What Happened to Kadena? — 2024-2026 Timeline

Kadena was founded in 2017 by former JPMorgan engineers Stuart Popejoy and Will Martino. The mainnet launched in January 2020 as a Layer-1 Proof-of-Work chain with a unique multi-chain architecture (Chainweb) running a smart contract language called Pact. KDA reached an all-time high of $28.25 in October 2021.

At peak, Kadena had a paid team in the dozens, multiple offices, partnerships in financial-industry pilots, an active developer ecosystem on the Pact language, and a roadmap that included Chainweb-EVM.

The broader cryptocurrency market entered a sustained downturn beginning late 2021 and continuing through 2023. KDA price followed the broader market down. By the end of 2022, KDA was trading in the $1-2 range — a decline of approximately 95% from peak. Layoffs across the cryptocurrency industry were widespread; Kadena was not an exception.

Through 2024, signs of further contraction at Kadena LLC became more visible:

• Several senior engineers and team members left for other projects.
• Chainweb-EVM mainnet timeline became less specific; targeted launch dates passed without release.
• The Kadena Foundation's social media activity slowed.
• Kaddex (the team behind eckoDEX) was the subject of class-action investigation related to KDX. We do not solicit participation in this matter.
• KDA price drifted from the $1 range down toward $0.30-0.50.

By early-to-mid 2025, public signs of operational difficulty accumulated:

• Several major exchanges began moving KDA to lower-tier listing status.
• The Kadena Eco grant programs reduced new disbursements.
• Pact language development effectively paused.
• Industry coverage began openly questioning Kadena's viability.
• KDA price moved to the $0.10-0.20 range.

Kadena LLC formally dissolved as a corporate entity. Industry coverage (BeInCrypto, crypto.news, FinancialContent, Yahoo Finance, others) reported the dissolution within days. Employees were released; office leases were terminated; the Foundation's email infrastructure and many official services were decommissioned in the weeks following. The dissolution did not affect the chain's ability to produce blocks.

In the weeks following the dissolution, major exchanges responded:

• Binance announced KDA would move to withdrawal-only status.
• OKX and Bybit announced delistings on roughly comparable timelines.
• MEXC and Gate.io continued to support KDA trading.
• Coinbase, with limited prior KDA exposure, did not change its position substantively.

A community-led hard fork occurred in early November 2025 to address protocol-level questions raised during the transition.

KADENA WALLET LLC was formed in Florida with the explicit purpose of providing KDA holders an actively-maintained self-custody wallet.

The Chainweaver wallet repository on GitHub was archived under the kadena-io organization, with the last release tagged v2.2.3.0. Several other Kadena-LLC-maintained repositories were archived in the same period. Archived means read-only: no further commits, security patches, or releases under the original maintainer's control.

The Binance KDA withdrawal-only period ended. After this date, KDA was no longer accessible on Binance for withdrawal, trading, or any other operation. See Binance delisting and Binance Kadena withdrawal.

Through Q1 2026, an informal community-led group has stabilized around the chain's continued operation. The most publicly visible figure is Daniel Keller (CEO, InFlux Technologies). InFlux has provided infrastructure support; community channels coordinate decisions about node software updates; independent wallet teams continue development. There is no replacement Foundation.