Another significant player in the market is leaving the market, and this is redefining decentralised finance with the collapse of the crypto lending platform.The lending protocols grew rapidly in the 202021 bull cycle, promising superior loaning rates and quicker borrowing compared to banks. Investors sought returns as funds rushed into digital assets.But low margins and greater risks were silently accumulating in the background. Those vices are being felt throughout the industry now. Multi-chain protocol ZeroLend has affirmed that it will close down, having made years of losses.The project indicated that it was not possible to continue trading due to the sustainability issues. The shutdown is an indicator of the underlying stress of the global crypto lending platforms that are collapsing.ZeroLend was a decentralised chain-agnostic lending protocol. It has been developed on the Layer-2 Ethereum transactions network scaling solution, zkSync. The design was meant to reduce charges and increase speed for the borrowers.There was high usage of DeFi since early adoption was high. Yet, a number of them that supported blockchains became less liquid or inactive. Low liquidity undermined the demand for loans and trading revenues.In other instances, supports were also pulled out by the Oracle providers. That defeat restricted trustworthy pricing feeds to intelligent contracts. So the lending markets could not run safely without stable data.The team reported that it made losses over a long period of time. Profitability was not stabilised despite more than three years of construction. The protocol later became unsustainable as it existed.The closure was caused by several forces, as indicated in the project. The level of liquidity decreased drastically on a number of networks that were interrelated. Smaller chains were not able to attract a steady flow of capital.Thin markets implied a low number of borrowers and poor yields. Meanwhile, security threats increased throughout DeFi. There was an increasing frequency of hacks and scams of lending pools. Every defence enhancement became more expensive and complicated.The margins were further narrowed by the increase in compliance and protection expenditures. Oracle crashes brought in more uncertainty. Smart contracts need quality price data in order to avoid manipulation.The loss of feeds leads to a rapid increase in risk. All these pressures culminated in extended operating losses. The model could not be sustained without significant restructuring, which was the judgment of its management.