The Nocturne protocol, sponsored by Vitalik Buterin, shuts down operations overnight.
Ethereum-native privacy protocol Nocturne Labs is shutting down its operations.
Backed by prominent cryptocurrency experts including Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin, Nocturne announced its shutdown in a June 5 X post.
“After shutting down the privacy protocol we built early last year, we decided to shut down the company.”
The company did not provide any explanation for the closure. Cointelegraph has reached out to Nocturne Labs for comment.
Nocturne initially aimed to introduce personal accounts and transactions into the Ethereum ecosystem. In the year In October 2023, the company raised $6 million in a seed funding round led by Bain Capital Crypto and Polychain Capital with participation from Buterin.
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Night front-end outlets will remain open until the end of June.
According to the announcement, despite the company ceasing operations, users will still be able to withdraw cash through Nocturne's front end until the end of June.
“The front end will remain open for withdrawals until the end of this month. We will be turning the withdrawal process into our own service via this GitHub repo, with detailed instructions on how to withdraw funds using our CLI tool.
Nocturne is currently locked in at more than $129,000 in total value (TVL), down from $455,000 on Jan. 22, when Nocturne v1 was announced to be locked, according to Defillama data.
Will the evening be shut down due to a regulatory crackdown on privacy?
Protocol wrote in the X-Post on January 22:
“With more apps and devices, we believe the importance of privacy will re-emerge, but in the meantime, we're focused on the most pressing technology and consumer issues today. We'll have more to share on new products in the coming months.”
Privacy-focused cryptocurrency projects August 2022 Crypto-mixing protocol Tornado Cash has come under further scrutiny after it was blacklisted by the United States government.
Alexey Persev, the developer of Tornado Cash, was found guilty of money laundering on May 14.
The fine comes despite the fact that Tornado Cash is a non-custodial crypto hybrid protocol – meaning that funds passing through the protocol are never captured or monitored.
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