Solana-based automation tooling startup Clockwork’s time is up.

The Multicoin Capital-backed project’s founder Nick Garfield said Sunday that he and his team were “stepping away from active development of the protocol” and will shut off its infrastructure on Oct. 31.

Clockwork built tech to facilitate payroll payments and other regularly-occurring transactions that smart contracts – the backbone for building economies on blockchains – could conceivably improve.

“Ultimately the reason we are stepping away now is simple opportunity cost,” Garfield said in a post on X, formerly Twitter. “We admittedly see limited commercial upside in continuing to develop the protocol, and have a growing personal interest to explore new opportunities.”

The founders' decision to abandon Clockwork raises questions about what will happen to its investors. Last August, Multicoin Capital, Solana Ventures and Asymmetric VC participated in a $4 million seed funding round; much of that cash remains, Garfield told CoinDesk.

"Fully shutting down and returning money is an option," Garfield said in a message on Telegram. He said he's taking time to decide whether to return the remaining funds or "pivot" the company.

Garfield encouraged Clockwork’s users to fork its open source code and build their own versions of the project, even once the team pulls support.

Update: 17:46 UTC Adds comment from Garfield.