If it is a solid project then why would its price drop hard? Oh well, it might be cause of the recent bear because even the solid projects like eth and btc do also experience the same thing. Something about the team and the roadmap can be faked easily. So, it's not enough to convince a wise investor if that's the only thing that they are going to show.

Also you forgot to describe if what was the project all about? You only mentioned that it is defi but my guess is it's some kind of a lending platform? Dunno why but that was the first thing that pop in my head. Maybe because of that word finance in its name. Defi isn't dead yet and it is still possible to make money out of them.