Pingu Exchange said it will permanently shut down on July 31, 2026. In its announcement, the team said the platform had generated nearly $2.4 billion in trading volume during its time on Arbitrum, but its push onto Monad mainnet failed to produce the business turnaround it had expected. With treasury funds running low, the project chose to wind down and return the remaining assets to the community.
The perpetual DEX launched on Arbitrum in January 2024 after raising about $270,000. It positioned itself as a community-driven DeFi platform offering up to 100x leverage and zero-slippage trading across crypto, forex, indices, and RWA markets. Over 18 months on Arbitrum, the team said it distributed roughly $650,000 in ETH and USDC to stakers while building up its treasury.
Monad bet failed to change the trajectory
The team pointed to its heavy bet on Monad as the turning point. According to the announcement, six months after Monad mainnet launched, Pingu had recorded only about $80 million in volume there. That was not enough to change the project’s direction, while the treasury kept shrinking.
To slow the burn rate, team members stopped taking salaries in February. The announcement said the project no longer had enough treasury capital or energy to keep pushing ahead, and that continuing would only spend money on what it called “empty hope.” The team said it would rather return funds than keep operating under those conditions.
Treasury distribution plan centers on 64.46 ETH
Pingu said the remaining 64.46 ETH in the treasury will be distributed to users who bought PINGU on Arbitrum in 2024 and continued holding it. The funds will be placed as concentrated liquidity in the PINGU/ETH pool at contract address 0x83E60B9F7f4DB5cDb0877659b1740E73c662c55B. The team said every eligible participant will receive the same exit price, with no race to claim.
The announcement also said the treasury-held 57% of token supply will not claim any ETH, which improves the exit price for other holders. The liquidation window is already open and will remain available until July 31.
Reduce-only mode starts June 3 before final settlement
The platform remains online for now, but the shutdown schedule has been set. At 13:00 UTC on June 3, Pingu will switch to reduce-only mode, which means users will no longer be able to open new positions. At 13:00 UTC on July 31, all remaining positions will be settled and the dApp will go offline.
The team urged users to close positions and withdraw LP early rather than waiting until the last day. It also apologized for not being able to honor the Monad Points campaign. The explanation given was that the treasury was built almost entirely from Arbitrum-era revenue, leaving no honest or reasonable way to redistribute those funds based on both token purchases and platform activity.