Decentralized exchange Bunni has announced it will shut down following an $8.4 million exploit in September, making it the second crypto project to close this week.
In a Thursday post on X, the team explained that the decision to wind down operations stems from a lack of funds.
“The recent exploit has halted Bunni’s growth, and relaunching securely would require 6–7 figures in audit and monitoring costs — funds we simply don’t have,” the team said.
They added that they also lacked the capital needed for development and other expenses essential to getting the protocol back on track.
Bunni’s closure comes just days after the founding team of layer-1 blockchain Kadena announced it would cease operations amid challenging market conditions.
On September 2, Bunni DEX was exploited for $8.4 million across Ethereum and the layer-2 network Unichain, forcing the protocol to halt operations. In a September 4 blog post, the team confirmed that the attack took advantage of vulnerabilities in the protocol’s codebase.
Built on Uniswap v4, Bunni DEX used a custom mechanism called the Liquidity Distribution Function to optimize returns for liquidity providers. Before the exploit, the platform was experiencing rapid growth, with its total value locked (TVL) soaring from $2.23 million on June 10 to nearly $80 million by August 19, according to DefiLlama.
Open-sourcing Bunni v2
Despite shutting down, the team relicensed Bunni v2 smart contracts from the Business Source License to the MIT license, an open-source license that allows developers to freely use its features. This includes innovations like liquidity distribution functions, surge fees, and autonomous rebalancing.
Users can still withdraw their assets through the website until further notice. Remaining treasury assets will be distributed to BUNNI, LIT, and veBUNNI tokenholders after legal approval, though team members will not receive any funds. The team also confirmed it will continue working with law enforcement to recover the stolen $8.4 million.
Kadena founding team steps down
Earlier this week, the founding team of layer-1 blockchain Kadena announced it would wind down operations due to challenging market conditions. While the founding team is exiting, the network itself will remain active and transition to a community-driven model.
Following the announcement, Kadena’s native token KDA has plunged 70%, currently trading at $0.06, according to CoinGecko.
