Had a quick call with the StandX team this morning, and here’s the update: 1/ The StandX project has decided to shut down. 2/ They’ll airdrop compensation to all users with points in the form of DUSD. For those who participated in the KOL round, there will be an additional small airdrop based on contribution levels, but the amount won’t be significant. As for the KOL round principal, from what I know, it was fully refunded back in April this year. 3/ At the start of the venture, the team had high hopes for StandX, aiming for big success, but it’s clear now that those expectations weren’t met. Doing a final token launch to cash out isn’t their style, and continuing to drag things out doesn’t make sense either, given the time and opportunity costs. Better to rip the band-aid off quickly. Having started and shut down projects myself, I can understand the StandX team’s decision. The project didn’t raise funds from VCs. Not sure if the StandX team made any money over the past year? Their main income came from fees contributed by yield farmers, while their main costs were team salaries and server expenses. According to the team, they’ve been operating at a loss. Looking back at the early days of StandX, one key reason it gained so much attention so quickly was the context: Aster’s token price was skyrocketing at the time, and since the StandX team also came from Binance (as I mentioned before https://(x.com)/Sea_Bitcoin/status/1972665453576417363), users and KOLs who missed out on Aster had high expectations for StandX. It was classic FOMO. This year, the industry’s expectations for DeFi and application-based projects have shifted entirely toward those with proven PMF (Product-Market Fit), real users, and real revenue/profits. Projects that don’t meet these criteria are finding it much harder compared to before. The closures of Blast, Abstract, and now StandX are just the tip of the iceberg. Without a new wave of on-chain altcoin hype, more small exchanges—whether CEX or Perp DEX—will face even greater challenges in terms of liquidity and user growth.