Due to difficult economic conditions, Cardinal Protocol, a project focused on developing utility NFT tokens on top of the Solana network, will cease operations starting July 19, 2023.
About a year after successfully raising $4.4 million in funding, the project recently said via Twitter that users were expected to complete their withdrawals by August 26, marking the project's closing process.
The developers leading the Cardinal project reveal their experiences in facing challenging economic challenges throughout their journey over the past 18 months. They expressed that although their NFT-based product was interesting, they felt limited in the maximalist crypto community.
Despite this, the team emphasizes that their code will remain completely open source so that anyone can easily redeploy new versions, with the aim of maintaining the values of open-source technology and accessibility. Their belief in this principle has not changed and has remained strong over time.
Cardinal Labs, as an infrastructure provider on the Solana network, has played an important role in supporting the use of NFTs. They have provided protocols and software that enable NFT staking, rental, subscription, royalties, and trading.
However, in the latest adjustments, some features have been disabled. This includes staking pool creation, token management, NFT rental, social media management, and deposits. Despite this, their efforts to foster an NFT ecosystem on the Solana network remain their primary focus.
“While we have seen some real use of our staking, rental and identity products, we continue to feel they are trapped in the context of the maximalist crypto community,” Cardinal Labs wrote in a tweet.
Cardinal Labs has firmly stated their belief that someday, intrinsic value and utility will become paramount in digital assets. Currently, they are committed to carrying out their processes carefully and ensuring that the steps taken will not have a negative impact on the existing ecosystem on Solana.
"We recognize that many people and teams rely on our protocols, and we want to minimize the impact of this transition on the ecosystem as much as possible, so we are intentionally working to find pathways that do just that," he added.
In such efforts, the Cardinal Labs team sincerely offers support to users with their readiness to provide answers to any questions that may arise in the context of disputes.