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Router Protocol Is Shutting Down After Four Years, With Over 300 Million ROUTE Tokens Set to Be Burned
After four years of operating, Router Protocol has announced that it is shutting down completely, with the closure officially happening on 30 September.
The team explained a few reasons behind this decision.
They pointed to weak liquidity across Web3 in general, a shift in money and attention moving toward AI projects instead, cheaper cross chain transaction fees becoming more common elsewhere, and overall costs that simply no longer made sense to keep the project running.
Here are the key things people holding ROUTE tokens should know.
- The project’s foundation will permanently burn 303,333,198 ROUTE tokens, meaning these tokens will be destroyed and removed from circulation forever.
- The team says it will work directly with centralized exchanges to remove ROUTE trading pairs from their platforms.
- If you currently hold ROUTE tokens on any exchange, you need to withdraw them according to that specific exchange’s own timeline, since different exchanges may set different deadlines for this.
Going forward, there will be no new products built using ROUTE. However, the team has said that some of the underlying technology will be made open source, meaning other developers may be able to use or build on it later.
If you are currently holding ROUTE tokens, it is a good idea not to leave them sitting in your exchange balance. Check the specific exchange’s listing page for exact deadlines, and move your funds out before their cutoff date arrives.
Common questions people are asking
What exactly is Router Protocol
Router Protocol is a cross chain infrastructure project, meaning its main job was helping move digital assets and data between different blockchains that normally cannot talk to each other directly. It launched in 2020 and 2021, and was built by a team led by CEO Ramani Ramachandran, along with co-founders Shubham Singh, Chandan Choudhury, and Priyeshu Garg. The company was officially headquartered in Singapore, though most of its development team was based in India.
Why exactly are they shutting down
Based on the team’s own statements, the main reasons are a broader shrinking of liquidity in the Web3 space over the past two years, venture capital money shifting heavily toward AI startups instead of crypto infrastructure, falling cross chain transaction fees across the industry which reduced how much revenue this kind of service could generate, and high development and operating costs that no longer made financial sense given how much revenue the project was bringing in. The team has also said it explored other options before deciding to shut down, including trying to license its technology or find a buyer for the company, but none of those paths worked out.
What is the exact timeline
The full shutdown and service termination is set for 30 September. Individual exchanges will have their own separate deadlines for when customers need to withdraw ROUTE tokens, so those dates will not be identical everywhere.
How much revenue did the project actually make
This has not been publicly disclosed. What is known is that the company was small, with fewer than 10 employees according to public company records, and it operated for years on venture funding rather than significant independent revenue. It raised money early on from investors including Coinbase Ventures, Woodstock Fund, and QCP Capital, along with individual backers like Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal.
How many people are actually holding ROUTE tokens right now
This exact number has not been shared publicly by the team. What can be said is that the token has lost the vast majority of its value over time, trading at a small fraction of its all time high, and its market capitalization had shrunk down to a very small figure in the low millions of dollars range earlier this year, suggesting that whatever holder base remains is fairly small and the token has not had meaningful trading activity for a while.
Why were they unable to keep the project going
In simple terms, the business model depended on enough transaction volume and fees moving through the protocol to cover its costs, and that volume never grew enough. As money and attention across the industry shifted toward AI, and as more competitors offered similar cross chain services for cheaper, Router Protocol found itself spending more to maintain and develop its infrastructure than it was making back.
Is the founder Indian, and where are they now
Yes, CEO Ramani Ramachandran is Indian, and his co-founders Shubham Singh and Chandan Choudhury are also Indian. Ramachandran has an MBA from MIT’s Sloan School of Management and worked at firms like Deloitte and Moody’s before moving into crypto in 2014. He has been running Router Labs, the company behind Router Protocol, along with a related project called Dfyn Network. There is no current public information suggesting he has stepped away from the crypto industry, and no announcement about his next move has been reported alongside this shutdown news.
Where was the company actually based
Router Protocol was headquartered in Singapore, though its development team was largely based in India, with the company also appearing in some records as having ties to New Delhi.
Are investors happy with this outcome
There is no public statement from the project’s investors reacting specifically to the shutdown. Given that the token has fallen more than 99 percent from its all time high, and the company is closing rather than being acquired or continuing to operate, it is reasonable to assume early investors are not seeing the outcome they originally hoped for, though this is not something confirmed directly by any investor statement.
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