Vesting Cliff Reached

Tag @vestedbrah whenever someone leaves a web3 company

[Xeer @Xeer]

wait... is there a vesting cliff if TGE never happened?

[Nikita Bier @nikitabier]

Ladies and gentlemen, it's time to pass the torch and demote myself to my natural state: a poster. I'll be stepping back from leading product for 𝕏 and will continue on as an advisor.

Serving the X community has been the privilege of a lifetime. X is, and will remain, the most important communication technology in history. But running this app is a 24/7 job and it's now time for me to take a breather.

The app is seeing unprecedented growth in new users & engagement. We continue to break records every month. We've climbed 70 spots in the App Store since this time last year.

And in the last 400 days, we rebuilt almost every aspect of X: the Timeline, the Android app, onboarding, notifications, chat and more.

We also launched nearly 30 new products while protecting the integrity of the town square: becoming the first app to show Country-of-Origin on profiles and mounting defenses against AI bots. There's certainly much more work to be done, but our foundation is stronger than ever.

None of this would have been possible without the incredible team here. The next leaders will take X to even greater heights with @benjitaylor on design, @singhai on core product engineering and @dinkin_flickaa on mobile engineering -- among many other great people.

Thank you to Elon and the X team for welcoming me into the company. See you on the Timeline.

[isabel @izonline]

After 5+ years, we're winding down POAP.

Over the years, we:
* minted millions of collectibles across hundreds of communities.
* did incredible collaborations with world-class organizations - Coinbase, Amex, WMG, Bayer, and a long tail of others, including countless in crypto.
* ran one of the biggest activations at Devcon, minting 8000+ collectibles over the course of a week.
* built an Airport Rally to let collectors get POAPs at airports around the world.

POAP meant something to a lot of people.

Unfortunately, crypto's funding cycles and distribution dynamics made it hard to build a sustainable company without cannibalizing the ethos that made POAP mean something. Building on a fragile and quickly evolving stack, in the middle of an incredible hype cycle, only added to the challenges.

Still, there are some big lessons I am carrying from the POAP story.

First: Customer communities are the most undervalued asset a company can have. If you build something with soul, people who use it and love it will take your brand everywhere. Do not underestimate the power of customer communities.

Second: Connection is still the point. It's easy to lose that thread when the conversation is about the latest bubbly tech or price speculation, but the people using POAPs at events, in classrooms, at hackathons were getting something real out of it.

Third: Longevity and brand equity are the only moats left. With the time to building and shipping something new collapsing quickly, and distribution becoming increasingly an engineering problem, customers increasingly want to make sure they can trust that the things they are buying will grow and evolve with the market, without changing radically.

Grateful for everyone who believed in what we were building. It's too soon for me to say what's next, but for now, I'm thinking a lot about what GTM looks like in the age of AI.

[Cecilia Hsueh @cecilia_hsueh]

Today is my last day at @MEXC .

This is not me leaving crypto. Many people have recently left the industry, but I’m not going anywhere. It’s true that the easy narratives are gone and many have stopped believing. Good, that just means the tourists have left.

I believe some of the biggest opportunities are being created right now. The problems are still here, and blockchain is more relevant than ever if we want to solve real issues.

Increasingly, I’ve felt that the best way for me to contribute is by building once again.

As CSO of MEXC, I wore many hats across partnerships, investments, and strategic initiatives. Out of everything, the one thing I’m most proud of is pushing MEXC to become more transparent and more user-centric. I’m grateful to the team who supported me in making those achievements possible.

That experience reminded me where I do my best work: close to the problem, close to the product, and most importantly, close to users.

Time to go back to founder mode.

More soon.

[Ebisu 🎣 @ebisu_finance]

https://t.co/vX1WdiuFeO

[viet @0xvietnguyen]

Crypto Project Shut Down 2026 - Present

[Shuyao Kong @hotpot_dao]

After spending the last two years building the MegaMafia, we’ve decided to sunset the program.

While it was a success in many ways, we believe that the program was built on assumptions that no longer hold.

Here are some reflections, and what’s coming up next.

> We had real conviction in Mafia founders, and have gone above and beyond in standing by their side to bring their products to market. Some examples include: restructuring the GTE leadership team during critical moments just one month after their initial pre-seed raise, offering to buy out Noise's investors when they tried to push out the CEO, and played a crucial role as they pivoted from their initial prediction market idea, and merging the Tenten and HitOne team after seeing the synergy between the two.

> Across both cohorts which in total included 20 teams, we lent our reputation and networks to founders so they could go on to raise over $80m in funding in pre-seeds, seeds, and series As. We kept the MegaETH’s raise to a minimum so investors can get more skin in the game with the Apps directly, rather than the protocol.

> For teams that had difficulty in raising when the market turned bearish, we extended resources, engineering bandwidth, and actual capital (e.g. six figures in audit for Avon) so they could make it to Mainnet. We did it solely to help founders see their vision through.

> We set the product vision for 5 teams and supported their initial builds before eventually facilitating their fundraises from leading tier-1 and tier-2 funds.

> We spent significant cash (in the millions) bootstrapping teams’ DeFi requirements, through market-making support, direct lending, and other liquidity related needs.

> We hosted 5 large-scale in-person events (New York, Brussels, Bangkok, Singapore, and Seoul) so MegaMafia projects could meet investors and community members from around the world.

