Crypto researcher Stacy Muur has identified 82 digital asset projects and protocols that have reportedly shut down in 2026 — a wave of closures raising questions about the financial sustainability of businesses across decentralized finance, blockchain infrastructure and Web3 gaming.

Muur published the list on X on Tuesday. It names Balancer, Radiant Capital, Neon EVM and Step Finance among dozens of others, and she described the volume of closures as unlike anything she had previously witnessed.

The closures follow a prolonged bear market. Bitcoin (BTC) has retreated from its October 2025 record high above $126,000 to below $60,000 earlier this year, compounding the strain on projects already struggling to attract users and generate revenue.

Source: Stacy Muur via X

Ethereum layer-2 network Blast stands out among the most prominent casualties. As Cointelegraph reported, the network announced earlier this month that it would shut down, citing no “credible path” to economic viability — a sharp reversal for a project that once attracted more than $2 billion in deposits.

Different failures played out elsewhere. Step Finance shut down in February after a major treasury breach, while Radiant Capital announced in June that it would wind down operations after failing to recover from a 2024 exploit. Coinbase-backed Satori Finance, meanwhile, ceased operations after concluding its revenue could no longer sustain the business.

Why are so many crypto projects shutting down?

Research published by DeFiLlama in August identified 100 crypto projects that had announced shutdowns in 2026, including 40 within the preceding 90 days. The findings point to a common theme: many teams failed to attract enough users or generate enough revenue to keep operating.

Lack of product-market fit was the most frequently cited reason, followed by depleted funding, insufficient revenue and pivots to other products.

Taken together, the shuttered projects raised roughly $1 billion and generated $250 million in cumulative fees. Nine raised more than $50 million apiece — evidence that substantial financial backing offered little guarantee of long-term survival.

The most commonly cited reasons for crypto project shutdowns in 2026. Source: DeFiLlama

The shutdown wave coincides with increasingly concentrated crypto investment. DeFiLlama found that venture funding rose in the first half of 2026 year-over-year even as the number of deals fell 80%. Mergers and acquisitions totaled 87 transactions at the time of the report, already 65% more than in the previous year. Together, those figures put added focus on whether projects can demonstrate sustained user demand and operating revenue, while the number of further shutdowns, wind-downs and acquisitions will indicate how the sector continues to consolidate.