The Ren Protocol has urged users to withdraw their funds before the upcoming upgrade to Ren 2.0.
In a notice to users on Thursday, the platform announced that version 1.0 of the network would be shut down due to “events related to” the recent implosion of the FTX-linked trading firm Alameda.
The protocol allows users to store “wrapped” versions of their digital assets on otherwise incompatible blockchains.
“As compatibility between Ren 1.0 and 2.0 cannot be guaranteed, holders of Ren assets should bridge back to native chains ASAP, or risk losing them!” it said.
The news led to a considerable amount of panic-selling in the protocol’s native token REN, which is different from wrapped assets on Ren. At press time, REN was trading at $0.08515, down 5% against Bitcoin over the last 24 hours.
“Can you all please tweet and make it clear to the people that are panic selling, the REN token is not the same as “ren assets”. Smart people realize this already but dumb people are dumping and I believe they misunderstood your tweet,” tweeted one user at the Ren team.
On Nov. 19, Ren announced it was scuttling Ren 1.0 as part of a plan to “move on from Alameda.” Ren was acquired by Alameda Research in February 2021, with the trading firm committing to provide long-term funding for development. The implosion of both Alameda and its sister firm FTX, followed by the latter’s bankruptcy filing, left the Ren team with funds that would last only until the end of the year.
Ren 2.0 will be an open source community run network which will support multichain application development. It will initially run in parallel with the current Ren 1.0 network, with limits on Total Value Locked that will be slowly lifted.
