Andre Cronje - infinite AMA

#35

Temporary, my goal is, and has always been, to decentralize any projects I’m involved with. “Decentralized” and “team” are antonyms.

And history has proven, while I am committed to the technology, I’m far too emotional and take things too personal, so if you invest in a project because of me, I would suggest you rethink that investment. I will choose my mental health every time, and if that means I need to periodically “rage quit”, I will unfortunately keep doing that.

Edit: I also want to point out, I am not the Fantom team, its over a hundred people at this point pushing it forward, just like when I took my sabbatical the project kept moving forward, so too will it if I leave in the future.

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#36

Andre, this is a great forum, already learned more about FUSD plan and fvm then anywhere else.

Assuming that fantom will be one of the most user-friendly,cheapest, secure, fastest and highest throughput blockchains that exists, eventually one would expect use cases for this blockchain to emerge outside of defi.

Do you think we’re close to that in any area? Supply chain, voting, proof of concept electronic medical records etc? And does the foundation have a team that’s focused on selling these capabilities and/or potentially building middleware products for companies that enable them to use fantom to do whatever it is they do?

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#37

Its a natural evolution of a technology like this;

Bitcoin ← original broadcast internet, this version of the internet was not consumer friendly, it was a broadcast protocol to share critical static information during war times
Ethereum ← step towards interactive internet, AOL, IRC, message boards, etc, the web we have today wasn’t possible during this time, not until the software / hardware stack scaled
Fantom genesis ← step towards dynamic internet, early ebay, myspace, amazon (at this stage high frequency systems like facebook / twitter / tiktok / instagram / etc can’t exist)
Fantom future ← high frequency and accessible decentralized web

The first application of any technology is almost always monetary (financial products), until the barrier to entry (fees) decrease to the point where accessibility is freely available. Early internet, we use to pay insane amounts of fees for access (Use to cost dollars per megabyte), this is no different than gas fees. Today we can get gigabytes of data for cents (this is our future).

The problem is narrative is a lot faster than implementation and accessibility. If you look at inception to current;

Bitcoin 2009 - Ethereum 2015 - Fantom 2019, it took almost 30 years for Amazon and other products we take for granted on a daily basis to get to where they are today. Blockchain as a whole is only ~14 years old, we are probably another decade away from reaching the technological point where any application becomes available.

So do I think we are close, yes, but I think “close” is within 5-10 years, no months.

The apps (outside of defi) can’t exist though until the base layer is ready, that’s why we are pushing so hard for FVM + flat storage + etc, we know our consensus can handle the throughput required to support the demand, but the EVM simply isn’t. So expecting those apps to be built now, isn’t really feasible, since the base layer needs to first enable them. We will focus on removing the EVM limit this year, which will push us towards our cap, then we can start seeing apps like those.

Trying to create the apps of the future, without the right foundation, is a recipe for disaster, so now is the time to be patient and cautious.

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#38

Hi Andre,

Glad to have you communicate more frequently with fantom community.

With the advent of ethereum layer 2 that are cheap and fast do you see alternative layer 1s such as fantom having issues with adoption - what are your plans to improve adoption?

Also have you considered institutional adoption/use cases. Its an area i believe we are falling behind when compared to other layer1s/2s such as polygon. Again goes back to my adoption point. Technology is great but we need to improve adoption.

Lastly, its good to have you back. Keep going and dont let any negative sentiment impact you.

Thanks

SSS

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#39

I don’t consider any other blockchain, side chain, or layer 2 as giving Fantom issues with adoption, blockchains are not a zero sum game, just like all other industries, you don’t only have 1 phone brand, or 1 car brand, or 1 internet provider, there is more than enough to go around for everyone.

Fantom isn’t currently focused on “adoption” (also, I think by now this word has been solidified as a meme), we haven’t even finished our product yet. With changes like account abstraction, economic abstraction and FVM there will be breaking changes that create hard forks. For this reason, we don’t think its wise to spend time and energy on on-boarding, as you say, institutions. When I refer to institutions, I refer to slow moving entities that don’t like being forced to make changes to their product. Once they are deployed, they won’t want to update / migrate. It would be irresponsible to push them to onboard currently.

I would like to throw it back to you, you say “we need to improve adoption”, why? Doesn’t it make more sense to finish our roadmap before we change focus to onboarding? You finish building the car/phone/computer first, before you optimize your sale cycle.

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#40

Hello Andre ,
Just wanted to say hi and i admire your style truly…
very few people understand what you are trying to accomplish …
people like you are the saviors of crypto truly , not just #Fantom !
Quick question about #fantom wallet if i may ask good sir …
you aim to make crypto adopted and for users not to even notice they are using web3 , i think for that level of adoption we need another kind of wallet structure .
Any plans for fwallet or a whole new wallet from #fantom fdn where perhaps such wallet has 2FA protection , non seedphrase / private key backup / restore option , maybe some kind of trustee or smart contract protection etc…
i often feel afraid using DEFI just because it is so easy to lose it all if my private key gets compromised , and it has and i already lost some $$.
they stole my private keys from metamask store file , i don’t know how they did it , all wallets on metamask were drained … eversince i really hated metamask , the password i set in place is a joke really …
Anyway … forgive me getting carried away , i just think this is a major problem that needs addressing , even the best of us crypto peeps aren’t able to keep our coins safe , how can we expect the Norms to even begin to understand crypto and trust it …?
Thank you !

