TL;DR:
- Loopring, Ethereum’s first zk-rollup, announced the shutdown of its DEX and AMM due to lack of adoption and technological obsolescence.
- The protocol’s TVL dropped nearly 99% from its peak of $760 million in November 2021 to just around $8 million today.
- Over 60 crypto projects have already shut down in 2026, according to RootData, amid a bear market that invalidates narratives from the previous cycle.
Loopring, Ethereum’s first zero-knowledge rollup, announced the shutdown of its decentralized exchange and automated market maker, halting all trading services and the relayer immediately. The team communicated the decision through a post on X, listing three main causes: the inability to achieve significant adoption, a lack of business development skills, and having been technologically surpassed by modern zkEVM solutions.
“To be honest, Loopring never achieved significant adoption,” the team acknowledged. “As the first zk-rollup, we lacked a virtual machine: no composability, no real-world payment use cases. That limitation prevented our ecosystem from growing.”
— Loopring💙 (@loopringorg) June 28, 2026
Loopring: The End of a Pioneer
The protocol was at one point a technical reference within the industry. It raised $45 million in an ICO in 2017 and helped demonstrate that scaling Ethereum through zk-rollups was viable. However, the successors it partly inspired, such as zkSync, Scroll, and StarkNet, ultimately displaced it thanks to their architectures compatible with Ethereum smart contracts, a capability Loopring never developed.
The team also pointed to external factors that accelerated the outcome, including the delisting of the native token LRC from major exchanges during 2026. The total value locked in the protocol currently stands at around $8 million, a drop of nearly 99% from the peak of $760 million recorded in November 2021, according to L2Beat data. The LRC token suffered an equivalent collapse, falling from an all-time high of $3.75 to $0.01.
Regarding users, the team committed to calculating and publishing all final balances, distributing funds directly to Ethereum wallets in batches and covering gas costs.
The Market Keeps Contracting
Loopring’s closure adds to a long list that shows no sign of ending. According to RootData, more than 60 projects and protocols in the sector have already shut down their services so far in 2026, in a bear market that exposes the fragility of several narratives from the previous cycle.
Among the most notable cases are Entropy, a self-custody solution backed by a16z; the infrastructure protocol Syndicate; and the artificial intelligence blockchain platform Yupp. Loopring, which had also shut down its wallet service in July 2025 citing scaling difficulties, closes a cycle that began with ambitions but failed to thrive.