In many ways, the MegaMafia was the best incubator of this cycle. But very little of that value has trickled to Mega. In fact, most of those applications are no longer being built with us. At the time, we intentionally took no equity, governance rights, nor economic value because we wanted people to be genuinely bought into the Mega vision and the power of our technology. While we will continue to support existing MegaMafia projects, there will no longer be MegaMafia 3.0.

What’s next?

Our ecosystem goal going forward is to support teams building OMEGA applications, apps that are only possible on MegaETH, using our wallet infrastructure and stablecoin.

More importantly, we're redirecting the energy we were lending to third-party builders into our own first-party applications: consumer-grade apps, built directly by us, for the people we're trying to serve. Where MegaMafia was indirect, betting on other teams to build value we'd eventually capture, first-party apps let us build direct relationships with end users ourselves, with all the upside and accountability that comes with owning the outcome.

We're aiming for faster feedback loops, with insane focus on accruing value directly to the protocol.

[Vesting Cliff Reached @vestedbrah]

https://t.co/aYOG0YDtny

[Sophon @Sophon]

Today, we're decommissioning the Sophon Chain.

You don't find product-market fit by defending sunk costs. Instead, you learn and adapt.

[Vesting Cliff Reached @vestedbrah]

https://t.co/hXV0vTVbLA

[vitalik.eth @VitalikButerin]

.@hwwonx has been a steadfast contributor to the Ethereum ecosystem for a decade. I still remember her early days in the Ethereum research community, first outside the Foundation and then inside it, and the thought and care she put into making Ethereum research and consensus work more organized and legible. At the same time, she put a lot of work into building an excellent Ethereum community in Taipei, with people and events that were among my favorites.

Last year she, along with @tkstanczak, voluntarily took on the burden of what is perhaps the most challenging position in the Ethereum Foundation, at one of the most challenging times for Ethereum - and realistically, a challenging time for all of humanity. She handled the task skillfully and gracefully, and has constantly strived to find and insist on outcomes that are right both for the Ethereum protocol and for the human beings that build and maintain it.

I look forward to her next adventures.
https://t.co/yaJsdlvDU4

[ALEX | ZK @gluk64]

Today we reduced the size of the Matter Labs team. This was my decision, and I want to explain it.

In 2024 we began building for regulated financial institutions. That work became Prividium, and the entire company is now committed to one goal: building the infrastructure that brings enterprises and regulated financial institutions onchain, with privacy at its core.

As that work has progressed, we have learned a great deal about where our customers need it to go. Meeting that direction calls for a different mix of skills and roles than the phase before it, and some of what made sense earlier is not what we need now. That is the reason for today's changes.

It hurts, because this is not about the effort or talent of the people leaving, who I deeply respect. They are some of the strongest engineers, designers, and operators I have worked with.

Everyone leaving has been offered financial support, and we are helping with the transition wherever we can.

If you are hiring, you can request access to our opt-in talent list here:

https://t.co/hBBPLUdRTs

To everyone leaving: thank you for what you built here, and for the standard you set.

Alex

[Ventuals @ventuals]

https://t.co/8BWXRQ7VJL

[Vesting Cliff Reached @vestedbrah]

https://t.co/kDiRdyOYG3

[Hats Protocol 🧢🎩👒 @hatsprotocol]

https://t.co/ko5LkFHa3g

[Radiant Capital @RDNTCapital]

https://t.co/0XDgQWgVXO

[Vesting Cliff Reached @vestedbrah]

https://t.co/LhnnyM56em

[Robbie Petersen @robbiepetersen_]

Today is my last day @dragonflyvc

Very few places have fostered a culture that embraces independent thought like Dragonfly

Incredibly grateful for the opportunity to work alongside some of the sharpest investors in the space - @hosseeb @FengBo22588938 @HadickM @tomhschmidt @TheOneandOmsy @0xsudogm @kapursanat @0xelton - and the exceptional founders Dragonfly has had the privilege of partnering with

In terms of what's next, more to come

[Memento @0xMementoMori]

Today was my last day at @fableborne.

I'm now looking for a new role in crypto gaming/consumer, somewhere at the intersection of marketing, growth, research, and media.

This aligns with the scope I had at Fableborne.

When I started over a year ago, I expected just to be "a marketer", but my role evolved into an interesting overlap of marketing, growth, community, comms, and whatnot (startup things).

Having not worked within a game studio before (only alongside), I also learned a lot about the inner workings of one.

Some of the highlights I’m most proud of include being part of the launch of the POWER token and S4.

I want to give special thanks to the people I worked with closely, including:

• Kam for being an inspirational leader
• Tyler for being my marketing sensei
• James for being one of the best creatives
• Sonny for his creative BD ideas

And in general, I want to thank them for their welcome, the banter, and countless laughs.

If you're building something cool in this space and think there might be a fit, feel free to send me a DM.

[Paul Razvan Berg @PaulRBerg]

We've had to let some talented people go at @Sablier for financial reasons.

They're top-tier engineers (smart contracts, frontend, backend).

If you're hiring, DM me.

[ZERϴ Network @zerodotnetwork]

1/ We're winding down ZERϴ Network. Here’s a personal note from the team:

[Everclear @EverclearOrg]

Today we’re sharing difficult news: we have made the decision to wind down Everclear (Foundation / Labs and building the product).

[fantasy.top @fantasy_top_]

https://t.co/mrs9oMDDqm

[Lucas @0x_Lucas]

Guess I’ll say the quiet part out loud

Bankless apparently laid off a majority of the team yesterday

No thank you or public announcement to help team find new homes

Just David tweeting about how he’s selling ETH and Ryan talking about himself

Come on guys