diff --git a/src/tools/trace-forwarder/Cargo.lock b/src/tools/trace-forwarder/Cargo.lock
index ce1f994d26..7a6a7c0ac7 100644
--- a/src/tools/trace-forwarder/Cargo.lock
+++ b/src/tools/trace-forwarder/Cargo.lock
@@ -289,7 +289,6 @@ dependencies = [
  "opentelemetry 0.14.0",
  "opentelemetry-jaeger",
  "privdrop",
- "protobuf",
  "serde",
  "serde_json",
  "slog",
@@ -527,12 +526,6 @@ dependencies = [
  "unicode-xid",
 ]
 
-[[package]]
-name = "protobuf"
-version = "2.27.1"
-source = "registry+https://github.com/rust-lang/crates.io-index"
-checksum = "cf7e6d18738ecd0902d30d1ad232c9125985a3422929b16c65517b38adc14f96"
-
 [[package]]
 name = "quote"
 version = "1.0.10"
diff --git a/src/tools/trace-forwarder/Cargo.toml b/src/tools/trace-forwarder/Cargo.toml
index fc0b69631e..0b6d3d5502 100644
--- a/src/tools/trace-forwarder/Cargo.toml
+++ b/src/tools/trace-forwarder/Cargo.toml
@@ -23,7 +23,6 @@ serde_json = "1.0.44"
 anyhow = "1.0.31"
 opentelemetry = { version = "0.14.0", features=["serialize"] }
 opentelemetry-jaeger = "0.13.0"
-protobuf = "2.27.0"
 tracing-opentelemetry = "0.16.0"
 tracing = "0.1.29"
 tracing-subscriber = "0.3.3"