Sablier Labs, the company behind the automated token-streaming protocol Sablier, announced it will cease active development and shift to a maintenance-only phase, effective July 13, 2026. The decision was detailed by co-founder and CEO Paul Razvan Berg, who cited a sharp deterioration in the first quarter of 2026: despite delivering a record number of features, both user growth and revenue declined significantly. Berg attributed the downturn to two main forces—the broader crypto market malaise that caused clients to postpone token launches and reduce spending, and the rise of AI-powered coding tools that made it faster and cheaper for competitors to replicate Sablier’s services.
Existing streams, vesting schedules, and airdrop claims will continue to function uninterrupted because the smart contracts are permissionless and non-custodial. However, the official interface no longer supports creating new streams or airdrops that extend beyond June 2028, and open-ended payment streams have been halted. The company will maintain the interface and backend infrastructure until June 2028, after which it plans to hand the project over to the community, possibly through a hosted open-source version. In a significant move, Berg accelerated the release of Sablier’s core EVM smart contracts under the GNU General Public License (GPL) on July 13, 2026, rather than waiting for the original 2029 date—something the crypto outlet Bankless called a “parting gift” to the community.
Several expansion initiatives—including a proprietary Sablier mainnet, NFT-collateralized on-chain loans, conditional unlock mechanisms, and AI agent skills—failed to gain traction. Sablier had already retreated from Solana in June 2026, converting that application into a claims-only interface. Despite processing over 837,000 transactions and paying out more than 547,000 vesting plans, airdrops, and streams across 30 EVM chains and Solana, the protocol never achieved the scale needed to sustain a venture-backed business. Berg expressed pride that Sablier never suffered a security incident. Users with streams lasting beyond June 2028 face elevated risk, as any bugs discovered after the team disbands will likely go unfixed.
