Yield Protocol and Utopia, two important projects of the cryptocurrency world, announced that they would close down, citing various reasons ranging from lack of demand to strategic changes. These developments sent shockwaves through the crypto community. It raised questions about the challenges faced by projects in this rapidly evolving sector. Here are the details…
Yield Protocol struggles with declining demand
Yield Protocol, a decentralized finance (DeFi) lending project, announced that it plans to terminate its operations by the end of this year. This decision for the project came about as a result of a combination of factors, particularly declining demand for fixed-rate borrowing and increasing regulatory challenges. The December 2023 series will mark the end of all borrowing and lending activity in the Yield Protocol, according to an announcement Wednesday. The project cited a lack of sustainable demand for fixed-rate borrowing as the main reason behind this move.
In addition, the increasingly stringent regulatory environment in the United States and increasing regulatory requirements in Europe and the United Kingdom have made it difficult for Yield Protocol to continue operations. At its peak in April 2022, Yield Protocol had a total locked value of over $22 million. However, this figure has dropped significantly and is currently hovering around $2 million.
Utopia is stopping its services
Utopia, a project dedicated to providing solutions for Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs), announced its decision to discontinue all its services effective November 6, 2023. It is important to note that this move does not mean the closure of the company itself, but rather a strategic shift from its existing products and direction. Utopia gained a lot of attention when it raised $23 million in funding in June 2022, with support from leading organizations such as Paradigm, Circle, Coinbase, and others. However, the project has now chosen to discontinue its current product offerings.
Utopia’s CEO, Kaito, outlined several immediate changes in an official statement. The engineering team will no longer be working on bug fixes, and gas-free transactions with no transaction fees will be discontinued. However, support messages will continue to be handled via Intercom to the extent possible. The product will remain available for free until the end of the month, after which all services will be shut down on November 6, 2023. Users are encouraged to export their payment and accounting data using the download button provided. Despite these significant changes, Kaito emphasized that Utopia is not closing its doors, but rather moving in a new direction. He hinted that announcements regarding Utopia’s revised strategic focus will be made in the coming months.
