Andre Cronje issues resignation statement: not the founder of Fantom; did not lead the FTM migration to S or the airdrop

BlockBeats News, June 20 — Andre Cronje released a statement regarding his resignation from the board of Sonic Labs (formerly Fantom), confirming that Sonic Labs’ prior announcement was true. He said the statement was issued because some reports and comments have confused the boundaries of responsibilities between his technical role and business, token, migration, and operational decisions of Fantom or Sonic Labs. He added that Fantom and the original Fantom project already existed before he joined; he began participating as a technical advisor in 2018, and it was not until December 13, 2022 that he was appointed as a Fantom director.

Andre Cronje said that he is not the founder of Fantom or the original token project, but rather the original technical architect of the Fantom live network, later serving as a Fantom director and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Sonic Labs. He said he had informally used the term “co-founder” to describe his foundational technical role, but that description is not accurate because it conflates the founding of the company with the creation of the technology. His main responsibilities involve technical work, including protocol research, architecture, engineering, developer infrastructure, and the design and development of the Sonic network—especially Sonic Gateway.

He also emphasized that he did not design, lead, or execute the migration of FTM to S, did not design or manage the Sonic airdrop, and was not the person responsible for decisions regarding the Sonic tokenomics, token allocation, emissions, or incentive structures. He further stated that he does not support stopping the Ethereum ERC-20 version of FTM or shutting down the Opera network; his position is that both should continue to be supported. After the transition is completed, he will no longer participate in business decision-making at Sonic Labs. Over the past 18 months, his primary focus has been building Flying Tulip, and he will continue with that work.