The Cardinal project team announced a ‘smooth’ wind-down of operations and the shutdown of its protocols.
Hey Everyone, we have some unfortunate news to share ?
After a lot of reflection, we’ve decided to begin the process of winding down our protocols. Let’s dive into it ? ⬇️
— Cardinal (@cardinal_labs) June 28, 2023
“We did everything possible to navigate this incredibly challenging macroeconomic environment since we began operations 18 months ago. But, as with many others, it has not been easy,” the company said.
According to the leadership, the project failed to attract a sufficient number of users to the product and ‘stuck in the crypto-maximalist community’ context.
Cardinal’s operations are overseen by Solana Ventures and Protagonist with the participation of Animoca Brands. The service offered leasing of non-fungible tokens, staking and custody, and other NFT-related features. In July 2022 the project closed a seed funding round на $4,4 млн.
The developers pledged to keep the protocol code open source. The current aim for Cardinal is to wind down operations gradually without harming the Solana ecosystem.
In June, the crypto-payments company Wyre announced its closure after ten years of operation, citing difficult bear-market conditions.
In the same month, investment bank Cowen announced the winding down of its crypto unit a year after launch.
Banq, the payments subsidiary of crypto custodian Prime Trust, filed for bankruptcy. The firm reported assets of about $17.7 million against liabilities of about $5.45 million.