DeFi father AC: I'm not staying in the encryption industry for the money; the project's halt in innovation is exhausting...

Andre Cronje warned that innovation in the crypto market is stalled, short-term arbitrage is rife, and decentralized exchanges will replace centralized exchanges within 5 years. (Synopsis: DeFiance Capital founder: Infrastructure speculative premiums are collapsing, sustainable business models are the key) (Background added: Can Sonic be reborn in the DeFi world? Ecological hot projects, airdrop participation, tokenomics at a glance) Fantom (now renamed Sonic) co-founder Andre Cronje (AC), who has the title of "father of DeFi", said bluntly in an interview recently that the innovation momentum of the entire crypto industry is disappearing, and developers no longer pursue technological breakthroughs, but turn to short-term arbitrage, resulting in a large number of low-value projects in the market. He believes that the current development of blockchain infrastructure is only 50%-60% complete, but the industry has lacked imagination for the future, and innovation has stalled. He also criticized the negative impact of the Meme coin market, which has prevented funds from flowing effectively into the truly valuable DeFi space. However, he is still optimistic that in the next 5 years, decentralized exchanges (DEXs) will replace centralized exchanges (CEX) and become the mainstream of the market. Money is not the goal, technology is AC emphasized that when he entered the crypto space, it was not for money, but because of his passion for technological innovation. Prior to joining the blockchain world, he worked as a Chief Technology Officer (CTO) in a traditional financial institution, had a steady income, and was even able to live for several years even when not working. He was also initially skeptical of blockchain technology. At that time, the market was full of exaggerated hype, and many projects claimed to solve the core problems of the blockchain, but after in-depth inspection of the code, it was found that most of them were just basic "Hello World" tests, with no technical breakthroughs. However, he found that there are still 1% of projects that really drive a change in the financial model, so he decided to stay and focus on solving the technical challenges of blockchain. He also refuted the criticism of the crypto market, pointing out that traditional financial institutions often accuse the crypto industry of fraud, but the data shows that the total amount of cryptocurrency fraud cases only accounts for 0.02% of the total global financial fraud, which is much lower than the traditional financial sector. Market stagnation: short-term arbitrage replaces technological innovation Developers choose an easier path AC bluntly said that today's developers have become lazy and would rather choose the easiest way to make money than invest in long-term technology research and development. He lamented: Today's developers have become lazy, and they prefer to choose the easiest way to make money. In the current market environment, developers usually face two paths: spend 5 minutes issuing a Meme coin on Solana or Ethereum, quickly attract funds, and potentially make millions of dollars in a short period of time. Spend years writing technical papers, reviewing smart contracts, verifying protocol security, and driving the long-term development of blockchain technology. Most people will choose the first way because profits are faster and the risk is lower in the short term. As a result, the market is flooded with Meme Coin and DeFi 2.0-type replication projects, while real technological innovations are massively compressed. How does Meme Coin affect the flow of funds in the market? AC further analyzes the impact of the Meme coin market on the crypto industry. He pointed out: In the ICO boom of 2017-2018, although developers obtained a lot of funds through fundraising, the market lacked stablecoins and mature fiat currency conversion channels at that time, so most of the funds will still be invested in new startups to help the crypto ecosystem grow. But today's Meme coin market is completely different, developers will directly convert funds into fiat currency after rapid currency arbitrage, or even choose to retire and no longer invest in technology research and development. This pattern of capital flow makes the market lose long-term momentum, and it is difficult for truly valuable infrastructure and DeFi projects to obtain sufficient financial support. Infrastructure development is still underdeveloped, only 50%-60% completed AC noted that blockchain infrastructure has indeed come a long way in the past few years, such as: Registering for exchanges, depositing and depositing and withdrawing fiat currencies made easier Oracle technology matures to improve on-chain data accuracy Smart contract development tools are more complete, lowering the development threshold However, he believes that the overall infrastructure is only 50%-60% complete, and there is still a long way to go before it truly matures. The real goal should be to make users "don't need to realize that they are using blockchain", just as ordinary people don't particularly care where the server of the mobile app is located, blockchain technology should become the technical support behind it, rather than the threshold that affects the user experience. Next 5 years: Decentralized exchanges will replace centralized exchanges AC believes that the key change in the future will come from the rise of decentralized exchanges (DEXs), and he puts forward a clear goal: In the next 2-5 years, the world's largest crypto exchanges will be decentralized exchanges, not centralized exchanges (CEX). With further improvement of the infrastructure, the transaction costs of DEX will be lower than CEX, the user experience will be more intuitive and easy to use, and eventually the market funds will gradually shift to the decentralized exchange market, making CEX lose its competitive advantage. In addition, he also hopes to promote the further integration of cryptocurrencies and traditional finance through blockchain technology, so that blockchain will become the standard architecture of the financial market, rather than being limited to the internal operation of the crypto ecosystem. Related reports: Can Sonic be reborn from the ashes in the DeFi world? Eco-popular projects, airdrop participation, tokenomics at a glance Founder of DeFiance Capital: The speculative premium of infrastructure is collapsing, and sustainable business models are the key DeFi Dark Forest Survival Guide: Don't Let Smart Contract Authorization Become an Asset Trap [DeFi Godfather AC: It's not for money to stay in the crypto industry, it's tiring for projects to stop innovating...' This article was first published in BlockTempo's "Dynamic Trend - The Most Influential Blockchain News Media".