Balancer Labs will shut down as corporate entity became ‘a liability’ after $110 million exploit
Co-founder Fernando Martinelli said he considered winding down the entire protocol but decided the team deserved a chance to restructure, with the DAO targeting zero emissions, fee restructuring, and a BAL buyback to offer holders a fair exit.
What to know:
Balancer Labs, the corporate entity behind the Balancer decentralized exchange, is shutting down after a 2025 exploit created ongoing legal and financial strain, though the protocol will remain online in a leaner form.
The project’s total value locked has fallen about 95 percent from a 2021 peak of nearly $3.5 billion to $157 million, prompting an aggressive restructuring that ends BAL emissions, winds down veBAL governance and redirects 100 percent of protocol fees to the DAO treasury.
Essential staff will move to a new Balancer OpCo, the product scope will narrow to a handful of core pool types and non-EVM expansion, and a BAL buyback aims to give tokenholders what the founder calls a fair exit if they do not support the revamped protocol.
