List of crypto project shutdowns in 2026
a) CEX
• BitMEX
• BitMart
• AscendEx
b) DeFi
• Zapper
• Odos Protocol
• Radiant Protocol
• Satori Finance
•
Summer.fi
• Goldfinch
• Step Finance
• Dango Exchange
• Rage Trade
• MilkyWay
• Angle Protocol
• Ranger Finance
c) Infra
• Lamina1
• Loopring
• Botanix
• Polygon zkEVM
• Leap Wallet
• Tally
• Parsec
• Lattice / Redstone
While at the same time some interesting innovations on-chain/ activity picking up on-chain
• Robinhood: their on-chain trenches (somewhat) revitalised (started with Cashcat) although yet to see a token >$100m currently - some tokens are also paired with tokenised stonks (e.g.
$AI paired with tokenised
$NVDA stock via
@longdotxyz) which is quite novel and new. There is also a revenue generating launchpad on Robinhood in
$PONS which is doing quite well
• Base: decentralised and open source AI still continues to shine - open models strengthen safety and privacy (some tokens that come to mind
$POD,
$VVV,
$REI which Base seem to have some strength in). Special mention to decentralised compute as well ($SURPLUS and
$CHIP)
• Ethereum: gamified commerce via gacha/blindboxes on NFT/collectibles on multiple chains (apart from TCG there is now gacha for Wine and even Hot Wheels kek). Most recently
$FWA (Fake World Assets) on Ethereum (deposit NFTs + ETH to earn fees/rewards, or pay ETH to randomly pull one and choose the NFT, its ETH, or
$FWA tokens)
• Solana: Still the chain where most on-chain volume is at -->
$ANSEM (different type of meme via supply control by
@blknoiz06 and a slow-drip airdrop model to people providing value to the meme),
$KINS (too bad it died lmao but it did well initially, some on-chain Runescape + unlike other P2E where it relied on just token emissions, this had a proper in-game economy - too bad gaming is DEAD in crypto),
@MetaDAOProject projs like
$CRED (on-chain Stripe) + Rip Cars (Hot Wheels gacha) and Jurassic (Tokenized Dinosaurs) are unique (unsure the sustainability of these projects, more so looking from uniqueness standpoint),
@Collector_Crypt with
$CARDS (still very bullish alternate investments like collectibles as young people continue to be priced out of other assets like houses and the rise of Kidulting)
• Other chains: random burst of volume on memes like
$FEFER on Stable chain and
$UTYA on Gram (TON) chain
Feels eerily similar to 2024 timeline
• Market was quite boring
• New innovation on Ethereum in ERC404 (semi fungible NFTs like PANDORA lmao) Feb 2024
• Memes like POPCAT, WIF, BONK really took off from Feb 2024 till EOY
•
$GOAT launched in Oct 2024 which sparked off the huge AI agent run-up
Wonder where do we go from here onwards, still have Clarity Act uncertainty + US Midterms + Iran war + potential rate hikes to navigate reee