Goldfinch
Its token holders voted unanimously to stop building it
A decentralized credit protocol that pooled stablecoins from crypto investors and lent them, without crypto collateral, to lending businesses mostly in emerging markets.
- Capital raised (announced)
- Estimated
Recorded announced backing; this is separate from cash received, customer deposits and money recovered.
- Loans enabled, by the project's count
- Estimated
Founders’ cumulative original-protocol loan figure in their 12 June 2026 proposal; not deposits, revenue or outstanding debt.
Funding
| Round | Date | Announced | Investors |
|---|---|---|---|
| Series A | 2021 | ||
| Series A extension | 2022 |
Announced is what was said at the time. Cash actually received is rarely disclosed and is not assumed to match.
People
| Name | Role | Period | Now | Last checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mike Sall | — | Founder and CEO of Heron Finance, a private credit investment platform run by Warbler Labs | Oct 2026 | |
| Blake West | — | Founder and CTO of Heron Finance, a private credit investment platform run by Warbler Labs | Oct 2026 |
Timeline
December 2020
By June 2021 it had enabled $2.5 million in loans in seven countries, with a team of seven.
6 January 2022
Goldfinch set up its foundation, while the original team became a separate company, Warbler Labs.
February 2025
A product giving non-US investors on-chain exposure to private credit pools run by established managers including Apollo, Ares and Golub Capital.
12 June 2026
23 June 2026
About 1.1 million GFI were cast in favour.
How it ended
The co-founders proposed, and token holders approved, stopping all new development, shutting Goldfinch Prime and keeping Goldfinch running only to collect what remained of its legacy loans. The proposal said Prime had not reached the adoption needed to justify further investment and that several legacy borrower pools had serious performance issues. Recoveries were to move to a new US trust, and the app was to stay online so users could collect repayments.
Still alive
Open spot
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Sources
12 sources behind this page.
- 1Goldfinch community passes GIP-87 proposal to shut down Goldfinch Prime and enter maintenance mode · Bitget News (item credited to AiCoin) · Jun 2026
- 2a16z Invests $25 Million into Goldfinch, a DeFi Lending Protocol, with Africa the Leading Market · BitKE
- 3A16z Leads Additional $25M Round for DeFi Credit Protocol Goldfinch · CoinDesk · Jan 2022
- 4Decentralized Credit Protocol Goldfinch Raises $11M in Series A Funding · CoinDesk · Jun 2021
- 5a16z-backed Goldfinch shuts down decentralized credit platform · Cryptopolitan · Jun 2026
- 6Goldfinch wind-down raises a hard question - can DeFi RWA survive real-world debt? · CryptoSlate · Jun 2026
- 7Goldfinch Set to Wind Down Prime After Token Holder Vote · FinanceFeeds · Jun 2026
- 8GIP-87: Maintenance Mode of Goldfinch Operations and Wind-Down Goldfinch Prime · Goldfinch Governance Forum · Jun 2026
- 9About Heron Finance · Heron Finance (Warbler Labs, Inc.)
- 10Goldfinch Community Approves Shutdown of Goldfinch Prime · Phemex News · Jun 2026
Show 2 moreShow fewer
- 11Aave Founder Reacts as Goldfinch Shuts Down with $56M Frozen in Loans · The Crypto Times · Jun 2026
- 12DeFi platform Goldfinch raises $25m to continue emerging market lending · Ventureburn
Every figure above is clickable and opens the sources behind it. Copies were stored when each source was read, so a citation still resolves after the page it came from is gone.