Author: Biteye
Everyone says that the bottom of a bear market is often accompanied by black swans and big project collapses.
But do you know how many crypto projects have quietly exited the market this year?
The editor referred to data from RootData to organize the recent projects that have ceased operations.
The results show that in just two months (from March to May 2026), 62 crypto projects were recorded in the shutdown list, averaging about one project closing every day.
1️⃣Loopring | Funding Amount: $45M
Loopring is an early Ethereum Layer2 scaling protocol focusing on ZK-Rollup as its core technology route, one of the earliest projects exploring the application of zk technology in trading scenarios.
During the explosive phase of the L2 narrative from 2021 to 2022, Loopring was once viewed by the market as a "pioneer of Ethereum scaling solutions."
As the L2 track gradually got harvested by major rollups (Arbitrum / Optimism / zkSync), the user and developer ecosystem of Loopring gradually declined, entering a long-term state of low activity, and in 2026, it became one of the representative cases of the early L2 narrative retreat.
2️⃣Yupp| Funding Amount: $33M
Yupp is a Web3 artificial intelligence infrastructure protocol that attempts to deeply integrate AI with on-chain data layers, aiming to solve data security and assetization pain points in the decentralized AI ecosystem.
With the "AI + Crypto" narrative, the project secured $33 million in funding led by a16z, becoming one of the highest funded single AI projects in the landscape.
However, after the AI infrastructure track became overheated, it failed to develop a killer app, and its decentralized architecture was quickly replaced by centralized AI API systems, ultimately becoming a typical example of a cyclical downturn.
3️⃣Syndicate | Funding Amount: $27.8M
Syndicate is a startup in the Ethereum ecosystem that has gradually transitioned from an early DAO investment and financing tool to a customized application chain (Appchain) and Rollup infrastructure.
The project completed its token TGE launch on Aerodrome last September, but due to a severe contraction in the overall Rollup track and a significant liquidity gap, the team officially announced its closure in May this year and gradually shut down its infrastructure business.
Syndicate had secured $27.8 million in funding led by a16z and is a typical "high-funding infrastructure failure case."
4️⃣Milky Way | Funding Amount: $15M
MilkyWay is the leading liquid staking (LST) protocol in the Celestia modular ecosystem, which gained significant attention due to backing from top VCs like Polychain and Binance Labs.
At the peak of the modular narrative, MilkyWay, as the core project of LST on the Celestia chain, completed approximately $15 million valuation funding during its Seed round and was once seen as an entry point for ecosystem liquidity.
However, as the benefits of the modular narrative failed to materialize, the TGE was delayed, and ecosystem growth slowed, the project's heat rapidly declined after completing token issuance last year, and it announced its closure this year.
5️⃣Nifty Gateway| Funding Amount: $11.89M
Nifty Gateway is an NFT trading platform under Gemini, regarded as the "institutional-grade NFT entry" that supports fiat and credit card purchases.
During the NFT bull market of 2021, it was the primary issuance channel for top artworks like Beeple and Grimes, setting daily sales records reaching tens of millions of dollars multiple times.
As the overall NFT market cooled and trading volume continued to shrink, the platform officially ceased operations and closed its market services after completing restructuring in February 2026.
6️⃣Radiant Capital| Funding Amount: $10M
Radiant Capital is a DeFi protocol focused on cross-chain liquidity and comprehensive lending architecture, deeply integrated with Stargate, and once occupied a core position in the cross-chain narrative.
Its TVL once surpassed $500 million, and its token market cap reached a peak of $400 million to $600 million.
However, after encountering a $50 million hack in October 2024, from which funds could not be recovered, and facing limitations in financing capacity, it officially ceased operations in June 2026 and shifted to a maintenance mode limited to user withdrawals.
7️⃣Rage Trade| Funding Amount: $6M
Rage Trade is a DeFi derivatives protocol that combines yield optimization with perpetual trading, attempting to improve fund efficiency through liquidity reuse.
During the Arbitrum derivatives narrative phase, it gained support from multiple DeFi funds, with a TVL peak between $20 million and $50 million.
However, in the liquidity competition dominated by GMX and Hyperliquid, its token lacked a sustained price discovery mechanism, ultimately declining due to liquidity being monopolized.
8️⃣Fantasy.top |Funding Amount: $5.6M
Fantasy.top is a Web3 TCG project based on on-chain social and card gaming, converting X (Twitter) KOLs into tradable assets and battle cards, emphasizing the fusion narrative of "social + financialized gaming."
The project was led by Dragonfly, raising approximately $5.6 million, and at one point became a representative experimental product in the SocialFi and on-chain gaming cycle, achieving complete self-circulating cash flow during its operation.
However, as SocialFi user growth stagnated, real trading demand was insufficient, and content asset pricing models failed, the platform's liquidity and activity rapidly declined, ultimately entering a low-activity state.
9️⃣Bloktopia | Funding Amount: $4.2M
Bloktopia is a metaverse project centered around the concept of a "21-story virtual skyscraper."
During the metaverse frenzy in 2021, the project received investments from Animoca Brands, Polygon Ventures, and other institutions, and after the token BLOK launched, it quickly skyrocketed, reaching a market cap of around $1 billion at one point.
However, as the metaverse narrative retreated and user retention remained extremely low, the project ultimately shut down in January 2026 and terminated all ecological operations.
🔟Ventuals| Funding Amount: -
Ventuals is an experimental perpetual contract protocol built on Hyperliquid HIP-3, converting unlisted companies like SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic into on-chain valuation derivative targets.
As one of the representative native experiments of the HIP-3 ecosystem, the project quickly completed a cold start during its launch phase, attracting approximately 500,000 HYPE level staking support (around $150 million to $200 million in liquidity scale).
However, due to excessively high on-chain costs for the ticker causing revenue imbalance, and a lack of arbitrage mechanisms for primary market oracles that could not sustain liquidity subsidies, the model ultimately failed to function. The project was merged into the parent ecosystem in June 2026, completing user asset withdrawal.
🌟Cyclical Retreat and Structural Liquidation
From the results, the "shutdown wave" of 2026 was not triggered by a single black swan event, but rather a slower structural contraction process.
Most of the fallen projects were not the industry's top giants but protocol projects located in the mid-range, relying on narrative growth: they were once pushed to high valuation ranges by capital during certain cycles but never managed to transition from narrative-driven to genuine cash flow and user retention.
When market liquidity tightens, incentives withdraw, and growth slows, the common issues of these projects began to emerge:
Significant funding but no network effect formed
Narratives sufficiently attractive but unable to cross cycles
Ecosystem appears prosperous but lacks true demand anchors
More importantly, this round of retreat exhibited a collective fading of narratives rather than the phased failure of a single track. Whether it was DeFi, NFTs, modularization, or AI + Crypto integration experiments, all lost the ability to continuously attract capital before entering the next phase.
Thus, names that were once frequently discussed gradually disappeared from the timeline during this cycle: not because they were never glorious, but because the market no longer needed the futures they once promised.
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