The Acala developers have put forward an initiative for the complete and permanent shutdown of their network in the Polkadot ecosystem, as well as the sister project Karura in the Kusama network. The target shutdown date is designated as February 10, 2027. The final decision remains with the communities of both projects — without their approval, the closure procedure will not be initiated.
Reasons for winding down
The key argument in favor of closure is cited as the fundamental liquidity problem in the DeFi sector. The developers point to its critical shortage and, more importantly, to the excessive dispersion of capital among numerous parachains. Such fragmentation of liquidity makes the project's economics unsustainable and deprives it of prospects for scaling.
What users need to do
Asset holders are advised to withdraw external assets, including DOT, KSM, USDT, USDC and other tokens, before the closure date. The procedure for exiting liquid staking should be initiated in advance:
— for LDOT — by January 12;
— for LKSM — by February 2.
If LDOT are bonded to a validator, unlocking must be initiated by December 16. At the same time, the native tokens ACA and KAR will remain locked in the networks — they cannot be withdrawn.
The situation around Acala and Karura clearly demonstrates how vulnerable the multi-chain ecosystem model remains in the absence of consolidated liquidity. Fragmentation between parachains, once considered a competitive advantage of Polkadot, is turning into a structural risk for individual projects.
Cryptalist analysis: The upcoming closure of Acala and Karura reflects a broader trend of liquidity consolidation in DeFi around a limited number of large ecosystems, where capital is not diluted among dozens of isolated networks. For investors, this is a signal to reconsider exposure to assets of projects with low liquidity depth and a high level of fragmentation, and for the market as a whole, it is another confirmation that the sustainability of infrastructure is determined not by the number of parachains, but by the ability to retain capital.