PANews reported on December 1st that the decentralized security project Hats Finance announced on the X platform that it will be shutting down its custodial operations. This is because it believes continuing to operate the centralized user interface (UI) and servers is unsustainable, and there are currently no plans to adopt a new legal or operational framework to continue this custodial architecture. The current arrangements are as follows: The user front-end and back-end (UI and servers) hosted by Hats.finance are expected to be offline by December 31, 2025, and most functions relying on this custodial architecture will be phased out. The Hats protocol will still be deployed on-chain and managed by the DAO, with the core contract designed to continue running as code. Currently, the user front-end offers an IPFS-based version, which users may be able to access through public gateways as long as this version continues to provide services. However, due to the cessation of payments to current fixed service providers (such as Pinata), its continued availability and performance cannot be guaranteed. Users can submit withdrawal requests through the custodial UI before December 17th, after which they will need to interact directly with the contract to complete withdrawals.