Kresko DeFi Protocol to shut down due to Health Challenge of Founder

Kresko, backed by Electric Capital and Polychain Capital, announced on Wednesday that it is shutting down the open platform due to the founder's health challenge.

The DeFi protocol for trading synthetic stocks, commodities, and crypto cited Deepak Nuli's health concerns as the reason for the decision in an official announcement as seen on X (formerly known as Twitter). The post stated that after years of commitment and hard work, it was an incredibly difficult decision to take as it announced the closure of synthetic asset platform Kresko.

Nuli, who founded the crypto security and research firm Multisig prior to starting Kresko, has been facing significant health issues, and they have gotten worse recently. After careful thought and various alternatives, we have concluded that this is the best course of action.

The post further said that through interviews, introductions, or simply spreading the word, many of you were instrumental in helping Kresko reach its current status. Without you, Kresko could not have happened. We sincerely appreciate the unwavering support received from the Kresko community during the testnet and beta release.

Kresko said by September 10th, users are advised to migrate or withdraw their assets. Alternatively, they can move their assets to Kopio and keep KREDITS in the new protocol. A few individuals from Kresko's group are forking the protocol and going by the name Kopio. In the world of crypto, forked versions are clones of existing projects.

The Cento app will shut down on Tuesday, September 10, and support will be available on Discord until Friday, September 20. For users who miss the deadline, they can take advantage of the Kopio frontend to make withdrawals after September 20th.

This announcement comes after Kresko raised $1.8 million in a strategic funding round in November 2023. Leading the financing round were Electric Capital and Zero Age Ventures, with support from MH Ventures, Gui Laliberte, GTS Ventures, Oak Grove Ventures, and WAGMI Ventures.

In 2021, Kresko was established subsequent to the infamous GameStop short squeeze, in which the retail trading app Robinhood controversially stopped stock trading. Tokens with a cryptocurrency backing that represented trading positions in traditional assets were created and traded by users using the DeFi protocol. Users could trade commodities like gold on Kresko, as well as synthetic stocks of companies like Tesla, a manufacturer of electric vehicles.

As per CoinGecko, the cryptocurrency synthetics market has a valuation of $819 million with a 24-hour trading volume of $49,386 as of the time of writing.

The two largest companies in the market, Synthetix Network and Uma Protocol, are valued at $503 million and $183 million, respectively. STP, Cryptex Finance, Indigo Protocol, Mettalex, and PERI Finance are a few more well-known projects.

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