AC Launches Flying Tulip Public Offering, Featuring a "Principal Protection" ftPUT Mechanism

February 17 – DeFi architect Andre Cronje launched the public token sale for Flying Tulip (FT), an on-chain financial system he built. Prior to the sale, the project completed a $200 million seed round and an oversubscribed presale on CoinList that raised nearly $10 million. The public offering has a $1 billion fundraising cap, and FT’s fully diluted valuation (FDV) hit $1 billion—making it one of the larger protocol launches in the 2026 market cycle. Designed as a native yield-bearing ecosystem, FT integrates spot trading, margin lending, and its own stablecoin ftUSD. The protocol will deposit 100% of funds into low-risk, high-liquidity yield strategies (e.g., Aave, Lido), only capturing the excess yield spread for operations and token buybacks. This sets it apart from traditional DeFi models that rely on inflationary incentives. The public sale’s core innovation is the “ftPUT” model: a perpetual on-chain put option mechanism. All FT tokens sold publicly come with the right to redeem at their initial investment value (supporting BTC, ETH, SOL, and stablecoin subscriptions), creating an on-chain floor price protection of $0.10. When the secondary market price drops below this threshold, an automatic buyback mechanism triggers. Cronje noted this structure emphasizes the “refundable” attribute, prioritizing user principal security. The Token Generation Event (TGE) is set for February 23. FT is currently deployed on Ethereum, Base, and Avalanche, with plans to expand to MegaETH and Hyperliquid. It’s positioning itself as low-latency, cross-chain liquidity infrastructure for the “Agentic Economy.” The market is watching whether FT can deliver on its “principal protection” promise while growing Total Value Invested (TVI).