On October 31, Lisk, the Swiss-based Web3 infrastructure company, will shut down its blockchain network and move its remaining products and developers to Celo, a rival network.

The decision ends a blockchain project that began in 2016 as a network built from scratch before later shifting to Ethereum. Lisk announced the wind-down in August, but its strategic reset began months earlier, when co-founder and chief executive officer Max Kordek returned to the company in December 2025 alongside former chief technology officer Oliver Beddows, who became chief strategy officer. Kordek had stepped down as Lisk’s CEO in 2024 as the Lisk Foundation broadened its focus beyond blockchain.

The Onchain Foundation, Lisk’s parent entity formerly known as the Lisk Foundation, subsequently discontinued several initiatives, including its Onchain research arm and Pass App wallet, to focus resources on the company’s move away from blockchain infrastructure. By May, the restructuring had made several roles redundant, including positions held by Lisk blockchain regional leads and business development teams.

Lisk said it is now building a financial operations platform for businesses focused on accounts, payments, and approvals across fiat and stablecoin rails. The shift closes a decade-long experiment in operating a blockchain and removes one of the relatively few ecosystem companies still willing to support early-stage Web3 founders in Africa.

Africa’s blockchain companies, including startups in finance, social media, gaming, and infrastructure, raised $90.1 million across 28 deals in 2025, according to a report by venture capital firm Crypto Valley VC (CV VC). Funding declined 26.6% from the previous year, while deal volume fell only slightly from 30 to 28, indicating a more selective market.

Lisk’s strategy for building a market

Lisk’s expansion into Africa had a commercial purpose, as is common among blockchain ecosystems. The company sought to identify developers, help them build products, give them reasons to use Lisk, provide funding, and bring their users’ activity and liquidity onto the network.

The was to attract developers and users, generate the network effects required to make the chain viable, and support LSK, its native token. Some founders received grants worth about $4,000, often paid in LSK, which was trading below $1 at the time described in the report. Several founders said they converted the tokens into dollar-backed stablecoins such as USDT because they needed cash for their businesses.

Other founders said the relationships created through Lisk’s funding were more valuable than the grants themselves. Those relationships included introductions to investors, technology partners, and other founders, as well as opportunities to travel and develop commercial partnerships.

Lisk began expanding more aggressively in Africa in 2024. According to its 2024 recap, the company co-hosted developer roadshows in Cape Town, Nairobi, and Lagos. It also created local Telegram communities in Nigeria, Ghana, and Kenya, and partnered with training organisations including Web3Bridge, AyaHQ, and CV Labs, the accelerator operated by CV VC.

By the end of 2024, Lisk’s blockchain had about 95,474 accounts and had processed more than 22 million transactions. Early-stage founders received grants and support to integrate Lisk into their products. Azza, a Nigerian WhatsApp-based stablecoin trading platform; Jamit, a blockchain-based creator platform; and Payd, a Kenyan cross-border payments startup, were among the companies building on Lisk.

However, attracting a founder to deploy on a blockchain was not the same as persuading a retail market to use it. Blockchain networks require users to learn a new route for transferring assets, acquire the appropriate asset to pay transaction fees, and sometimes move liquidity between chains.

Africa’s crypto market already had established preferences. TRON became a major route for USDT because of its low and predictable transaction costs and deep liquidity. Ethereum, Solana, and other networks had also developed established user bases.

In a 2025 report, US-based stablecoin intelligence firm Artemis identified TRON (TRC-20) and Ethereum (ERC-20) as popular networks for sending and receiving crypto assets across the African markets it studied. Ethereum was the most-used network in Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa, while TRON led in six of the 10 countries in its sample, including Egypt and Ghana.

Stablecoin adoption was accelerating between 2024 and 2025. According to Chainalysis, stablecoins accounted for about 43% of Sub-Saharan Africa’s crypto transaction volume in 2024. Nigeria represented roughly 40% of the region’s stablecoin inflows. The International Monetary Fund has estimated that Nigeria accounted for more than 60% of stablecoin inflows to Sub-Saharan Africa since 2019.

