Balancer eyes wind-down after restructuring fails to revive revenue

Balancer, a decentralized exchange and automated market maker, has proposed winding down the protocol after its post-exploit restructuring failed to generate enough revenue. The proposal, authored by Balancer Labs CEO Marcus Hardt and published on the Balancer governance forum Monday, calls for an orderly wind-down and distribution of the remaining treasury, currently worth more than $9 million, to BAL tokenholders.

The move follows Balancer Labs' shutdown in March, when executives opted to continue operating the protocol under a leaner structure. Hardt said the restructuring succeeded in cutting costs and delivering promised products, but the revenue side fell short. “What did not come was enough revenue. Most of the protocol’s revenue still comes from v2, and v3 revenue has not grown to replace it,” he said.

Data from DefiLlama shows Balancer’s monthly protocol revenue fell to $371,000 in November from $1.13 million in October after a $128 million exploit affecting composable stable pools on its legacy v2 protocol. Revenue continued trending downward into 2026, with August revenue at just $56,781.

Hardt acknowledged he underestimated the exploit’s lasting impact. “The November 2025 exploit hit legacy v2 pools. v3 is a different architecture, but the event followed the name into every conversation since and made traction harder to build,” he wrote on the Balancer forum.

Under the proposal, a phased shutdown would begin next month, with new business development ending and liquidity providers given until Oct. 30 to exit. Pools that can be paused would move to withdrawal-only, while others would continue operating with the protocol fee set to zero where contracts allow.

From Nov. 1, Balancer would run only minimal infrastructure needed to support withdrawals, and the DAO would be wound down with a small transition team. The proposal sets aside up to $400,000 for the wind-down process. BAL holders would receive the remaining treasury on a pro-rata basis, with the first distribution scheduled for May 2027, when holders burn their BAL in exchange for their share.

A second distribution would return unspent wind-down funds and unclaimed assets, followed by a “final sweep” six months later. Hardt said delaying the wind-down would only drain the treasury without changing the outcome. “Continuing on the current path spends the treasury to arrive at the same place later. That treasury belongs to BAL holders.”

Turn any website into clean JSON.

Ready-made scrapers & AI agents

Try Apify