Seven-Year Lightning Bug: Mark Cuban-Backed Zapper Zaps Out on Aug. 3 ⚡

Decentralized finance analytics platform Zapper will shut down its website, mobile app and API services on Aug. 3, ending a seven-year run as one of the more widely used DeFi portfolio trackers, co-founder and CEO Seb Audet announced Wednesday on X. "We evaluated a number of different options, pursued some to the fullest extent possible, and came to the realization that an orderly wind down is the best course of action," Audet wrote, adding that the market ultimately drove the decision. When asked about the reasons behind the closure, Audet replied: "At the end of the day, the market decides."

Founded in 2019, Zapper earned early recognition by winning one of Kyber's DeFi Hackathon events that same year, a result that helped it raise a $1.5 million seed round. In May 2021, the project closed a $15 million Series A led by Framework Ventures, with participation from Mark Cuban, Coinbase Ventures, Sound Ventures (founded by Ashton Kutcher) and ParaFi Capital. CryptoRank data put total funding across both rounds at $16.5 million. At its peak, Zapper said it scaled to more than 2 million monthly active users and processed over $13 billion in transaction volume. The platform let users connect wallets to monitor positions, manage liquidity pools and yield farms, and track upcoming airdrops.

The wind-down comes as venture funding for crypto has tightened. According to RootData's VC dashboard, crypto VC funding rose 57.6% year-on-year to $4.21 billion in the second quarter, but the overall deal count has now fallen nine times over the last 10 quarters. Zapper had previously weathered setbacks, including an April 2025 social engineering attack that briefly hijacked the platform's domain and redirected users to a phishing page.

Zapper joins a growing roster of crypto services that have ceased operations amid weak demand. Cardano-based analytics platform TapTools announced a shutdown in June, followed a week later by Bitcoin-focused DeFi platform Botanix, which cited weak demand for Bitcoin DeFi. SBI's crypto unit, decentralized email service Dmail, and NFT marketplaces Nifty Gateway and Rodeo have also sunset operations this year amid falling NFT activity. Wallet provider Ctrl Wallet is set to wind down on the same Aug. 3 date. Existing Zapper API users will receive a transition email, while Audet used his announcement to help Zapper's engineering and operations staff find new roles.