Sablier Labs, the company behind a token-streaming protocol, has announced it will stop active development and shift into maintenance mode. The decision was detailed by co-founder and CEO Paul Razvan Berg in a blog post on July 13. He explained that after a difficult first quarter, he no longer sees a realistic path to building the venture-scale business they originally aimed for. The protocol will remain operational under maintenance until June 2028.
For users, the immediate impact is minimal. All existing streams, vesting schedules, and airdrop claims will continue to function. The smart contracts are permissionless and non-custodial, meaning funds are safe regardless of the company’s decision. Berg assured users there is no need to exit positions. The main changes affect the official platform: as of July 13, the Sablier Interface no longer supports creating new streams or airdrops beyond June 2028, and open-ended payment streams have been stopped altogether.
The company will not launch new products or expand to new blockchain networks. Instead, its focus will be on maintaining the interface and backend infrastructure until June 2028. After that, Berg envisions handing over the project to the community, possibly through a hosted open-source version. He clarified that June 2028 is not an end date but simply the point when company-funded maintenance ends. The protocol could still continue independently.
A notable development involves the software licensing. Originally, Sablier’s main EVM smart contracts were under a Business Source License (BSL) 1.1, set to convert to GNU General Public License (GPL) on July 1, 2029. But Berg accelerated this process, releasing the code under GPL on July 13, 2026. This allows developers to fork, modify, and redeploy the contracts immediately, rather than waiting until 2029. The crypto publication Bankless called this early license switch the project’s “parting gift” to the community.
Reasons behind the shutdown
Berg stated that the first quarter of 2026 was tough for Sablier. Usage and revenue dropped sharply, even though the team delivered more features than in any previous quarter. He attributed the decline to two factors: clients postponed token launches due to the broader crypto market downturn, and AI-assisted coding tools made Sablier’s services easy to replicate. These challenges undercut the company’s revenue model.
When Sablier launched in 2019, the team believed that financial operations would increasingly move online, DAOs would become widespread, and token streams would become a common payment method. In some ways, these predictions proved correct, but adoption never reached the level needed to sustain Sablier’s business. Berg noted that the greatest demand for crypto has been in speculative trading, prediction markets, decentralized lending, and other financial services, rather than in streaming payments. Token streaming, he argued, was seen more as a feature of other crypto solutions than as a standalone market.
Other initiatives by the company, such as Sablier Mainnet (a tailored EVM rollup), using NFTs as collateral, and AI tools, also failed to gain traction.
Solana withdrawal and security track record
In June, Sablier had already begun stepping back from Solana. The Solana application now operates as a claims-only interface, with a reduced front end. However, the underlying program deployed on the blockchain remains active, allowing existing users to make claims.
According to Sablier’s statistics, it has processed activity from over 345,000 Ethereum addresses, through more than 837,000 transactions. It has paid out over 547,000 vesting plans, airdrop claims, and payment streams. The protocol has supported more than 30 EVM chains plus Solana. Its founder created ERC-1620, the money-streaming standard introduced in 2018. Berg expressed pride in the fact that Sablier never experienced any security incidents during its years of managing user funds.
Looking ahead
Berg said that Sablier will disclose details about hosting and handover to the community well before the June 2028 cut-off date. Users holding streaming accounts with terms longer than June 2028 face the highest risk, because any bugs that appear after the team disbands would likely go unfixed. For now, the protocol continues to run, and the company’s focus remains on maintaining stability until the community takes over.
