Quick Breakdown
- Rodeo will shut down by March 10 after failing to scale despite strong community engagement.
- Users can migrate assets via Arweave, with read-only mode starting February 10.
- Nifty Gateway has also extended its shutdown timeline amid the ongoing NFT market slump.
Social NFT marketplace Rodeo has announced plans to shut down operations, becoming the second NFT platform this week to exit the market as prolonged weakness continues to hit the nonfungible token sector.
We’ve made the difficult decision to wind down Rodeo.
For those who’ve been active on the platform, there are steps to take as we wind things down.
Learn more about what this means and what to do next → https://t.co/BtgVNeECLb
— Rodeo (@rodeodotclub) January 27, 2026
Launched on Apple’s iOS App Store in March 2025, Rodeo positioned itself as a creator-first NFT platform, blending social media mechanics with digital collecting. Instead of focusing on speculative trading, the app aimed to reward creators for posting content and building communities, while simplifying complex blockchain interactions for mainstream users.
Asset migration timeline and wind-down plan
Rodeo has outlined a structured shutdown process to help users secure their assets and data. Users will be able to migrate their media and metadata to decentralized storage platform Arweave, while an asset migration assistant will guide holders through transferring NFTs from Rodeo’s smart contracts.
The platform will operate normally until February 10, after which it will switch to read-only mode. Rodeo is scheduled to fully shut down on March 10.
The closure comes alongside another major move by Kayvon Tehranian, Rodeo CEO and co-founder, who also revealed this week that ownership of the NFT artist platform Foundation is being transferred to digital art company Blackdove. Foundation, which has facilitated more than $230 million in primary NFT sales, will continue operating under new leadership focused on long-term growth.
NFT market slump forces more platforms to exit
Rodeo’s shutdown follows fresh updates from Nifty Gateway, another major NFT marketplace that rose to prominence during the 2021 bull market. Nifty Gateway recently announced it is winding down operations and, following user feedback, has extended its asset withdrawal deadline to April 23.
The broader NFT market has struggled to recover since its sharp collapse in 2022. At its peak in January 2022, Ethereum-based NFT trading volumes reached nearly $5 billion, according to CryptoSlam. By January 2026, that figure had fallen to just $159.2 million, underscoring the sector’s prolonged downturn.
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