Balancer proposes wind-down after revenue falls short

Balancer has proposed winding down the protocol after its restructuring failed to generate enough revenue. Balancer Labs CEO Marcus Hardt authored the proposal. The proposal was published on the Balancer governance forum on Monday. It would distribute the remaining treasury of more than $9 million to BAL tokenholders. Balancer Labs shut down in March. Executives then chose to continue operating the protocol under a leaner structure. Hardt said the restructuring cut costs and delivered the products promised to tokenholders. He said revenue did not meet expectations. Hardt said most protocol revenue still comes from v2. He said v3 revenue has not grown enough to replace v2 revenue. The $128 million exploit affected legacy v2 composable stable pools in November 2025. Hardt said he underestimated how long the exploit would limit adoption. Data from DefiLlama show that monthly protocol revenue fell to $371,000 in November. Monthly protocol revenue was $1.13 million in October. Revenue continued to trend downward into 2026. August revenue was $56,781. The protocol would begin a phased shutdown next month. New business development would end. Liquidity providers would have until Oct. 30 to prepare to exit the protocol. Pools that can be paused would move to withdrawal-only status. Pools that cannot be paused would continue operating. The protocol fee would be set to zero for those pools where contracts allow it. From Nov. 1, Balancer would operate only the minimal infrastructure needed to support withdrawals. The DAO would be wound down. A small team would manage the transition. The proposal sets aside up to $400,000 for the wind-down process. BAL holders would receive the remaining treasury on a pro rata basis. The first distribution is scheduled for May 2027. Holders would burn their BAL in exchange for their share of the treasury assets. A second distribution would return unspent wind-down funds. It would also return unclaimed assets from the first distribution. A final sweep would occur six months later. Hardt said delaying the wind-down would reduce the treasury without changing the eventual outcome. The proposal requires approval from BAL holders. A snapshot vote is scheduled for Sept. 25 to 29. A rejection would leave Balancer's existing operating framework in place.