On March 10, Andre Cronje, the founder of Sonic Labs, Yearn Finance, and Keep3rV1, modified his personal social platform profile to include the title “Founder of flyingtulip”.

As a competitor to Hyperliquid, FlyingTulip has attracted much attention since its debut. It uses adaptive curve AMM to provide lower funding rates, better lending ratios and higher LP returns, and relies on SonicLabs to achieve higher TPS.

Andre Cronje: A “madman” and disruptor in the DeFi field

To introduce FlyingTulip, one has to introduce its legendary founder, Andre Cronje.

Andre Cronje is a legend that everyone knows in the DeFi circle. Once his name appears, it always heats up market sentiment quickly. But unlike a programmer in the traditional sense, Cronje originally studied law and graduated from the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa with a major in law.

However, fate played a trick on him, leading him to stumble upon computer science by chance. He became self-taught and even went on to become a lecturer. This unconventional growth trajectory shaped his future approach in the DeFi space—unorthodox, highly creative, and with a touch of madness.

After entering the crypto world, Cronje quickly demonstrated his technical talent and extreme execution ability. His masterpiece Yearn Finance (YFI) was born in 2020. With the concept of fair launch (no pre-mining, no team allocation), it quickly became one of the most influential projects in the history of DeFi. Since then, he has led or participated in many well-known projects such as Keep3r Network, Solidly, Fantom, etc., igniting market sentiment time and time again.

Today, FlyingTulip has become another bold attempt for him in the field of derivatives trading protocols. Faced with this developer who coexists with “genius” and “madman”, the market is still waiting for the answer: Can he set off a DeFi revolution again?

What is FlyingTulip?

FlyingTulip is a DeFi integrated platform based on automated market makers (AMM), integrating trading, liquidity provision, lending and other functions. Its core feature is to eliminate liquidity fragmentation. Users can conduct spot transactions, leverage transactions, perpetual contracts and other operations within the same AMM system without converting funds between multiple protocols. This one-stop liquidity solution improves capital utilization and makes the trading experience smoother while reducing transaction costs.

In terms of lending function, FlyingTulip adopts a dynamic LTV (loan to value ratio) model based on AMM. Compared with traditional DeFi lending protocols, it not only considers the collateral price, but also makes real-time adjustments based on market depth and volatility to ensure a balance between loan security and capital efficiency.

Adaptive Curve AMM: Making Liquidity Management Easier

Traditional AMM models, such as Uniswap V2, use the constant product formula of X * Y = k. This mechanism, while simple, results in liquidity being evenly distributed across all price ranges, when in fact most trades are concentrated within certain price ranges. Therefore, liquidity is often not utilized efficiently. Uniswap V3 introduces centralized liquidity, allowing LPs (liquidity providers) to choose a specific price range to provide funds, but this method requires high financial knowledge and is more complicated for ordinary users, and when prices fluctuate significantly, LPs may face severe impermanent losses.

FlyingTulip solves this problem through a dynamic AMM mechanism. It can automatically adjust the shape of the curve according to market volatility, allowing liquidity to intelligently match market demand:

• When the market is stable (low volatility), liquidity will automatically concentrate around the current price, similar to a “constant sum curve” in the form of X + Y = K. Doing so can improve capital utilization and make transaction costs lower.
• When the market fluctuates violently (high volatility), liquidity will automatically disperse and approach the “constant product curve” of X * Y = K to adapt to possible large price changes and reduce losses caused by unilateral market fluctuations.

FlyingTulip relies on oracles to continuously monitor the market’s real-time volatility (rVOL) and implied volatility (IV), and dynamically adjust liquidity distribution based on these data. LPs do not need to manually set complex price ranges, they only need to deposit liquidity, and the system will automatically optimize the allocation, allowing them to obtain the best return rate under different market conditions while significantly reducing impermanent losses.

This mechanism makes FlyingTulip a more friendly DeFi platform for ordinary users - even if you are not familiar with the LP mechanism, you can easily provide liquidity without worrying about complicated operations or potential losses.

AMM-based dynamic LTV model: a more flexible lending method

In traditional DeFi lending protocols, LTV (loan-to-value) is a fixed value, usually set according to the risk level of the token. For example, if a token is considered medium-risk, users can only borrow up to 70% of the collateral value. However, this fixed LTV ignores two key factors:

• Market Depth - If the borrowing amount is too large, it may significantly affect the price of the token, causing market liquidity to plummet.
• Real-time volatility – When markets are volatile, fixed LTV can cause assets to quickly fall below liquidation thresholds, increasing liquidation risk.

FlyingTulip solves this problem through an adaptive AMM mechanism, creating a dynamic LTV model that can adjust the loan limit in real time according to market conditions. For example:

• When the market is stable (low volatility, sufficient liquidity): users can get a higher LTV, such as 80%, that is, staking $2,000 of ETH to lend $1,600.
• When the market is volatile (volatility increases): LTV will automatically drop to 50%, i.e. the same $2,000 ETH can only be borrowed $1,000 to reduce liquidation risk.
• When the collateral is too large (the proportion of market liquidity is too high): LTV may be further reduced, such as 45%, to ensure that large loans will not have an excessive impact on market prices.

This dynamic LTV adjustment makes lending more flexible. Users do not need to constantly pay attention to market changes or frequently adjust positions. The system will automatically optimize the lending limit based on market conditions. This not only reduces the risk of market collapse caused by large positions being liquidated, but also makes the entire DeFi ecosystem more stable and creates a safer environment for borrowers and liquidity providers.

Opportunities and risks coexist, is the market a carnival or a deep pit?

When the market began to discuss whether FlyingTulip would issue coins, the discussion on X had already intensified. Looking back at AC’s past projects, almost all of them relied on token incentives and community promotion to rise rapidly, so it seems only a matter of time before FlyingTulip launches a “Tulip Coin” in the future. Currently, various speculations surrounding TGE are emerging one after another, and information such as public offering prices and private placement discounts are constantly fermenting in the community.

However, AC’s projects have always had both high returns and high risks. At that time, YFI soared to a thousand times after its fair launch, but EMN (Eminence Finance) also crashed to zero due to loopholes. Under the market frenzy, how to balance speculative impulse and risk management is a question that rational players need to think about.

In addition, AC still continued his “mysterious marketing” style this time, not making explicit publicity, but using subtle actions to make the market agitate on its own. For example, he recently liked a tweet from Magpie Protocol (another related DEX project) on X, immediately sparking speculation. KOLs in the Chinese community have also begun to pay attention to and discuss FlyingTulip, boosting market sentiment.

The charm of DeFi lies in the coexistence of high risks and high returns. In past impressions, AC has always brought new imagination to this field. But whether FlyingTulip can replicate the glory of YFI, perhaps only the market will give the answer.

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