Decentralised finance (DeFi) incubator AQRU PLC (AQSE:AQRU) saw a decline in turnover and cash flows in the six months to April 30, 2023, as the disruptive cryptocurrency sector continued to face significant headwinds.
Revenues for the interim period came to £106,000 compared to £554,000 in the same period in 2022, although operating losses nearly halved to £1.1mln due to a major cutback in administrative expenses.
Customer deposits on the AQRU retail platform fell 75% to £5.8mln, while net cash on the company accounts similarly fell 75% to £7.4mln.
Although cryptocurrency prices have recovered AQRU noted that bitcoin and ether, the two largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalisation, both remain around 60% lower than their autumn 2021 peak.
Regulatory headwinds continue to stem the sector’s recovery.
To this end, AQRU has invested further into the artificial intelligence (AI) space via an investment in the Streaks.ai initial public offering.
Streaks.ai is a conversational gaming and social platform leveraging ChatGPT and other large language models to capitalise on the exploding market of AI adoption.
“We are delighted with the progress made by the Streaks.ai team and the launch of their conversational social and gaming platforms following our participation in their IPO,” said AQRU’s chief executive Philip Blows. “The AI sector continues to go from strength to strength and giving our stakeholders direct exposure to this market was a key strategy going into 2023.”
Concurrently, AQRU ceased further development of crypto projects ByBrix, Blocklender and Daxiom.
Commenting on the results, Blows said: "AQRU has weathered a particularly challenging period in the digital asset space with many investors exiting the market as asset prices remain depressed.
“Although this is consistent with previous cycles in the digital asset sector, we remain cautious, reducing costs wherever possible and halting development of non-performing business units."