Over 100 Crypto Projects Have Been Shut Down in 2026, Industry Experiencing ".com Bubble-like" Major Restructuring

August 9, more than 100 crypto projects have closed, filed for bankruptcy, or ceased operations permanently since 2026, and the exit velocity is increasing. In just one week at the end of July, BitMEX, BitMart, Movement Labs, and Storj Labs announced closures or related applications. The exiting projects cover exchanges, wallets, DeFi lending protocols, NFT markets, and L1 blockchains; the Polkadot parachain Moonbeam also permanently ceased operations on July 31, with user funds not promptly bridged being stuck.

This round of clear-out is described as an industry restructuring similar to the one after the bursting of the Internet bubble. The number of Ethereum's general-purpose L2s grew rapidly in 2023, but as the deployment barrier of chains lowered, the market gradually became crowded and projects lacked differentiation. Espresso Systems CEO Ben Fisch stated that what is currently entering the consolidation phase is the general-purpose L2, not all L2s. ARK Invest research director Lorenzo Valente, on the other hand, said that the crypto industry is undergoing the largest consolidation in history, with capital becoming more selective, and teams and trading platforms lacking product-market fit are shutting down; Hyperliquid and Pump.fun accounted for 67% of the total application layer revenue.

The issue with many projects is that they have usage but no traditional revenue. Many teams use their native tokens to pay engineers, subsidize liquidity, and cover security audit costs, and most meme coins have recently dropped by 70% to 90% in the bear market, rendering the token-denominated treasury and operational cycle estimates obsolete. DAO governance tool platform Tally once served over 500 protocols, processed over $10 billion in payments, and assisted in safeguarding up to $800 billion in on-chain value, but still closed due to the lack of a sustainable business model for governance tools. Security incidents further accelerated project exits. Blockaid estimates that the on-chain attack losses in the first half of 2026 reached $1.1 billion, exceeding the total for the full year of 2025; among them, two incidents from Kelp DAO and Drift Protocol resulted in losses of $293 million and $285 million, respectively. TRM Labs estimates that North Korea-related attackers accounted for 66% of the total crypto attack losses during the same period.

Projects that are able to continue growing in a bear market generally rely on dollar revenue rather than their native tokens. On June 30, Hyperliquid's cumulative fees exceeded $1 billion, currently holding 70% of the centralized perpetual futures market; Aave held over $12 billion in deposits as of July, with annualized borrowing fees surpassing $100 million. The common denominator among these projects is not the most complex technology, the highest funding, or the largest community, but rather having built a product for which users are willing to pay.