Balancer token holders have voted to wind down the decentralized exchange, approving a plan that will push pausable pools into withdrawals-only mode at the end of October and distribute the remaining treasury to BAL holders starting in May 2027.
A second proposal that closed at the same time, which sought to launch an official fork of the protocol, did not pass.
Governance vote approves shutdown path
The wind-down proposal, BIP-928, passed with more than 99% support out of roughly 17.2 million BAL cast. The fork proposal, BIP-929, failed, with about 70% voting against it.
Marcus Hardt, former CEO of Balancer Labs and the author of the wind-down plan, wrote on the governance forum: 「The vote has now closed. With that, the orderly winddown described in BIP-928 is approved and we will move into execution.」
Key dates for liquidity providers
On Oct. 30, pools that can be paused will switch to withdrawals only. Bug bounty coverage for every pool will also end on that date.
Partners that are still moving v3 liquidity can request an extension by Oct. 16. If granted, those pools can remain live through Nov. 30.
In a Sept. 24 forum update, Hardt said withdrawals will remain open throughout the process. He also told liquidity providers in those extended v3 pools to exit by Oct. 30 if they want to leave while still under bug bounty coverage.
DefiLlama data for Balancer v2 and v3 showed that the two versions still held about $52.4 million combined as of Tuesday.
Treasury distribution estimated at $0.1579 per BAL
The treasury will be distributed in kind and on a pro rata basis. BAL holders will need to burn BAL to claim their share during a six-month window that opens at the end of May 2027, after existing veBAL locks expire.
In a Sept. 20 update, Hardt estimated the distributable treasury at about $9.96 million against 63.07 million redeemable BAL, which works out to about $0.1579 for each BAL. He described that number as 「my own measurement, not an audited figure」.
He added that the final amount will be set, and audited, at the snapshot that opens the claim period.
Official fork proposal was rejected
The rejected fork proposal came from MAXYZ, a team led by longtime Balancer contributors Gosuto and Zekraken.
Under that plan, pools would have kept running until the end of the second quarter of 2027. The new entity would also have received up to about 6 million non-circulating BAL, worth roughly $690,000 when the fork was proposed.
In exchange, the Balancer treasury would have received 10% of the fork token supply, or equivalent value, if the fork ever launched a token or had another exit event.
Why the wind-down was proposed
Hardt submitted the wind-down proposal on Sept. 14, citing about $150,000 in monthly costs against roughly $30,000 in protocol revenue in August.
Balancer Labs, the protocol's corporate entity, said in March that it was shutting down after a November 2025 exploit drained about $128 million from v2 pools.