The father of DeFi, Andre Cronje, asserts: Decentralized finance is dead, it's all for-profit enterprises now! Calls for the industry to introduce circuit breaker mechanisms.

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Decentralized Finance (DeFi) is facing a severe identity and security crisis! Andre Cronje, founder of Flying Tulip, bluntly stated in a recent interview that current DeFi is no longer purely decentralized code, but rather "for-profit enterprises" full of human control. To prevent the frequent large-scale hacker attacks seen recently, he advocates for the introduction of a "withdrawal circuit breaker" to buy reaction time; however, Michael Egorov, founder of Curve, strongly warns that human-operated emergency switches could create new single points of failure, sparking a fierce debate between the two over the future direction of DeFi. (Previous coverage: Flash News: Sui ecosystem DeFi protocol AftermathFi hacked! $1.1 million in USDC drained in 36 minutes) (Background: Aave pours $300 million into DeFi United to rescue the ecosystem: Joining forces with Consensys, Lido, and EtherFi to fill the largest hole in history) With multiple shocking hacker incidents in April dealing a heavy blow to the crypto market, DeFi developers are engaged in an intense debate over the roadmap for protecting user assets. Andre Cronje, founder of Flying Tulip, often referred to as the "Godfather of DeFi," dropped a bombshell in a recent interview with Cointelegraph, stating that strictly speaking, most current decentralized finance "is no longer DeFi." Cronje pointed out that early DeFi protocols were mostly public goods defined by immutable smart contracts; however, today's systems often rely heavily on proxy upgrades, multisigs, infrastructure providers, administrative processes, and human response teams: "I think what we have today, including Flying Tulip, is no longer DeFi. It is not decentralized finance, and it is not immutable code." "They are for-profit enterprises run by teams." He believes this shift has fundamentally changed the security model. The industry still overly relies on "smart contract audits" while ignoring operational risks that lean more toward TradFi and Web2 (such as infrastructure access hacks and social engineering attacks). To this end, Flying Tulip officially added a "withdrawal circuit breaker" last Thursday. This mechanism does not permanently freeze funds but can buy about 6 hours of reaction time when funds are flowing out abnormally. Although both leaders agree that "off-chain centralization risk" is currently the biggest security loophole, Michael Egorov, founder of Curve Finance and Yield Basis, is highly skeptical of Cronje's "circuit breaker" solution. Egorov pointed out that recent major hacker incidents (such as the approximately $280 million loss at Drift Protocol and the nearly $293 million loss at Kelp) were not due to contract code errors, but stemmed from off-chain single points of failure. Regarding the circuit breaker, Egorov warned sternly: "Circuit breakers are controlled by humans, which means they can become potential vulnerabilities themselves. If emergency control allows signers to change contracts or block withdrawals, once the signers are compromised, this security mechanism becomes a hacker's ATM or a centralized freezing tool." He firmly believes that the goal of DeFi design should be to "minimize human single points of failure," because true security can only come from decentralization. Regarding this wave of security crises, the traditional financial giant Standard Chartered has provided a relatively optimistic interpretation. Standard Chartered noted in a research report that although the Kelp hack on April 18 exposed systemic risks, the subsequent rescue operation by the "DeFi United" coalition, which quickly raised over $300 million, along with structural upgrades like Aave V4 and the Ethereum Economic Zone, demonstrate that the DeFi space is developing more robust defense mechanisms. This is merely growing pains for the industry, not a fatal blow.

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