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A Message from the Presearch Team

July 24, 2026

Presearch

4 min read·<br>16 hours ago

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It is with heavy hearts that we announce that Presearch will be closing its doors.<br>Ultimately, we were unable to reach the milestone of one million legitimate daily searches, which we believe would likely have generated enough revenue to move Presearch into sustainable territory. Recent trends also made it clear that reaching that threshold within a meaningful timeframe was no longer realistic.<br>Presearch was built around a belief that remains as important today as ever: search should not be controlled by a handful of giant corporations, and people should be able to access information without being tracked, profiled, or treated as the product.<br>Three years ago, our team took responsibility for Presearch at a moment when the platform was only weeks away from potentially going offline. What we inherited included significant reputational challenges, an unsustainable token model, limited monetization, and a complex, bloated infrastructure that was extremely expensive to operate. Both the Web2 and Web3 technology stacks required extensive work simply to stabilize the platform, let alone improve it.<br>We knew the road ahead would be difficult, but we believed Presearch deserved a fighting chance.<br>Over the past three years, we put our hearts and souls into giving it that chance. We simplified the infrastructure, reduced costs, rebuilt critical systems, improved the search experience, introduced privacy-respecting advertising, developed new products, and turned Presearch into a real revenue-generating business.<br>None of this would have been possible without the extraordinary support of our community, users, node operators, partners, investors, and team members, and we are deeply grateful to everyone who helped carry Presearch forward.<br>We raised capital through Wefunder and several smaller bridge and mezzanine rounds. We forged partnerships, participated in accelerator programs, attended conferences, and hired public relations, marketing, data analytics, and sales professionals. We maintained our monthly livestreams, generated substantial earned media coverage, stayed active across social channels, published newsletters, launched countless product announcements and promotional campaigns, and continually experimented with new ways to grow.<br>We are proud of what we accomplished. We kept Presearch alive when its future appeared all but impossible. We stabilized and improved the platform, built real products, created real revenue, and fought for a future in which access to information is not dictated by a handful of corporations. We believe we did everything within our power to give Presearch a sustainable future.<br>Nobody is claiming that we did everything perfectly. But we showed up, kept building, worked nights and weekends, and refused to walk away until every responsible path forward had been explored.<br>Ultimately, the cost and complexity of repairing, maintaining, and developing the inherited technology exceeded what had been anticipated and what the company could sustainably support. Despite reducing expenses, minimizing bot activity, creating new revenue streams, pursuing investment, and exploring strategic opportunities, we were unable to secure the resources necessary to continue operating.<br>Get Presearch’s stories in your inbox

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At the same time, one of our greatest challenges was reconciling expectations surrounding the token with the realities of building the underlying business. A token can only have a sustainable future when it is supported by a useful product, genuine adoption, durable revenue, and sound economics. Our consistent position was that we first needed to build a strong, sustainable business and that its success would ultimately create value throughout the broader Presearch ecosystem.<br>Although Presearch was proudly born from the cryptocurrency community, and we continue to believe in the principles that originally made that movement compelling, the conversation too often centered almost exclusively on token price rather than the search engine, its users, or the business required to support both. This disconnect made an already difficult turnaround even harder.<br>What should not be overlooked is the extraordinary sacrifice made by both the community and the team to keep Presearch alive. Many companies and projects from the same era disappeared years ago. Presearch continued because team members, founders, community leaders, node operators, users, token holders, and investors contributed enormous amounts of time, energy, trust, and capital through difficult markets and challenging circumstances.<br>We are profoundly grateful to...