According to Estimates, the metaverse initiative earned between $2 and $4 million from its NFT mints, raising 25,000 SOL.

NeoNexus, a Solana-based NFT project, has announced that the team would no longer be pursuing the project, citing a decline in Solana (SOL) costs as the reason for the decision.

The project’s founder, Jack Shi, took to the official NeoNexus Twitter account on March 21 at 2 p.m. UTC, announcing that the project’s “healthy development” would no longer be continued, and that they would like to pass it over to the community to develop.

According to Estimates, the initiative generated roughly 25,000 SOL for its NFT mints, which would be worth $2.2 million at today’s pricing. The initiative may have produced $3.5 to $4.5 million if SOL prices had risen to over $150 around the time of the token minting.

NeoNexus is a Metaverse project with a proposed utility and governance coin. It has sold over 4,000 “property NFTs,” with another 6,000 property NFTs planned in the future, as well as character, vehicle, and accessory tokens. The project’s Discord channel now has over 13,000 users.

Shi stated on the project’s Discord that the team’s decision to suspend development was due to market conditions, with the project’s finances being utilized to pay wages, tech infrastructure, company fees, and taxes.

“It has been incredibly difficult trying to grow and continue our project in this ecosystem and market conditions where the price of SOL has dropped so much and the activity, volume, and interest in the entirety of the Solana NFT space has decreased.”

Market circumstances have been tumultuous in recent months, with the price of SOL plummeting more than 50% in three months, according to CoinGecko data. Late in December, it reached a 90-day high of just over $200, after which it has progressively declined to trade around the $80 mark.

Shi also mentioned that the parent firm, Unlock Defi, had laid off over 20 employees as of the end of March, and questioned if a community takeover was conceivable.

Many commenters have accused the initiative of engaging in a “slow-rug,” i.e., building up the enterprise just tot months later and pocketing the payments.

In response to the NeoNexus tweet, various NFT projects announced their own offerings in an attempt to gate the losses suffered by certain investors as a result of the news. Those who responded with “NEONEXUS” on their own Discord channels were often awarded whitelists for upcoming mints.