Andre Cronje: "A $1B TVL Project Stole My Source Code"
Andre Cronje is upset about open source abuse, lack of respect for intellectual property rights, and the spirit of sharing source code.
Andre Cronje, the man behind many major DeFi projects such as Fantom, Bribe.crv, Yearn, and Keeper, accused someone of copying his source code and creating a project with a TVL of up to $1 billion.
“The Godfather of DeFi” was indignant:
"Just discovered a project with TVL and FDV up to 1 billion USD took my open source code. They can discredit me, remove my name from the source code, not mention me or the original project on the website or documentation, even change some concepts to avoid contact. However, taking open source code and turning it into restricted code and making a lot of money from it… really… this space has changed more than I thought.”
According to Cronje, the person used his source code to create an unauthorized clone, which then amassed a large amount of locked-in assets (TVL) and fully diluted value (FDV). He accused the project of not only not paying royalties but also applying a restrictive license to it.
A user on X, who goes by the username “Brad,” speculated that the culprit could be Aerodrome Finance, a project on Coinbase’s Base blockchain.
This prediction seems to be accurate, as Aerodrome’s TVL closely matches the $1 billion figure Cronje mentioned. Brad commented: “If that’s true, it would be a very bad image for the project and the team.”
Cronje responded directly to Brad’s guess, implicitly confirming the culprit. An Aerodrome representative also commented, saying that they are in talks with Cronje: “We are in discussions. Everything is fine.”
At this point, Cronje continued to express his disappointment with the way the project has been behaving. He did not deny their success, but emphasized that it was thanks to their team, vision, and motivation, not just based on the source code. However, copying open source and turning it into restricted code, preventing others from using it, is unacceptable behavior.
Aerodrome held an online chat on X yesterday morning, but there was no mention of Cronje's accusation.
As reported, Aerodrome has had an extremely impressive growth, with TVL accumulating from 120 million USD in January this year to 1.08 billion USD in the past few days. This achievement contributed more than 50% of Base's TVL, bringing the entire network TVL to the 2 billion USD mark in the past few days.
It can be seen that the return or appearance of Andre Cronje always brings a lot of controversy, especially after a series of tests unsuccessful in the past and his "reclusion" period in 2022.
In the recent announcement, Andre is taking on the role of CTO at Sonic, showing that he continues to work closely with the once-famous blockchain Fantom but in a new look and with more different directions.