Lisk was attempting to grow stablecoin assets on its network and saw an opportunity in emerging stablecoin markets, including Latin America, where Ethereum, TRON, and Polygon were the most widely adopted blockchains. The company ultimately found the cost of persuading users and liquidity to switch networks difficult to overcome.

In March 2024, CV Labs partnered with Lisk to launch a six-month Blockchain Incubation Hub for African startups building on Lisk. The programme offered $4,000 for completing its first block, up to $16,000 for the second, and up to $100,000 in additional funding.

Olaf Hannemann, CV VC’s co-founder and head of growth, said CV Labs admitted 43 startups across two cohorts, with 11 completing the full programme. Lisk supplied the funding, while CV Labs provided infrastructure, mentorship, and operational support. The programme announcement described the initiative in further detail.

AyaHQ became another distribution channel. According to co-founder and chief executive officer Eric Annan, its four cohorts supported more than 35 startups across 25 countries, with 25 ultimately receiving Lisk funding. Lisk provided equity-free funding, including grants of up to $20,000 and, in some cases, follow-on commitments of up to $150,000.

Web3Bridge provided another route into Nigeria’s developer community. Its founder, Ayodeji Awosika, said Lisk backed the organisation with $80,000 to build Web3Bridge Garage, a hub for training developers and supporting founders building on the blockchain.

By August 2025, Lisk told TechCabal that its programmes with CV Labs and AyaHQ had trained more than 30 startups, with 12 graduates receiving grants of up to $20,000.

The economics of blockchain adoption

Building a blockchain is different from making it the default rail for retail and institutional users moving assets. Some networks have pursued that goal through developer incentives, ecosystem funding, and local community-building. Solana, for example, has used all three approaches.

Base, the blockchain built by US crypto company Coinbase, adopted a similar strategy in Africa by supporting developers, targeting creators, and funding local builders. Coinbase also gave Base access to an existing user base and product ecosystem while subsidising transaction fees, reducing the cost of moving assets on the network. Coinbase itself cut 14% of its global workforce in May, and the restructuring affected Base’s regional growth teams.

Lisk did not have a company such as Coinbase behind it. Nevertheless, its spending helped increase activity. Lisk’s total value locked (TVL), which measures the total US value of digital assets deposited on a blockchain, peaked at about $20.6 million in July 2025. Its stablecoin market capitalisation reached about $3.3 million in June 2025.

Both figures later fell sharply. As of September 24, Lisk had approximately $143,208 in TVL and $33,780 in stablecoin market capitalisation, according to DeFiLlama.

One founder who built on Lisk said the startup had begun moving liquidity out of the network, leaving limited capital to settle customer transactions. Lisk also told users to withdraw their assets before October 31, when the network is set to stop operating. The process can take more than a week because assets must first be unstaked and then bridged back to Ethereum.

Although industry speculation has focused on Lisk’s retreat from Africa, the decision was broader and less Africa-specific than some accounts suggested. The fundamental issue was the blockchain’s unit economics, and the network likely was not profitable.

Lisk’s governance proposal said the project had spent roughly two and a half years bootstrapping an ecosystem around Lisk Chain. Its model relied on a flywheel: increased activity would create value for LSK, which could then fund additional ecosystem incentives.

The company ultimately concluded that the blockchain was not generating enough revenue to sustain that cycle. It also cited selling pressure created by incentives paid in LSK and the difficulty of maintaining fragmented operations and ecosystem spending.

The costs of creating a network arise before revenue. Developers need users, users need applications, applications need liquidity, and liquidity needs incentives. Incentives require funding. A blockchain can spend millions building those layers and still generate little revenue if users leave after incentives disappear.

