Andre Cronje, founder of DeFi project yEarn Finance, announced the need to regulate the crypto industry and faced criticism from the community.

Earlier in March, Cronje retired from the crypto industry along with Phantom Foundation senior architect Anton Nell. The latter announced that he was withdrawing from about 25 projects they were working on.

On April 18, Cronje published an article titled “The Rise and Fall of Cryptoculture.”

In it, he suggested that the current generation of project developers in the industry are repeating the mistakes of the creators of the current monetary system in order to “do something better.”

Cronje compared the concepts of cryptoethos and cryptoculture. In the first, it included ideas of sovereignty rights, self-sacrifice, and self-perfection. With the latter, he linked property rights, enrichment, and ego.

According to him, crypto culture “suffocates the idea of ​​cryptocurrencies.”

“Now more than ever, I see the need, and even the urgency, of regulation as a remedy, not a prevention mechanism,” said Cronje.

He expressed confidence that in the future “we will see the rise of a new blockchain economy driven not by greed, but by naivety, not trust.” At the same time, Cronje has made it clear that he will not be returning to the industry.

The article caused a great reaction in the society.

“The man who made tens of millions. Thanks to the lack of regulation, he created a lot of shit money and projects. He retired from the industry and now advocates for investor protection and regulation. Welcome to the world of clowns,” wrote a popular trader on Twitter, under the pseudonym Tree of Alpha.

“We can only hope that some regulators will megapress the guy legally, and it’s just a psychological operation. I’m not sure though,” said Larry Cermak, vice president of research at The Block.

DeFi YouTube host Chris Black wrote:

“Now that you’ve got your money, Andre says DeFi needs government intervention. Because you’re a kid and you don’t know how to keep your fingers off the toaster. What’s missing is the guy who makes and sells faulty toasters.”

One user hinted at a controversial hack in one of Cronje’s projects as “Testing inside the product”.

In September 2020, an unknown person withdrew $15 million worth of user funds from the incomplete Eminence DeFi protocol.

In October of the same year, crypto investors suffered after the implementation of a pump and dump scheme with the token of Cronje’s new DeFi experiment.

Recall that in January 2021, an expert discovered a critical vulnerability in the newly launched yCredit DeFi protocol by the creator of yEarn Finance. The error allowed it to withdraw all user funds.

In February, a hacker stole $2.8 million from yEarn Finance’s pool.