Even Polkadot's First Parachain Winners Can't Hold On: Acala and Karura Plan to Terminate Chains Next February
Author: TechFlow
The Acala team, the top DeFi parachain on Polkadot, submitted an on-chain governance referendum, Acala Referendum #195, proposing to shut down the network. Its sister chain Karura simultaneously launched Karura Referendum #137. If approved by voters, both chains will cease block production on February 10, 2027.
The team explicitly stated in a letter to the community that the Polkadot parachain architecture has led to deeply fragmented ecosystem capital, severely insufficient decentralized finance liquidity, and node/network maintenance costs have consistently exceeded actual returns. The proactive exit of this flagship ecosystem network after seven years of construction and operation directly challenges the sustainability of applications under the multi-chain interoperability vision.
Staggered Withdrawal Deadlines to Mitigate Security Risks
The shutdown plan sets clear deadlines for cross-chain withdrawals of external assets. Holders must withdraw DOT, KSM, and bridge-connected USDT and USDC to other networks before February 10, 2027. Native tokens ACA and KAR cannot be exported via bridges and will permanently remain on their respective network ledgers after the shutdown.
Fungible staking products implement staggered unbonding periods. Polkadot's standard unbonding takes 28 days, while bond-linked LDOT tied to specific validators requires an additional 28-day unlock period, with requests due before December 16, 2026; the unbonding deadlines for regular LDOT and LKSM are January 12 and February 2, 2027, respectively.
The early withdrawal window was established for clear technical security defense considerations. After the shutdown, network code and historical state ledgers will exist in a public environment, allowing any third party to recompile and launch them. With the widespread adoption of AI-assisted code auditing tools, legacy systems lacking ongoing maintenance are highly vulnerable to governance exploits. Clearing remaining assets early can prevent potential hackers from stealing trapped funds.
Cessation of Most First-Auction Winners Highlights Liquidity Fragmentation
Looking back at the first Polkadot parachain auction in November 2021, Acala secured the network's inaugural slot, attracting over 81,000 on-chain addresses for crowdloans and locking up more than 32.5 million DOT. This 96-week lease period secured shared security from the relay chain but also caused massive capital to become stagnant long-term, hindering ecosystem capital turnover efficiency.
Five years later, most of the initial auction winners have either exited or stalled. Moonbeam ceased block production around July 31, 2026, and migrated GLMR to Base; Parallel Finance shut down its products following a security incident; Clover also relinquished its original parachain status, leaving Astar as the only project still maintaining active updates and upgrades.
The multi-chain structure and independent cross-chain wallet interactions have exacerbated experiential fragmentation, constantly diluting scarce on-chain liquidity. Although Polkadot has now shifted to the flexible coretime model outlined in the Agile Coretime Technical Documentation, and is advancing parallel computing upgrades planned in the JAM Protocol Grey Paper, the ecosystem capital that flowed out early is unlikely to return in the short term.
Signal Vote Advances Pending Execution-Level Transaction Implementation
The shutdown plan is currently in the signal vote phase. On-chain data from Subsquare shows that Acala Referendum #195 has tentatively received approximately 23.1 million ACA votes in favor, and Karura Referendum #137 has tentatively received approximately 1.28 million KAR votes in favor, with zero opposing votes for both thus far.
Following the approval of the signal vote, the team will launch an on-chain execution proposal to implement the shutdown. The official team commits to maintaining node operations and available core time until the shutdown; external assets not withdrawn past the deadline will be returned to their corresponding Asset Hub addresses to the best of their ability, though full reimbursement is not guaranteed. Treasury external assets are planned to be donated to their respective relay chain treasuries.