Rally Leaves Social Token NFTs in Limbo After Abrupt Exit

Crypto VC Mike Dudas said Rally is “completely rugging owners of assets on the chain — not transferrable to Ethereum.”

article-image

Source: Shutterstock / art_of_sun / Praveen Nanu, modified by Blockworks

share

Social NFT platform Rally, roiled by a challenging year for the crypto industry, is shutting down and warned users that they may no longer be able to access their assets. 

The firm told customers in an email Tuesday that its Ethereum sidechain will sunset from Jan. 31 onwards. The site will no longer be supported and users will find the service no longer functions, it added.

CEO Rob Collier told Decrypt, which first reported the shut-down, that the move was due to lack of ongoing support, adding that maintaining the sidechain was too expensive compared to other recently launched layer-1 tech stacks.

Rally told its community that the team had been impacted by the concerns surrounding the crypto industry and it had tried to find a way forward, but the “challenges and macro headwinds are too overwhelming to overcome in the current environment.” 

“Additionally, since NFTs on the Rally side chain are not transferable to [Ethereum’s] main net, these will not be accessible once the site shuts down,” Rally said.

The platform launched in Aug. 2021, attracting users for not charging fees for exchange of NFTs.

“Feeless exchange of NFTs will allow more revenue to be captured by the creator, who will take home more of the value of their NFTs immediately upon sale, while also earning more over time through feeless, ongoing royalties and by increasing demand for their social tokens,” Rally said at the time. 

Crypto VC Mike Dudas said on Twitter that Rally is “completely rugging owners of assets on the chain — not transferrable to [E]thereum.”

Holders of NFTs on the bankrupt FTX similarly learned the hard lesson that a lack of permanent NFT storage on-chain can result in a loss of assets. In this case, Rally NFTs relied on the continuation of the Rally sidechain, rather than the immutable Ethereum mainnet.

Other projects that store NFTs on sidechains, such as Gnosis’ (formerly xDAI) POAP project allow users to migrate NFTs to Ethereum at any time.

Data from TradingView shows Rally’s native token RLY has dropped nearly 95% in the last 12 months.

It appears that Rally is still exploring whether it can build other products to empower creators, but it isn’t yet clear whether it has the resources to do so.


Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. Subscribe to the Empire newsletter.

Explore the growing intersection between crypto, macroeconomics, policy and finance with Ben Strack, Casey Wagner and Felix Jauvin. Subscribe to the Forward Guidance newsletter.

Get alpha directly in your inbox with the 0xResearch newsletter — market highlights, charts, degen trade ideas, governance updates, and more.

The Lightspeed newsletter is all things Solana, in your inbox, every day. Subscribe to daily Solana news from Jack Kubinec and Jeff Albus.

Tags

Upcoming Events

Javits Center North | 445 11th Ave

Tues - Thurs, March 18 - 20, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

Unlocked by Template.png

Research

RTK networks are critical to enabling a world of ubiquitous autonomous drones, vehicles, and industrial robots. We believe the GEOD token enables both a cost and product advantage for the GEODNET RTK network, which will allow it to out-compete multi-billion dollar incumbents Trimble and Hexagon.

article-image

MicroStrategy founder Michael Saylor alluded to Marathon’s CEO during a X Spaces on Tuesday

article-image

Crypto’s calls are equally as juiced as puts, creating a “smile” in the volatility surface

article-image

Turns out that owning the end-user via a crypto wallet is quite a prosperous business

article-image

The announcement followed growing speculation that Gensler would announce his exit before Trump takes office next year

article-image

HashKey Capital’s Jupiter Zheng highlighted three success areas he’s watching: Ethereum, Solana and certain tokens in DeFi

article-image

Jack explored the various AI and memecoin projects that have sprung up over the past month