Dear Jet Community,
I am writing this to give an important update on the current state of Jet Protocol and our next steps as the developers of the protocol. I’ll begin by stating how grateful I am to the team I was able to build and work with since May of 2021. I will always be grateful for everyone’s hard work, patience, and dedication to our mission. We set out to challenge conventional wisdom in both finance and crypto, and in many ways I think we were successful. We built the first central limit order book (CLOB) based, fixed rate and fixed term marketplace in DeFi, and it works well and is stable.
I also want to express my gratitude to our investors. When I set out to build early on with Mike Bombace (my patient GC), we were able to attract a diverse array of investors and be entrusted with millions to build a new vision for finance on chain. We received support in our early vision for Jet V1, and then later for our plan to build a fixed rate, fixed term product. I will always be deeply grateful for that.
Lastly, I want to express gratitude to the broader community of Jet users and enthusiasts. While we fell short of what I wanted, I feel we were supported by our users through it all. Thank you for trusting the protocol we spent so much time building.
In this vein of gratitude and trust, I wanted to be clear on where we are at currently with the protocol. The development company behind Jet protocol, Jet Protocol Holdings LLC, is formally ceasing protocol operations as of February 1, 2024, as well as the Swiss Association that was formed for the DAO. Both entities and related legal entities we have will begin to be dissolved this month.
As mentioned earlier, we built the protocol that I believed in, and the tech is great. I see fully open sourcing the code to Jet Protocol as being the right thing to do. The very ethos of DeF - open source, composable finance for everyone, was always a strong north star for me personally. We still can’t collectively wrap our arms around term structure broadly in DeFi and this is a critical next step for the industry.
We encourage anyone to fork the code. My central wish is that people use the tech and improve upon it. I am including additional notes below on Jet’s timeline, details, and further thoughts from myself as we look back on our efforts.
Further thoughts and notes
Anyone who’s kept up with the forums in the last few weeks should have had the opportunity to read and digest the post (Link) from Wil Barnes, my former co-founder of Jet Protocol Holdings LLC (the dev shop behind Jet Protocol), regarding his departure from the project and our impending wind-down. I want to take the opportunity to follow up and answer any questions or concerns from the community now that this phase of Jet has come to a conclusion.
I’ve written a brief FAQ below to answer some high level questions I get asked often that I’m able to answer with more clarity now.
Being a part of building Jet Protocol has been a rollercoaster and largely enjoyable. In hindsight, we more often than not were reacting to current events as best we could with what we had. Shifting from a focus on a variable rate only lending platform to deciding to build something much more substantial, innovative, and practical was not a decision I or any of the team took lightly. There was plenty we could have and maybe should have done differently, from positioning our liquidity mining program to outpace competitors earlier, to focusing only on fixed rate/fixed term lending when we had multiple other irons on the fire in the development roadmap. It’s clear that time as a resource, not just capital, was something we didn’t account for properly.
If we were too conservative or too slow, it was not for a lack of love and passion for building. Throughout the past 2.5 years, I was absolutely humbled by the talent that kept coming through the door to help us rethink and build what we all believed to be the next generation of DeFi. Many of us had been turned off by the constant glorification of turning DeFi ecosystems into casinos and we wanted to build something with true utility beyond offering a quick fix, and padding APY returns to people without adequately conveying the risk that came with it.
In August 2023, about a month and a half after the fixed rate marketplace was finally launched, the remaining staff of developers at Jet were laid off as the remaining capital was too low to keep running payroll. Unable to raise more capital from existing or new investors, I made the decision to let the protocol run with the idea that some organic usage might happen despite us being unable to financially support the ongoing development of the protocol. Since then we’ve used what capital is remaining to operate the front end and back end hosting services, RPC services and other operating expenses.
With remaining money running out and there not being much interest or support to move forward I’ve decided that now is the time to wind things down in an orderly fashion.
FAQs:
1. Is Jet Protocol still operational?
On Thursday, December 7th, Jet Protocol borrows were disabled, allowing only for users with current loans on the protocol to pay back their loans and withdraw collateral. On February 1, 2024 the Jet Protocol front end as well as the governance interface will be shutdown and the code open sourced.
2. Is Jet Protocol actively being developed?
Jet Protocol was built by Jet Protocol Holdings, LLC, a development shop founded in May 2021 which raised venture capital to hire the necessary engineering talent to build Jet Protocol. In mid-2023 after unsuccessfully attempting to raise further capital to fund development, Jet Protocol Holdings, LLC was unable to continue paying a full-time workforce and the team was let go. Several of the devs from Jet Protocol Holdings, LLC continued to work on routine maintenance of Jet Protocol on a voluntary basis for the Jet DAO.
3. What is next for Jet Protocol
Jet Protocol is already built with the following functions:
- Fixed rate fixed term orderbook lending and borrowing
- Variable rate pooled lending
- Margin system
- Swaps
As of right now the roadmap for Jet Protocol’s technical development as managed by Jet Protocol Holding, LLC’s development capability is complete. Any further development of the protocol would be achieved through open-source contributions from individuals who are interested in Jet Protocol’s continued enhancement.
4. What happens after February 01, 2024?
The front end of the Jet Protocol application as well as the governance app and some backend services are managed and paid for by Jet Protocol Holdings, LLC. After February 1, 2024 all front end services that Jet Protocol Holdings, LLC manages and pays for will go offline. The programs running on-chain on Solana will of course continue to be operational. Any front end for the app or governance will need to be built, maintained, and supported by the community as well as several other backend tools, which will be open sourced should anyone want to run them.
5. Can I take my funds out still after February 01, 2024?
Any funds still in the protocol after February 01, 2024 will remain as-is, however users will be unable to access them through the current application. Depending on how this process goes, we may extend this time frame.
- Will the Liquidity Incentive Program continue after shutdown?
The LIP is not an automated process and requires manual work from engineers to process, so no further LIP rewards will be processed and the LIP is not active now.
7. What is planned for the DAO and the Jet Association treasury?
The DAO at the moment is small and no major activities have occurred, from collateral onboarding to more substantive proposals and votes. The legal wrapper, the Jet Association (a Swiss non-profit) will be dissolved in tandem with the development company (a US LLC).
The remaining token treasury that is not contractually obligated to investors or employees/contractors will be burned. Without ongoing development and support of the protocol and governance UI, and subsequent need or demand for a community around the project and need for the governance token to vote on proposals, we anticipate the token to become irrelevant. Not a desired result, but a likely outcome.
8. Further communications
Mike and I will remain to wrap things up and the following email is the preferred method to keep in touch, support@jetprotocol.io. We will maintain our communications channels for a bit longer to sheppard the wind down process (twitter, linkedIn, discourse, and telegram).
Of course, we will monitor this entire process closely and may need to adjust dates and details above.
With gratitude,
James
