Solana’s Cardinal Protocol is terminating operations due to economic conditions, nearly a year after it raised $4.4 million to improve its non-fungible token (NFT) facilities. According to an announcement on Twitter, withdrawals must be made by August 26th.
Cardinal Labs was an infrastructure provider dedicated to supporting NFT use cases on the Solana network by offering protocols and SDKs for storage, rentals, subscriptions, royalties, and trading.
Hey everyone, we have some unfortunate news to share
After much thought, we decided to start the process of finalizing our own protocols. Let’s dive into it ⬇️
– Cardinal (@cardinal_labs) June 28, 2023
Based on the closing timeline, a portion of operations will be shut down on July 19, including storage pool creation, token management, NFT rentals, rental extensions, social media handles, and new deposits. Withdrawals must be completed by August 26, when the two-month notice period expires.
“We’ve done our best to navigate this very challenging macro environment since we started building 18 months ago, but like many others, it’s been tough,” the Cardinal team said on Twitter, adding that while NFT-based products have seen some real traction, They remain “stuck in the context of the extreme crypto community.”
In July of 2022, Cardinal Starch $4.4 million in a seed funding round co-led by crypto venture firm Protagonist and Solana Ventures, along with Animoca Brands, Delphi Digital, CMS Holdings, and Alameda Research — sister company to cryptocurrency exchange FTX. According to a Cardinal spokesperson, Alameda’s investment was “a very small part of the round,” and did not contribute to the financial difficulties of the protocol.
Another $750,000 from Neo Ventures in seed funding was raised in 2021. In total, Cardinal’s has secured $5.2 million in funding over 18 months, with more than 65,000 NFTs in the pipeline as of July 2022.
Despite the tough times, the NFT market seems to be slowly maturing. according According to a recent report from DappsRadar, the NFT market had a good start to the year, with the first quarter of 2023 being the best quarter since the second quarter of 2022. Although March saw a drop in trade volume, the overall performance remained strong due to Intense competition among the NFT markets.
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