I noticed that Andre Cronje is launching something again. This time, the project Flying Tulip is a new DeFi protocol that will open a public token sale at $0.10 tomorrow. An interesting mechanic: this is not a regular token sale but rather a system with protection against price drops.

The idea is: you deposit up to $1 billion in the protocol, and your funds are immediately deployed into Aave to generate yield. FT tokens are traded at $0.10, but if the price drops below this level, you can simply redeem them through the protocol at the minimum price—an embedded floor. If demand increases and the price rises, you can sell for a profit. It looks like an attempt to combine capital protection with growth potential.

According to dashboards, the protocol is already active: over $126 million in TVL has been locked in, and about $85,000 in yield has been accumulated. Andre Cronje is betting that users will earn income from deployed capital rather than just speculate on the token.

The first product is ftUSD, a stablecoin based on USDC in Aave. They plan to add more complex strategies with a target yield of 4-8%, margin lending, spot trading, and derivatives. It will launch on Ethereum, Sonic, BNB Chain, Avalanche, and Base.

The revenue model is also unusual: there are no traditional fees; instead, the protocol takes the earned income and uses it to buy back FT from the market, distributing them to users. According to Andre Cronje, the minimum redemption price of $0.10 guarantees a certain baseline exit value. It appears to be a structured approach where price declines are limited by reserve capital, and growth is possible with increasing demand.