- Kresko ends his protocol.
- Protocol founder faces ‘health challenges’
- Some team members have branched off the protocol.
Kresko, a DeFi protocol for trading synthetic stocks, commodities, and cryptocurrencies, will shut down, the platform announced Thursday.
The protocol, which raised $4.15 million from investors between 2021 and 2023, cited founder Deepak Nuli’s health issues as the reason for the decision.
“Our founder has been dealing with significant health issues, which have recently worsened,” Kresko said in a post on X. “After careful consideration and consideration of various alternatives, we have concluded that this is the best solution.”
No more specific information has been revealed.
Prior to founding Kresko, Nuli founded cryptographic research and security company Multisig.
Users have until September 10 to withdraw their assets from the platform or migrate their funds to a new protocol called Kopio, a fork of the protocol developed by some members of the Kresko team.
Crypto forks are copies of existing projects.
Synthetic Cryptocurrency Market
Kresko launched in 2021 after the infamous GameStop short squeeze when retail trading app Robinhood controversially halted trading in the stock.
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The protocol allowed users to create and trade synthetic assets: cryptocurrency-backed tokens that represented trading positions in traditional assets.
Users can trade synthetic stocks of companies such as electric vehicle maker Tesla or commodities like gold on Kresko.
The protocol uses a mining application that allows users to create synthetic versions of investment assets based on crypto collateral pledged on the platform.
Users can also trade fractions of these synthetic assets instead of purchasing entire shares.
Kresko was a minor player in the synthetic cryptocurrency market, a sector worth $805 million, according to CoinGecko.
Synthetix Network and Uma Protocol are the largest players in the space, worth $493 million and $181 million respectively. Other notable projects include STP Network, Cryptex Finance, and Indigo Protocol.
Osato Avan-Nomayo is our DeFi correspondent based in Nigeria. He covers DeFi and technology. To share tips or information on articles, please contact him at osato@dlnews.com.
