Dango to halt trading on July 29 and shut its L1 blockchain on Aug. 13

Dango, a perpetuals exchange built on its own Layer-1 blockchain, is shutting down after saying it saw no viable path to lasting commercial success. Trading will halt on July 29 at 12 pm UTC, when any remaining positions will be closed at oracle prices and deposits in the protocol's DLP liquidity vault will be unlocked and returned as USDC to users' spot accounts. The Dango chain will stop running on Aug. 13 at 12 pm UTC, and any deposits still on the network will be refunded to their deposit addresses on Ethereum. The team said withdrawal limits will be lifted shortly and urged users to close positions and withdraw, warning that thin liquidity could cause heavy slippage. Founder Larry Liu said cash shortages, legal challenges that slowed momentum, team attrition and broader market conditions contributed to the decision. Dango launched its mainnet in January after raising $3.6 million in a 2024 seed round led by Hack VC and Lemniscap, and rolled out its perpetual DEX in April before suffering a roughly $410,000 exploit days later; the attacker later returned the funds in exchange for a bug bounty. DefiLlama data cited in the latest report showed Dango's total value locked had fallen from about $4.5 million in early May to roughly $1.6 million before the shutdown announcement, while its open interest stood just under $391,000. The closure comes as the perpetual DEX market remains concentrated among larger rivals, with Hyperliquid holding more than $11 billion in open interest on Saturday and only Aster and Variational also above $1 billion, and during a broader stretch of crypto shutdowns that has also included BitMEX, Odos Protocol and Satori Finance.