Flying Tulip USD

Andre Cronje, the developer behind Yearn and a string of DeFi experiments, anchors Flying Tulip, a full-stack onchain exchange whose house dollar is ftUSD. The token is a synthetic dollar rather than a bank-backed one: it holds its peg through delta-neutral positioning across the platform's collateral, not through fiat sitting in a custodian account. Holders redeem against that onchain backing through the protocol itself, so the claim is a collateral position rather than a company's promise to wire dollars. The base token is kept deliberately plain and stable, while users who want yield stake into a separate wrapper, sftUSD, that routes into the platform's strategies. Flying Tulip drew heavy attention with a large 2025 raise near a billion-dollar valuation, and ftUSD serves as the settlement currency tying its spot, lending, and derivatives markets together.