Loopring, the pioneering zero-knowledge rollup on Ethereum, announced Sunday the immediate closure of its decentralized exchange and automated market maker, ending all trading services.
The team cited three main reasons: its failure to gain meaningful adoption, a lack of business development skills, and being technologically surpassed by modern zkEVM solutions.
"To be honest, Loopring never gained meaningful adoption," the team stated. "As the first zk-rollup, we lacked a virtual machine - no composability, no real-world payment use cases."
Loopring was a technical pioneer, raising $45 million in a 2017 ICO and proving the viability of scaling Ethereum via zk-rollups. However, it was ultimately surpassed by more capable successors like zkSync, Scroll, and StarkNet.
The team said they are "engineers at heart," not business operators, excelling at code but never developing the skills for business development. External pressures, including major exchange delistings of its LRC token, accelerated the decision.
The closure follows the shutdown of its wallet services in July 2025. The team will now calculate final user balances and distribute funds directly to Ethereum wallets.
Loopring's total value locked has collapsed from a $760 million peak in November 2021 to about $8 million. Its native token, LRC, has fallen from an all-time high of $3.75 to $0.01.
A key milestone was a 2021 partnership with GameStop to power its NFT platform.
The demise adds to a growing list of crypto project closures in 2026, with more than 60 protocols shuttering services this year as the bear market deepens.