Recur, an NFT startup that secured substantial funding and boasted partnerships with major brands like Hello Kitty and Nickelodeon, has announced its decision to shut down. The company cited challenges posed by the crypto market downturn and shifting business dynamics as the primary reasons for this closure.
In the coming months, Recur’s Web3 platform will gradually lose its core functionalities, according to a blog post by the company. Users will no longer be able to withdraw NFTs from the platform, cash out stablecoin balances, or engage in trading collectibles on Recur-hosted marketplaces.
Acknowledging the difficulty of this decision, Recur highlighted the unforeseen hurdles it faced amidst recent developments in the NFT sector. This move exemplifies the broader headwinds experienced by NFT-focused businesses as they navigate a decline in the popularity of digital collectibles.
Recur initially aimed to leverage its platform to create digital assets, loyalty programs, and collectibles utilizing NFT technology. Despite hosting renowned brands such as Hello Kitty and Nickelodeon, the startup has been unable to maintain its operations.
The company’s announcement mirrors a trend seen in the NFT space, as other firms also grapple with the challenges of the current market environment. Notably, Nifty’s, a platform that merged social networking and Web3 creators’ capabilities, also recently declared its shutdown, despite having partnerships with major media titles like “The Matrix” and “Game of Thrones.”
Recur plans to ensure the survival of various digital collectibles by migrating metadata and media for its NFTs to the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS), a decentralized peer-to-peer file-sharing network. Additionally, other assets will find a home on Filecoin’s network.
Despite raising significant funding and achieving a valuation of $333 million in late 2021, Recur’s journey highlights the challenges faced by NFT platforms in the ever-evolving crypto landscape. The startup had garnered support from notable figures in the industry, including investor Gary Vaynerchuk, Gemini’s Winklevoss twins, and Ethereum co-founder Joe Lubin. However, the changing market dynamics have prompted Recur to make the difficult decision to discontinue its operations.
