Router Protocol to shut down and burn 303M ROUTE tokens after failing to find a buyer

Router Protocol, a cross-chain interoperability project that has been operating for more than four years, announced it will permanently shut down after exhausting every option to keep the lights on. The project will burn 303,333,198 ROUTE tokens from its treasury reserve, torching over 30% of its 1 billion maximum token supply on the way out the door. The market’s response was about as gentle as you’d expect. ROUTE’s price collapsed roughly 50% following the announcement, cratering to an all-time low near $0.00004. A year of dead ends The shutdown deadline is set for September 30, 2026, giving the project roughly a year to wind things down. Over the past year, Router Protocol’s team tried to commercialize the platform, license its technology to other projects, and find a buyer willing to take over operations. None of those efforts produced a viable path forward. The reasons cited paint a grim picture of the economics underlying cross-chain bridging. Low Web3 liquidity, high operational costs, and anemic bridge revenue all contributed to the decision. Revenue from bridging services simply could not cover what it cost to run the platform. Making matters worse, the project had been ru...