Radiant Capital announced the orderly wind-down of its DAO operations after 18 months of failing to recover over $50 million lost in a severe hack that occurred in October 2024.
We break down the reasons for the closure, what changes for users, and the key takeaways for the DeFi sector.
What does the closure of Radiant Capital represent?
The wind-down process in DeFi involves the gradual closure of a protocol, keeping the smart contracts available for investors to withdraw funds and manage positions. Radiant Capital started this exact procedure on June 1, 2026.
The final reason was objective. After 18 months of effort alongside zeroShadow, the DAO was unable to recover any amount of the funds subtracted in the October 2024 attack, which drained over $50 million from the protocol.
đ¨ALERTđ¨
Our system has detected suspicious transactions involving @RDNTCapital across multiple chains.
It seems the platform has suffered a private key compromise, leading to an ongoing attack. A malicious actor gained control of multi-sig wallets and has already drained⌠pic.twitter.com/Hf9qy4O0E8
â đ¨ Cyvers Alerts đ¨ (@CyversAlerts) October 16, 2024
The attack was preceded by another incident. In January 2024, a flash loan attack of around 1,900 ETH had already forced the DAO to use treasury reserves to cover debts and significantly reduce its operational funds.
No new investments have occurred either. No strategic investors, allocators, or ecosystem grants have extended the operational period, while user confidence, retention, and overall protocol revenue have fallen successively month on month.
In this scenario, continuing would mean maintaining limited operations with no prospects. The DAO opted to suspend active development and focus solely on investor security and asset recovery.
https://t.co/0XDgQWgVXO
â Radiant Capital (@RDNTCapital) June 1, 2026
The deployed smart contracts remain immutable and accessible on-chain. Investors retain full autonomy to withdraw assets, repay loans, close loan positions, claim rewards, and unlock their DLP tokens directly.
Key changes for investors and lessons for DeFi 3.0
Several changes are already in effect. Lending is disabled across all Core and RIZv1 markets, RDNT token emissions have ceased, and treasury usage will be restricted solely to essential matters.
The website and front-end will remain operational until the end of this year. Discord, Telegram, and X will still be available for support, albeit with reduced response times and limited collaborator activity.
Following the announcement, the RDNT token registered a drop of 4.4%, falling from $0.001511 to $0.001444, according to data from CoinGecko. This represents a cumulative drop of 99.1% since the peak of $0.5853 recorded in September 2022.
Recovery efforts continue. The remediation portal will remain available indefinitely, zeroShadow remains involved within available resources, and any amount recovered will be passed directly to investors affected by the October 2024 attack.
The Radiant team also highlighted that the closure brings an important lesson for the sector. According to them, DeFi is moving towards a phase called DeFi 3.0, where security is no longer a differentiator but the central factor assessed by institutions.
At this stage, allocators prioritize structural characteristics over nominal returns. Risk isolation, deterministic behavior under stress, operational security, and reliable recovery plans are now essential criteria for relevant capital allocation.
The final message is clear. Protocols will be evaluated by how they handle failures, not just by performance in ideal scenarios, making containment design and contingency plans indispensable.
The article Radiant Capital shuts down DAO operations 18 months after a $50 million hack first appeared on BeInCrypto Brasil.