Kadena
The company stopped at once; its proof-of-work chain kept running without it
A company that developed the Chainweb proof-of-work blockchain and Pact smart-contract language. This record covers the company’s shutdown; mining and the network continued.
- Capital raised (announced)
- Estimated
Recorded announced backing; this is separate from cash received, customer deposits and money recovered.
- Peak DeFi deposits on the chain (August 2022)
All-time high of value locked in DeFi applications on the chain, per DefiLlama data cited at the shutdown. These are users' assets in third-party applications, not money the company raised.
- Chain deposits after company notice
- Estimated
Chain-wide DeFi deposits reported 22 October 2025, after the company’s notice; not its treasury. The chain continued.
Funding
| Round | Date | Announced | Investors |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pre-A SAFT round | 2018 | ||
| April 2018 SAFT round | 2018 | ||
| CoinList token sale (November 2019) | 2019 | Not disclosed |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stuart Popejoy | — | Musician/composer | Oct 2026 | |
| Will Martino | — | Not established | Oct 2026 |
Timeline
31 January 2018
The company said its private blockchain was in use at a Fortune 100 healthcare and insurance company and that a public chain was expected by the end of 2018.
12 April 2018
4 November 2019
Ten braided proof-of-work chains; token transfers and smart contracts were scheduled to follow on 5 December.
5 November 2019
Ran to 22 November: coins at $1 for non-US buyers, and at $0.50 under a one-year lock-up for accredited investors.
15 January 2020
SiliconANGLE reported full public access to smart contracts and transactions. Earlier mining access and the block explorer had not provided those functions.
June 2025
21 October 2025
Announced on X; some traders at first suspected the account had been compromised, and the team confirmed the shutdown on its Discord.
How it ended
The organization behind Kadena said it could no longer continue business operations, citing market conditions, and stopped all business activity and active maintenance of the blockchain immediately. Employees had been told, and a small group stayed on to manage the transition and publish a node release so the network could run without the company. The chain itself kept running, secured by independent miners, with mining rewards continuing on the original schedule.
What happened next
- Aftermath22 October 2025
OKX suspended deposits and set its KDA trading pairs to be removed by 29 October, with withdrawals open until 22 January 2026.
- Community takeoverNovember 2025
Daniel Keller said on X that he was helping a new community team, with InFlux Technologies approached to help with legal and foundation work.
Still alive
Open spot
Kadena is gone. Is your chain still running?
Spotlight your project here.
Sources
17 sources behind this page.
- 1Kadena Shuts Down, Chain Stays Online as Miners and Community Take Over · Coin Edition · Oct 2025
- 2Blockchain Startup Kadena Raises $12 Million in SAFT Sale · CoinDesk · Apr 2018
- 3Kadena Foundation to Cease Operations, Leaving Blockchain to Run Without Core Team · CoinDesk · Oct 2025
- 4Kadena Goes Live, Announces New Token Sale Aiming for $20 Million · CoinDesk · Nov 2019
- 5Kadena Begins KDA Token Sale for U.S. and Global Investors on CoinList · Coinspeaker · Nov 2019
- 6Kadena Is Not Dead, Latest Revival Plan Unveiled · Coinspeaker (syndicated by Yahoo Finance) · Nov 2025
- 7Kadena Mainnet Goes Live, New $20M Token Sale Starts Tomorrow · Cointelegraph
- 8Exclusive: CEO of Kadena Stuart Popejoy discusses parallel processing and execution for EVM chains · crypto.news · Jun 2025
- 9Kadena Shuts Down - How a 77% Crash and Cash Burn Ended One of Crypto's Most Ambitious Projects · Cryptonews · Oct 2025
- 10Contributors to kadena-io/pact · GitHub
Show 7 moreShow fewer
- 11GitHub profile: sirlensalot · GitHub · user-editable
- 12Kadena (KDA) - All information about Kadena ICO (Token Sale) · ICO Drops · user-editable
- 13Kadena Raises $2.25MM in First Round of Funding For Innovative Blockchain Platform · PR Newswire (press release issued by Kadena) · Jan 2018
- 14Kadena completes public-chain launch · SiliconANGLE · Jan 2020
- 15Kadena's posts on X naming @_wjmartino_ · twitterapi.io (X API), retrieved 3 October 2026
- 16Latest posts of @_wjmartino_ · twitterapi.io (X API), retrieved 3 October 2026
- 17X profile of @_wjmartino_ · twitterapi.io (X API), retrieved 3 October 2026
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.