Flying Tulip Secures $200M, Plans $800M Token Sale

Key Takeaways

• Andre Cronje’s new project, Flying Tulip, raised $200 million at a $1 billion FDV with no lead investor.
• The project offers investors an onchain redemption right to reclaim their principal anytime.
• Flying Tulip plans to build a full-stack exchange covering spot, derivatives, lending, stablecoins, and insurance.

Flying Tulip, the new project from DeFi veteran Andre Cronje, has closed a $200 million private seed round. The token is valued at a $1 billion fully diluted valuation. The round was structured as a simple agreement for future tokens. It included notable investors like Brevan Howard Digital, CoinFund, DWF Labs, and many others. The raise began in mid-August and closed within one month. No single investor led the round, showing wide interest across funds.

Plans for a Public Token Sale

The next step for Flying Tulip is a public FT token sale. The project hopes to raise up to $800 million more, again at a $1 billion valuation. This sale will be hosted on Flying Tulip’s own platform. It will not use existing ICO platforms. The move highlights the team’s preference to control the process directly. Investors in this public round will also receive the same protections as seed backers.

The most unique feature of Flying Tulip is its onchain redemption right. This mechanism allows investors to redeem FT tokens at any time for the principal they contributed. If someone contributed ETH, they can reclaim that ETH. This creates what Cronje calls “unlimited upside with downside protection.” The design lowers risk for participants and creates more trust in the system. It is also described as a perpetual put, which means investors always hold a safety net.

Source: X

How the Funds Are Deployed

Although the raise reached $200 million, Cronje explains that the money is not directly used. Since investors can always redeem, the real usable funds are effectively zero. Instead, Flying Tulip plans to deploy up to $1 billion into onchain strategies. Protocols such as Aave, Ethena, and Spark are examples. The team expects to generate about 4% annual yield. This could equal around $40 million per year. Those funds will support growth, incentives, and token buybacks.

Cronje describes Flying Tulip as a “self-reinforcing growth flywheel.” Yield funds growth, incentives, and buybacks. That cycle supports token demand and builds resilience. He points to past experience with Yearn and Sonic. Both projects showed the pressure of token management. When token prices dip, teams face short-term decisions that may harm the long-term health of the protocol. Flying Tulip’s structure gives both investors and the team confidence that the project can focus on building.

Smart Contract Protections

Redemptions are controlled by audited smart contracts. To protect solvency, requests may face rate limits and queues. If reserves are low, redemptions wait in a queue until capital replenishes. This makes the system transparent while managing risk. FT tokens are not transferable until the public sale completes. Team members will not get initial allocations. Instead, their compensation will come from open-market buybacks funded by revenue. This ties their upside directly to project performance.

Flying Tulip is designed as a full-stack exchange. It integrates spot trading, derivatives, lending, money markets, a native stablecoin called ftUSD, and onchain insurance. The vision is broader than a typical DEX. Cronje says it is a rebuild of major DeFi components: lending, AMMs, central order books, derivatives, and more. Competitors vary depending on the scope. On one level, Coinbase and Binance are rivals. On a product level, Uniswap, Aave, Ethena, and Hyperliquid compete in specific areas.

Development and Launch Plans

The exchange is still under development. Cronje describes the launch as “sooner than people think, later than people hope.” At launch, Flying Tulip will support Ethereum, Avalanche, BNB Chain, Sonic, and Solana. The initial rollout will be on Sonic, where the project can offer zero-fee trading. After that, the full system will expand to other chains. Revenue will come from fees on trading and lending, liquidations, yield from ftUSD, and insurance products.

Flying Tulip currently has about 15 employees across the U.S., Europe, and Asia. The team is expanding and actively hiring. Cronje positions Flying Tulip as both an innovative exchange and a safer model for token investment. By combining downside protection with upside potential, the project hopes to set a new standard in crypto fundraising and protocol design.

More News: Swarm Network (TRUTH) To Launch on Binance Alpha and Futures on October 1, With Airdrop