Clockwork, a Solana-based smart contract automation project, will cease key operations by the end of October due to a lack of commercial viability.
The announcement came via a series of Twitter posts on Aug. 27, where Clockwork founder Nick Garfield revealed that active development of the protocol would cease and its nodes on both devnet and mainnet would be turned off on Oct. 31.
Garfield pointed to “simple opportunity cost” as the driving factor behind the move, acknowledging that the team sees more potential in exploring other avenues.
Clockwork enables users to schedule Solana (SOL) network transactions and automate smart contracts to execute applications based on specific triggers.
Despite the shutdown, Clockwork’s code will remain open-source and freely accessible, with Garfield encouraging developers to “fork and ship” the code if they wish to continue the project.
According to Crunchbase, Clockwork raised $4 million in a seed funding round in August last year. The round was co-led by venture capital firms Multicoin Capital and Asymmetric, along with participation from Solana Ventures.
When questioned about the fate of the seed money, Garfield mentioned that a significant portion remains and that decisions regarding its allocation would be made in due course.
The latest move by Clockwork mirrors the actions of Cardinal, another Solana-based project focusing on NFTs, which also shut down in June for similar reasons.
The broader DeFi market has been under strain, with the total value locked (TVL) showing a consistent decline over the past four months. August alone saw a $4 billion drop in TVL, reducing it to $62.91 billion, its lowest in over seven months.
The current market conditions have made investors increasingly cautious, leading to capital withdrawal from the DeFi sector. This could potentially put other projects at risk, making them vulnerable to outcomes similar to those of Clockwork and Cardinal.
