Router Protocol will fully shut down at the end of September, with 303 million ROUTE tokens being permanently burned.

BlockBeats News, September 5th, Cross-chain protocol Router Protocol announced that after more than four years of development, it has decided to cease operations officially. The protocol plans to complete the full shutdown by September 30, 2026.

Router Protocol stated that over the past two years, Web3 liquidity has remained tight, with a significant amount of funds flowing into AI. At the same time, cross-chain infrastructure has faced issues such as fee compression, high costs, and industry demand concentrating towards a few chains. The team tried various approaches such as commercialization, technology licensing, and acquisitions to sustain the project, but they did not find a viable solution to support the long-term operation of the protocol.

According to the announcement, Router will permanently burn 303,333,198 ROUTE tokens currently held in the treasury awaiting processing during the shutdown process. The protocol will also coordinate with centralized exchanges to delist ROUTE trading pairs and related listings. Users holding ROUTE on exchanges are required to follow each exchange's delisting and withdrawal arrangements to complete asset withdrawals before the deadline.

Furthermore, Router Protocol will not introduce any new initiatives related to ROUTE and plans to open-source some technical components to continue the engineering achievements accumulated over the past four years. The team mentioned that this shutdown is not the desired outcome, but it is the most honest and responsible choice for the community at present.