Andre Cronje: DeFi Has Evolved into On-Chain Finance

Odaily Planet Daily reports: Andre Cronje, founder of DeFi platform Flying Tulip and creator of the Fantom Network, stated that most DeFi protocols are no longer truly decentralized, with only a few niche areas still qualifying as DeFi. He believes DeFi has evolved into “on-chain finance” or “open finance.” He noted that true DeFi should feature decentralization, immutability, and the absence of intermediaries; however, in most current protocols, intermediaries have become corporations assuming roles traditionally held by financial institutions, such as decision-makers and risk committees. Cronje emphasized that this does not mean true DeFi no longer exists—some protocols continue to innovate. Data from DefiLlama shows that the total value locked in DeFi has dropped by more than half over the past 10 months, falling from $167 billion at the beginning of October 2025 to $75 billion at the time of this article’s publication. In a March working paper, the European Central Bank (ECB) analyzed Aave, MakerDAO, Ampleforth, and Uniswap, finding that the top 100 addresses holding governance tokens in each protocol controlled over 80% of the total token supply, based on snapshot data from November 2022 and May 2023. The ECB thus questioned the degree of decentralization of these DAOs and whether they should continue to be classified as “fully decentralized” services exempt from the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA). (Cointelegraph)