The number of crypto projects that have announced closure since the start of 2026 has climbed to 70 and is still rising, according to data from RootData.
The latest additions span a wide range of sectors. Layer 2 ZK-rollup protocol Loopring, lending blockchain UX, cross-chain liquidation layer Everclear, decentralized lending protocol Goldfinch, Bitcoin-based Layer 2 Botanix, peer-to-peer NFT lending protocol NFTfi, and DefiLlama’s news outlet DL News are among the most recognizable names to shut down this year.
The broader list, compiled by RootData since March 2026 and updated continuously, includes projects across nearly every category of the crypto industry: decentralized exchanges like Pingu Exchange and BasePerp, lending protocols like Ionic and ZeroLend, NFT platforms including Nifty Gateway and Foundation, gaming projects like HYTOPIA and The Forgotten Runiverse, and infrastructure plays such as Zero Network and Syndicate.
Unlike traditional companies, most crypto projects lack a clear path to restructure once conditions deteriorate. Corporate bankruptcies offer formal mechanisms to pause obligations, renegotiate with creditors, and reorganise capital structures. Crypto projects generally have no equivalent framework.
The 70 named project shutdowns are a small fraction of a much larger collapse across the token economy. According to CoinGecko data published in April, 53.2% of all cryptocurrencies tracked on GeckoTerminal have failed, with the overwhelming majority of that collapse occurring in 2025 alone.
In 2025, 11.6 million tokens failed, accounting for 86.3% of all token failures recorded. The fourth quarter of 2025 was especially brutal, with 7.7 million tokens collapsing in that period alone, representing 34.9% of all recorded failures. CoinGecko linked much of that quarter’s collapse to the aftermath of the October 10 liquidation cascade, a record-breaking event in which $19 billion in leveraged positions were wiped out in 24 hours, the largest single-day deleveraging event in crypto history.
Despite the carnage, the overall number of crypto projects has exploded. GeckoTerminal listed 428,383 projects in 2021. By 2025, that number had ballooned to nearly 20.2 million, driven largely by how easy launchpads have made it to create new tokens, fueling a surge of low-effort meme coins entering the market.
(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});Beyond project shutdowns and token failures, security breaches remain a persistent drain on the industry. According to DeFiLlama data, crypto hacks have resulted in $16.69 billion in cumulative losses, with roughly 40% of that figure tied directly to stolen private keys.
Security researchers at NS3.AI attribute a significant share of these losses to key-management failures, pointing to weaknesses in how private keys are stored and handled as a recurring root cause.
