October Shutdown List Names 82 Crypto Projects

An October list identifies 82 crypto projects reported to have shut down in 2026 across decentralized finance, infrastructure and gaming, bringing business viability and security failures into focus.

A separate August tally counted 100 shutdown announcements, including planned wind-downs and projects pivoting to other products. The two counts use different criteria and cannot be read as a month-to-month change in completed closures.

In the August group, projects had raised about $1 billion and collected $250 million in lifetime fees. Nine had each raised more than $50 million. Large fundraising totals did not ensure survival.

A lack of product-market fit — failing to find enough users for a product — was the most common reason cited in that group. Depleted funding, insufficient revenue and product pivots were other reasons. Those findings describe the August group, not every project on the October list.

The shutdowns affected projects with different histories. Blast, an Ethereum layer-2 network that had attracted more than $2 billion in deposits, announced in October that it would shut down after concluding it had no viable economic path.

Step Finance announced its shutdown in February after a major treasury breach. Radiant Capital said in June that it would wind down after failing to recover from a 2024 exploit. Coinbase-backed Satori Finance ended operations after its revenue could no longer support the business.

Bitcoin (BTC) provided a difficult market backdrop. After reaching a record above $126,000 in October 2025, it fell below $60,000 earlier this year. The projects cited a range of business and security problems, rather than a single cause for their closures.

Investment activity continued as projects shut down. Crypto venture funding rose in the first half of 2026 from the same period in 2025, while the number of deals fell 80%. By the August tally, mergers and acquisitions had reached 87 transactions for the year, 65% more than in all of 2025.