Andre Cronje’s Flying Tulip Raises $200M at $1B Token Valuation: The Block

DeFi pioneer Andre Cronje’s Flying Tulip has closed a $200M private seed round at a $1B valuation. The raise began in August, drawing participation from Brevan Howard Digital, CoinFund, DWF Labs, FalconX, Hypersphere, Lemniscap, Republic Digital, Susquehanna Crypto, and more.

What’s the Scoop?

• New Perp Chain: Flying Tulip will be a onchain exchange that encompasses "all of DeFi," packaging spot, derivatives, lending, stablecoins, and insurance markets under one roof.
• Public ICO: Fying Tulip now plans to raise up to another $800M through a public sale of its FT token at the same $1 billion valuation. The sale will be hosted on Flying Tulip's own platform.
• Novel Fundraise Design: Both private and public investors will receive an “onchain redemption right,” allowing them to redeem up to FT tokens for their originally contributed assets (e.g. ETH) at any time.
• Downside Protection, Unlimited Upside: Cronje said this structure reduces team pressure to prioritize token price, while revenues from the reserve can go towards generating yield that funds growth, incentives, and buybacks.
• Aligned Incentives: FT tokens remain non-transferable until the public sale is complete. The team receives no initial allocation, and compensation will come via buybacks, tying rewards to performance.
• Multichain Deployment: Initial rollout will launch on Sonic with zero-fee trading, before expanding to Ethereum, Solana, Avalanche, BNB Chain, and others.