At least five crypto companies have announced closures this week, as a prolonged market downturn crushes user activity and investor funding.
Fantasy.top, a crypto trading card platform, Everclear, a cross-blockchain infrastructure firm, and ZERO Network, an Ethereum layer-2 blockchain, all said Thursday they were winding down. Their products failed to find market fit or sustain revenue.
This follows Ethereum infrastructure firm Syndicate Labs announcing its closure after five years in a shrinking rollup market. Crypto ATM company Bitcoin Depot filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the US on Monday, citing financial strain and regulatory pressure.
Bitcoin has fallen about 40% from its peak of $126,000 in early October. The crypto industry has laid off more than 5,000 employees this year.
Fantasy.top posted to X that it would shut down in June after two years, stating trading volume "was not sufficient to sustainably support long-term operations." The company explored prediction markets but "none reached durable market fit."
Co-founder "Kipit" said the company failed because it "tried to put crypto on top of a model that was never built for crypto," attracting speculators rather than genuine trading card enthusiasts.
Everclear said it was winding down the Everclear Foundation and Everclear Labs because it "never developed the commercial depth we needed" and couldn't sustain meaningful revenue. It explored acquisition options but "underestimated how long it would take those partners to go live - and our runway ran out before they did."
The ZERO Network team said it was shuttering to focus on sister wallet Zerion. CEO Evgeny Yurtaev noted: "The world didn't need more blockchains - it needs a better way to access them."
Other recent closures include crypto superapp Legend, Solana aggregator Step Finance, derivatives protocol Polynomial, lending protocol Seamless, and Balancer Labs.
NYDIG research lead Greg Cipolaro said the number of investable crypto projects is shrinking, with only applications extending traditional finance onto blockchains getting attention.
Crypto platform Hyperliquid has bucked the trend, with its token above $62. Prediction markets Kalshi and Polymarket also saw record combined monthly volume of $23.8 billion in April.