According to CoinMeta, Fantom core developer Andre Cronje recently stated in a program that the vast majority of decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols are no longer truly decentralized. He believes that “true DeFi” needs to possess the characteristics of being decentralized, tamper-proof, and without intermediaries, yet the current majority of operational protocols no longer meet this definition. Cronje pointed out that with the introduction of circuit breakers, emergency controls, decision-makers, curators, and risk committees, which are traditional banking structures, DeFi has evolved into a new financial paradigm known as “on-chain finance” or open finance, sacrificing some of its original tamper-proof and decentralized features. DeFiLlama data shows that the total locked-up value (TVL) of DeFi has been halved over the past 10 months, from $167 billion at the beginning of October 2025 to $75 billion.