Decentralized exchange Bunni has announced it will shut down following an $8.4 million exploit in September, becoming the second crypto project to fold this week. The team revealed on Thursday via an X post that they are ceasing operations due to insufficient funds. “The recent exploit halted Bunni’s growth, and securely relaunching would require six to seven figures in audit and monitoring costs—capital we don’t have,” they said. Prior to the breach, Bunni was rapidly expanding, with its TVL climbing from $2.23 million in June to nearly $80 million in August.
The exploit, which occurred on September 2 across Ethereum and Unichain, prompted the team to halt operations. Despite the shutdown, Bunni’s developers have relicensed the v2 smart contracts from Business Source License to the open-source MIT license, allowing the community and developers to utilize innovations like liquidity distribution functions, surge fees, and autonomous rebalancing.
Users can still withdraw their assets via the website until further notice. Remaining treasury assets will be distributed to BUNNI, LIT, and veBUNNI token holders pending legal approvals, though the team confirmed it will not claim any remaining funds. Efforts to recover the stolen $8.4 million continue in collaboration with law enforcement.
This shutdown follows the recent announcement by the Kadena founding team to cease operations amid challenging market conditions. While Kadena’s network will persist as community-run, its native token KDA has seen a 70% crash since the announcement, now trading at $0.06.
For more details, visit: https://cointelegraph.com/news/bunni-dex-becomes-second-crypto-project-shutter-this-week