The company behind privacy-focused protocol Nocturne has announced its closure just four months after the protocol itself was shut down.
Nocturne, which developed a privacy-focused protocol for Ethereum, is closing less than a year after securing $6 million in funding from Bain Capital Crypto, Polychain Capital and Vitalik Buterin.
Hello everyone, difficult news. After discontinuing the privacy protocol we developed earlier last year, we decided to close the company.
The frontend https://t.co/bDN4zxs1fH will remain open for recordings until the end of this month. From there we will convert the recording…
— Nocturne (@nocturne_xyz) June 5, 2024
In an X announcement on June 5, the Nocturne team stated that the application’s website will remain open for withdrawals until the end of June. After the deadline, the recording process will be converted to a self-service format via a GitHub repository. The team did not give a reason for the closure.
“We appreciate everyone who has supported the product and mission over the past year and a half. Thank you for the support, feedback and energy. We wish everyone the best in the future.”
Nocturne
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The closure follows Nocturne’s decision in February to discontinue the v1 version of the protocol and shift focus to “a new product in the application space.” The team cited the nascent state of the layer-2 ecosystem as the reason for the protocol’s closure, emphasizing that the transition to public layer-2 networks “must happen before privacy.”
“Users are concerned about cost/UX first. Moreover, the timing for privacy depends on the usefulness of crypto. Until these primary barriers are overcome first, privacy concerns will remain secondary.”
Nocturne
Nocturne wanted to enable private accounts on the Ethereum network, allowing users to send and receive cryptocurrency privately.
In October 2023, Nocturne raised $6 million in a seed round co-led by Bain Capital Crypto and Polychain Capital, with participation from Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin and other members of the Ethereum community. At the time, the team planned to use the funds to deploy and develop private accounts on Ethereum.
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