Powerloom chain shuts down July 21, stranding assets not bridged in 24 hours

Powerloom, a blockchain data network, will permanently halt at 6:00 AM UTC on July 21, giving users less than 24 hours to bridge transferable assets to Ethereum before the source chain becomes inaccessible.

"After a hard review of Powerloom's path forward, I and Swaroop have decided to wind down Powerloom," Swaroop Hegde, co-founder of Powerloom, said in a June 15 announcement. "This is not the outcome we wanted."

Reward claims, unstaking, and node burns closed on July 16 when the project's mint dashboard went offline, leaving only liquid on-chain balances eligible for transfer. The Arbitrum-based bridge remains the sole exit route for those funds. The POWER ERC-20 contract deployed on Ethereum at 0x429F0d8233e517f9acf6F0C8293BF35804063a83 is immutable and will remain accessible on-chain regardless of the shutdown.

The wind-down exposes a structural risk in bridge-dependent networks: when the source chain stops producing blocks, the bridge ceases to function even though the destination chain remains operational. Users who miss the 6:00 AM UTC deadline on July 21 will permanently lose access to any assets still held on Powerloom. Hegde said the project, which had launched a decentralized sequencer-validator network and data market infrastructure, lacked a sustainable operating model and sufficient ecosystem demand to continue. The shutdown follows similar exits from Swellchain and Botanix, both of which gave users limited windows to withdraw funds before their networks went offline. Powerloom had warned users five weeks ago through its official wind-down page and social media channels, directing them to initiate withdrawals through the official bridge and complete the claim on Ethereum before the cutoff.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.