Kadena Blames Market Conditions for Sudden Shutdown

This announcement caused its KDA token to crash by more than 60% within just 90 ￰0￱ the shutdown, Kadena still said its proof-of-work blockchain would stay operational through independent miners and validators. Meanwhile, ￰1￱ CEO Humayun Sheikh escalated his feud with the Ocean Protocol Foundation by offering a $250,000 bounty for information on an alleged $80 million token ￰2￱ dispute is mainly rooted in the 2024 Artificial Superintelligence Alliance merger, and it has shaken investor confidence enough that both the FET and OCEAN tokens are facing ￰3￱ Folds Under Pressure Kadena, the layer 1 blockchain that once hailed as a “blockchain for business,” announced that it is winding down operations and stopping all active network maintenance due to what it called “market conditions.” The news was shared on X on Tuesday, and sent its native token KDA plunging by 60+% within just 90 ￰4￱ the announcement, the Kadena team said it could no longer sustain business activities or promote adoption of its network, but still expressed gratitude to supporters and participants in its ￰5￱ was founded in 2016 by Stuart Popejoy and Will Martino, and its goal was to combine scalability with strong security through its unique proof-of-work architecture and smart contract ￰6￱ previously led JPMorgan’s Blockchain Center of Excellence, while Martino served as a tech lead for the ￰7￱ and Exchange Commission’s cryptocurrency steering ￰8￱ backgrounds brought early credibility to the project, and at its peak in November of 2021, the KDA token reached a valuation close to $4 billion.

Today, that figure has fallen dramatically to around $30.9 million, according to CoinMarketCap data . KDA’s price action over the past 24 hours () Despite the company’s shutdown, Kadena explained that the blockchain itself will continue ￰9￱ network is decentralized and maintained by independent miners and validators who can still process transactions and mine ￰10￱ ensure ongoing stability, the team said it will release a new binary designed to keep the blockchain running without its direct involvement and urged node operators to upgrade as soon as ￰11￱ also kept a small team to manage the wind-down process and will work with the community on decisions regarding the distribution of its remaining ￰12￱ 83.7 million KDA tokens are set to be unlocked in November 2029, while an additional 566 million will continue to be released gradually as mining rewards through ￰13￱ closure of Kadena sheds some light on the challenges that smaller blockchains face when it comes to maintaining relevance and profitability in a competitive environment dominated by larger players like Ethereum and ￰14￱ Protocol Under Fire Other crypto company founders are also finding themselves in a tight ￰15￱ feud between ￰16￱ CEO Humayun Sheikh and the Ocean Protocol Foundation intensified after Sheikh offered a $250,000 bounty for information on the signatories of OceanDAO’s multisignature wallet and their connection to the ￰17￱ move was made after Sheikh’s recent allegations that a wallet linked to Ocean Protocol misappropriated approximately 286 million ￰18￱ (FET) tokens—which was worth around $80 million at the ￰19￱ dispute traces back to the 2024 merger that formed the Artificial Superintelligence (ASI) Alliance, which combined Fetch.

ai, Ocean Protocol, and SingularityNet into a unified token ￰20￱ claims that Ocean Protocol minted and transferred millions of OCEAN tokens before the merger, and later converted them into FET tokens and moved them to centralized exchanges without disclosing the ￰21￱ ￰22￱ CEO has since vowed to fund class-action lawsuits across multiple jurisdictions and urged major exchanges, including Binance, GSR, and ExaGroup, to investigate the ￰23￱ the wake of the controversy, Binance announced that it will cease support for OCEAN token deposits, though it did not specifically point to the dispute as the ￰24￱ growing tensions also impacted market performance, with the FET token dropping almost 8% in the past 24 hours to trade at around $0.25, according to CoinMarketCap data .

FET’s price action over the past 24 hours () Blockchain analytics firm Bubblemaps provided even more insight after reporting that an Ocean Protocol-linked wallet converted about 661 million OCEAN tokens into 286 million FET tokens and transferred roughly 270 million FET—valued at $120 million—to Binance and GSR ￰25￱ Protocol withdrew from the ASI Alliance on Oct. 9, and has denied any ￰26￱ stated that the tokens were retained for “community incentives” and “data farming” purposes. Additionally, the foundation said it would issue a formal response to what it described as “unfounded claims.”