuss shortcomings, as this is the only way to grow.

Do not assume that methods that work on a small scale will work on a large scale.

Every time we try to follow the narrative of other teams or compete according to their rules, we fail. What truly works is diligently refining the product.

When I spent 20 hours a day building the Fantom consensus or 20 hours a day trying to perfect Yearn strategies, I never thought about the end result; I was just enjoying the process. As the Fantom & Yearn projects progressed to a certain point, I became more concerned about the results rather than the process. If you are fixated on the results, it will make you frantic, leading to mistakes that will rob you of the joy in the process.
Feedback Loop

Be careful of others' feedback on you.

After Solidly, the feedback I received was that my reputation was completely destroyed, and the best thing I could do was to keep my distance from any ventures I was still involved in.

Analyze the feedback you receive carefully and try to identify the most objective feedback. Avoid typical "survivorship bias."

Lessons I Learned

Stick to your own pace.

Do not seek attention. The crypto industry loves to kill the "protagonist."

Enjoy the process, not the results.

Avoid overly subjective feedback loops.

Do not get caught in the narratives of competitors; if you think something won't work but see it benefiting competitors, let it be.

Do not assume you are wrong just because their design currently works.

Return to the basics, maintain a long-term honing mindset, and continuously challenge yourself in your work.

We applied all of the above methods at Fantom; we tried several times to replicate the narratives of competing L1s, but each time we failed.

I have always loved a quote from someone I consider one of the greatest DeFi founders. When we discussed most of the narratives that have occurred over the past four years, he told me, "It works, until it doesn't."

There are no shortcuts, no instant success.