Lisk’s treasury disclosures show how the value of its assets changed over time. Reports from the Onchain Foundation showed total assets of about 98.2 million Swiss francs (CHF), or $124 million, in March and May 2024. By March 2025, that figure had fallen to CHF 52.1 million ($65.7 million), before briefly recovering to roughly CHF 73 million ($92 million) in September. Lisk ended 2025 with about CHF 53 million ($66.8 million) in total assets, the last year reported.

The treasury also became more complex. In 2024, it consisted largely of fiat, Bitcoin, Ether, stablecoins, and LSK. By 2025, it included equities and a broader range of crypto assets, including AAVE, SOL, SUI, HYPE, ONDO, and EIGEN, as well as substantial staked LSK positions.

These figures cannot be treated as operating losses. They are snapshots of assets whose values change with token prices, investments, and asset sales. The reports do not provide the revenue and expenditure details needed to calculate how much Lisk spent operating the blockchain or whether it generated a financial return.

The disclosures do show that Lisk spent on research and development (R&D), a key part of operating a blockchain. The Lisk Foundation, now the Onchain Foundation, funded this work, which was carried out by its development studio, Lightcurve.

In 2023, the Lisk Foundation accounted for about 27.6% of total spending, including bounties and operations. R&D, marketing, and operations expenses totalled CHF 630,265 ($749,000) for the year.

Lisk’s cumulative app revenue reached $981,163 as of September 24, according to DeFiLlama. Revenue had been increasing slowly, rising by only $56,510 since the start of 2026. Against the cost of operating and funding the blockchain, that limited growth helps explain the decision to shut it down.

The impact on African founders

Lisk spent years trying to create a self-sustaining African network by funding developers, attracting users, and building liquidity. The company succeeded in attracting builders and generating periods of network activity, but it did not create an economically self-sustaining ecosystem. Lisk concluded that the blockchain was not producing enough revenue to support its incentive model.

To founders and operators, Lisk represented different things: a supporter, a backer of early-stage startups, an accelerator funder, and a partner for grassroots talent development. Some people close to the project believe Lisk may have exited too early, although its departure is relatively small in the context of Africa’s wider startup funding market.

Its role was nevertheless significant. Lisk funded founders building blockchain-native products while investors were becoming more selective about the sector. The funding was modest but important for builders who needed cash to hire small teams or pay for compliance. Some founders supported by Lisk’s programmes have since received backing from other blockchain ecosystems.

Lisk’s exit does not leave African founders without alternatives. CV Labs is now running an accelerator with Stellar, a US-based blockchain company, across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Three of the programme’s 10 current participants are African companies. Details are available through the CV Labs accelerator.

Africa still needs more early-stage backing, but available capital is selective. The continent recorded 28 blockchain funding deals in 2025, with seed funding accounting for the largest number of deals. The largest pools of capital increasingly went to companies with clear commercial models.

The market has moved well beyond the period when startups could raise large rounds simply by building crypto exchanges, wallets, or infrastructure for converting between crypto and fiat. Those pitches characterised crypto’s zero-interest-rate policy (ZIRP) era, when African blockchain-focused startups raised $474 million in 2022. The continent has not seen the same level of investor conviction since then.

Traditional venture capital firms now appear cautious about backing blockchain-native startups. Investors want working products, regulated distribution, revenue, and clear links to existing financial infrastructure. Stablecoin businesses have benefited because their use cases are easier to understand. Founders building blockchain infrastructure that does not immediately translate into a payments or financial services product face a more difficult funding environment.

Lisk’s blockchain is shutting down because the economics of maintaining it no make sense for the company. The economic value of the relationships it built in Africa is a separate question.

For African founders, the immediate lesson is that ecosystem-funded growth can be fragile when the company paying for adoption changes direction. Lisk did not fail because it stopped trying to build an ecosystem. It spent years attempting to create one, attracted builders, and generated measurable activity. It is now pursuing another business: financial software, including products that could be sold to African businesses, a market it already knows.

Editor’s note: This article uses retrieved links from the Wayback Machine. After Lisk announced its pivot, the company removed previous blockchain-related updates.