Loopring, Ethereum’s first zero-knowledge rollup, is closing its decentralized exchange and automated market maker. All trading services stop now. The relayer is halted effective immediately.
The team didn’t mince words. “To be honest, Loopring never gained meaningful adoption,” they posted on X. As the first zk-rollup, they lacked a virtual machine. No composability. No real-world payment cases. That constraint choked ecosystem growth from the start.
It’s a rough end for a project that raised $45 million in a 2017 ICO and proved zk-rollups could actually scale Ethereum. But tech moves fast. Newer solutions like zkSync, Scroll, and StarkNet offered full EVM compatibility. Loopring’s specialized architecture? It started feeling obsolete.
The team admits they’re engineers, not business operators. They could write code but never built the skills — or desire — for business development. Exchange delistings of LRC in 2026 only sped up what felt inevitable.
Loopring had already killed its wallet services in July 2025. Now they’re calculating final balances and distributing funds directly to users’ Ethereum wallets, covering gas fees in the process.
The numbers tell the story. Total value locked sits around $8 million — down 99% from a $760 million peak in November 2021. LRC trades at $0.01, off its all-time high of $3.75. Over 60 crypto projects have shuttered in 2026 alone as the bear market continues to bite.
