Flash Trade said on Friday it will wind down operations unless it finds a party to acquire the Solana perpetuals exchange, and that the decision was not driven by money.
"This decision is not calculated based on monetary reasons," the team wrote on X, citing "direction, shrinking market participants, and our own honest read on the crypto market as a whole and where it is heading."
The exchange said it is now pursuing a sale of its tech stack, brand and intellectual property, and that whatever the sale brings will be distributed to FAF token holders pro rata. The team "will not take a percentage," and team tokens will not participate in the distribution, according to the post.
Flash Trade has not set dates. "We haven't fixed the exact timeline yet, and we'd rather say that than publish dates we might have to move," the team wrote, committing only that withdrawals stay open and that it will give "clear notice well ahead of any change to them."
The operational specifics — when new positions are disabled, how open positions get settled, what liquidity providers need to do, and the dates for each — will be worked through on a call with token holders on Monday, with a write-up published immediately afterwards, the exchange said. The founders will hold an AMA on X on Monday, Aug. 10, at 16:00 UTC, or noon ET.
Explored Freezing AMM
Before settling on a sale, the team said it explored freezing its automated market maker with MetaDAO so that funds sitting in the AMM could be returned to holders pro rata. "That turned out not to be possible," according to the post.
Flash Trade also removed the three-month delay on token staking, so holders who want to unstake can do so immediately.
Alongside its read on the market, the team described a conflict over what its users wanted. "Ethically we are misaligned with the current direction of the crypto ecosystem," it wrote, adding that its own order flow showed "traders want to push further out on the risk curve" and that "we never found a way to serve that demand while sitting comfortably."
The exchange said it never raised outside capital, funding itself from the start, and has paid out roughly $520,000 in USDC of revenue share to FAF holders to date.
Perpetuals venues have been closing even as the sector's largest platforms grow. Dango said in July that it would wind down and halt trading on July 29.