Syndicate Labs has revealed that all of its code will remain permanently open source and available to developers who want to continue building on the technology.
Syndicate Labs, an on-chain development startup backed by Andreessen Horowitz, has announced that it will end operations after five years of building infrastructure for on-chain developers.
She cited major shifts in the assembly market as the main reason behind the decision.
EVM clusters are no longer the standard
In a statement on X, Syndicate Labs He said Its primary focus was to give developers better tools for building and scaling on-chain applications. But according to the company, the market for combined products has changed sharply in recent years. She noted that fewer new projects are entering the space, while many older projects have slowly disappeared.
The company said the market had moved away from the type of technology it was building, and added that EVM kits were no longer considered the industry standard. Instead, she said, developers are increasingly choosing to build custom chains from scratch through consulting teams, which has resulted in less reusable infrastructure and reduced network effects across the ecosystem.
Syndicate Labs said it had spent years trying to support the growth of on-chain applications, and wished the outcome had been different. Despite the closure of the development company, the group stressed that the broader Syndicate ecosystem will continue to exist separately through the Syndicate Network Collective, a Wyoming-based DUNA that holds governance authority over the SYND tokens.
The company also clarified that the group operates independently from Syndicate Labs, which essentially means that management of the SYND token will not be immediately affected. He explained that the successor organization could continue to maintain the DUNA structure, although it also outlined plans to liquidate the organization should a successor not emerge.
The General Guild Bridge was at the base bargaining in late April after attackers gained access through a leaked private key, which eventually drained 18.5 million SYND tokens worth approximately $330,000. However, Syndicate Labs stated that the shutdown decision was not related to the incident.
The affected customer and all SYND holders on Commons Chain have already been compensated using treasury reserves specifically allocated for such events. The company also stated that team members and investors are still subject to token lockups and that no affiliated individuals have been able to access allocations for short-term benefits. Syndicate Labs said its vesting structure is designed around long-term incentives.
Two DeFi projects faltered
Syndicate Labs is not the only cryptocurrency project suffering after security incidents and changing market conditions this year. This year, two decentralized finance (DeFi) projects moved toward closure after suffering the fallout from major security and financial issues. In February, Solana-based DeFi aggregator Step Finance, along with SolanaFloor and Remora Markets, to stop Operations after the wallet hack resulted in losses of approximately $30 million. The teams said fundraising and takeover talks failed to produce a recovery plan.
A month later, Balancer Labs Suggested Balancer Protocol restructuring after months of financial pressures, falling TVL, and a November exploit that accelerated liquidity flows across the platform.
