SPEAKER’S PROFILE

Andre Cronje, ‘The Godfather of DeFi,’ is arguably one of the most renowned developers and pioneers in the decentralized finance (DeFi) space. As a law graduate from South African Stellenbosch University in 2003, Cronje’s brilliance as a prolific software architect and Web3 developer whose “test in production” mentality has changed the face of DeFi and help advance the future of Web3 as we know it. As the founder of several high-profile DeFi protocols, Cronje is notably known as the creator of the Yearn Finance protocol, Keep3rV1, and for his roles in the development of some of the premier DeFi protocols, such as: Hegic, Pickle Finance, Cover Protocol, PowerPool, Cream V2, Multichain, SushiSwap, and more. Cronje has played a critically pivotal role in the Layer-1 development of the Fantom ecosystem, of which he has just announced his triumphant return.Kong has an educational background in Finance and Information Technology from the University of Sydney, where he published papers on smart contract security. He worked as the first full-time engineer for Block8, a blockchain development company in Sydney, and later founded one of Australia’s first funds in digital assets (now Trovio Group).