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#41

Sorry to hear that, but yes, that is what we are trying to achieve with base layer economic abstraction (not a relayer layer)

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We wrote a bit about it to our letter to the staff; Letter to Fantom Foundation team. A few days ago we shared a letter with… | by Andre Cronje | Dec, 2022 | Medium

It’s one of our milestones for this year

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#42

This is truly exciting ! i can’t wait for the day where i can get the most out of Defi & Gamefi products without having to inspect every single line of code and “sign it” button etc…
This is Why Fantom is the leader in this industry !
I love it !

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#43

It seems you blame Roosh and Bebis over something even though you clearly state you were well aware of the issue.

I think you need to look in the mirror. I left FTM because of you and your temper tantrums that would send the entire network into a falling knife.

A lot of us were so happy when you were finally gone so you wouldn’t keep manipulating the price of FTM every time you couldn’t control your emotions.

And back to the first paragraph. Grow up and take responsibility for your short comings. You can’t blame people for taking advantage of a shitty project that was whipped out with known problems that you stated you knew about.

Can you just leave again so we don’t have pump and dumps every time you tweet or get emotional?

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#44

Did writing this make you feel better? I hope it did, and I wish you can find something positive you are as passionate about.

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#45

Hot thread! Thanks,
I have three questions if you may;

  1. I read your reply about fusd above. Additionally, is the team waiting for US stable coin regulations?
  2. fwallet is ok for now but any plan for an updated one that may serve as a defi suite ?
  3. Will FTM gains by gas monetization be locked or vested or staked only option, etc for a period of time?
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#46

Good points you just raised there.

Its a double edged sword - do you want to rollout the optimal technology or should we focus on adoption. I think you need both.

We are going through an exponential technology cycle where there will always be the next best thing. But the ones that will survive are technologies that are used by masses, not necessarily the best one. The reason is simple we gravitate towards technologies that are used by masses, even though they may not be perfect/ideal.

You used phones as an example- i would argue you have a good enough phone rolled out now. It let’s you make a call quicker than your competitors :slight_smile: Yes FVM will make it significantly better but there will always be the next best thing, so it’s a never ending cycle.

Speaking of phone, the worlds first camera phone was Kyocera Visual Phone VP-210. Being first is not always good :smile:

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#47

No, writing this made me feel nothing. We all lost money when you raged out. No one saw it coming and you made money off of it. Congrats

Also I’d like clarification on why you call out and put blame on people for your mistakes?

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#48

I made 0 money, I am happy to have constructive criticism, but please don’t lie.

I did not blame anyone, I pointed out the actors that created the effect. Not sure where you saw blame in my post.

I don’t find this constructive though, so won’t be responding further

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#49

Relax now. We know what you are trying to do but go take it elsewhere. We are having some good productive discussions here

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#50

Just dropping in to say hi.

I’ve been on Fantom for a couple of years now, It’s home. Last year was painful for a lot of reasons, It makes me happy to see the new level of clarity, and it seems to be healing wounds.

Keep up the good work.

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#51

Hi, thanks for the questions;

  1. The team are currently not basing any actions off of US stable coin regulations, but should any occur we will keep an eye out for it and adjust accordingly
  2. There are plans to upgrade fwallet after Account Abstraction is released to be more robust
  3. No lock, teams are free to use them as they need, this is simply a stream of revenue for them, so we don’t want to put limitations on its use
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#52

Hi Andre,
This is friggin awesome!! Thank you for this opportunity!

I was curious about your thoughts on the current projects building on Fantom. Are there any dapps on Fantom that you’re excited about?

#53

Hey AC glad to see a thread like this from someone like yourself. In your Medium article, “Fantom: inside financial peek at being a crypto company,” you mentioned this: “5 Jan 2022 — Alameda asks for further cooperation, we pass.”

What kind of further cooperation would’ve entailed and what was the reason you passed? It seems like you dodged a bullet knowing what we know now of SBF of course, but was there anything that felt off about Alameda back then?

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#54

Hey Andre. Thanks for opening this up. I think this is the most personal you’ve gotten with the community. You blocked me on Twitter as I was pretty vocal criticizing you and the Fantom Foundation, but I wanted to tell you this. It sounds like a healthy balance has been struck and a direction has been found. As a Fantom community member for a few years already, you and the Foundation have change my opinions, earned my respect, and are regaining my trust through your recent communications and I hope you all keep it up. Great work! I’m looking forward to more!

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