Colony Shuts Down After 5 Years Building on Avalanche
**Colony, a five-year Avalanche-exclusive accelerator, is closing operations at the end of Q1 2026.**
The team cited structural ecosystem challenges that made their growth mission unsustainable:
- Two major initiatives became non-viable after Avalanche deprecated HyperSDK and transferred BTC.b stewardship without advance notice
- Deal flow declined sharply, with reduced VC participation and weakening project quality
- Leadership turnover and strategic uncertainty increased over time
- AVAX declined 90%+ from Colony's launch price
**Despite challenges, Colony maintained community alignment:**
- Team never sold or staked their CLY allocation
- Distributed 193 airdrops totaling ~$30M at peak, plus 31,200 AVAX in rewards
- Funded 30+ projects and provided $10M+ in liquidity
**Wind-down includes final distributions to CLY stakers:**
- $500,000 USDC (from Movement position exit)
- ~$40,000 in MOVE tokens (March 9)
- 10M CLY tokens (~$137K) to long-term stakers
Liquidity pools remain intact. Users must withdraw funds before July 1, 2026, when the application interface shuts down.
[Full statement](https://medium.com/@Colonylab/the-end-of-the-road-ef0af614a47d)