Author: Gu Yu, RootData
Recently, pessimism in the crypto market has continued to spread, and RootData’s publication, “2026 Compilation of Dead Crypto Projects,” has ignited widespread industry discussion about the wave of project failures, becoming a central reflection of current market sentiment and clearly signaling that the crypto industry is entering a new phase of deep consolidation.
After the collection was released, it quickly gained widespread coverage and analysis from industry media and top KOLs both domestically and internationally. Major crypto media outlets such as Coindesk, Cointelegraph, CryptoSlate, ChainCatcher, Wu Shuo Blockchain, PAnews, and Techflow, along with dozens of leading crypto KOLs including Quku Mister, BITWU, Ai Auntie, alvin617, Crypto Junior Sister, Lone Crane, Cheshire, Benjieming, and CoinWorld King, published articles and engaged in in-depth discussions on X and their own channels, making “crypto death projects” one of the industry’s top trending topics online.
Given the high level of market attention, RootData believes it is necessary to publicly disclose the statistical methodology behind this "death list" and share our data-driven insights on the current wave of consolidation in the crypto industry.
I. Criteria for Identifying Dead Projects
In data statistics, clear standards and rigorous logic are prerequisites for ensuring the reference value of the data.
Unlike the market’s subjective approach of judging project demise based solely on “rumors” and “sentiment,” RootData has established a standardized evaluation system combining automated tracking with manual verification, using official project announcements and objective operational metrics as core criteria. It defines three clear death criteria, and all listed projects undergo dual verification to minimize misjudgments and errors. The specific evaluation rules are as follows:
The project team has announced on their official website or social media channels that they are ceasing operations or have gone completely bankrupt.
The project team has not made any updates on their official website or social media platforms such as X and Discord for over six months.
The project’s official website and social media accounts such as X cannot be accessed or closed.
Among these, projects identified through the first method account for no more than 20% of the total; projects identified through the third method account for no more than 10%, and due to the absence of exact death dates, we will only update their status to "ceased operations" without including them in any specific year’s deceased projects collection; projects identified through the second method account for over 70%, representing the predominant form of project exit in the industry.
For long-term inactive projects, RootData has established a continuous monitoring system: the system automatically tracks updates across the web for project X accounts, and automatically triggers a manual review for projects that have not been updated for over six months. Each project is thoroughly evaluated across all operational dimensions—including official website updates, blog announcements, GitHub code commits, and community maintenance—to rule out special cases such as “temporary pauses” or “silent version updates,” ensuring accurate assessments.
This tracking method is also the main reason why the number of projects in the 2026 dead projects compilation is significantly lower than in 2025 and 2024: many projects that ceased updating their social media between February and June this year have not yet been inactive for more than six months, and thus have not been included in the dead projects category.
As of now, the number of dead projects in 2026 is 124, while both 2024 and 2025 each saw over 400 dead projects. However, it is expected that as time progresses, a significant wave of projects will be classified as dead by year-end, potentially setting a new record for the highest number of dead projects in a single year.
In addition, some situations commonly perceived as project deaths do not actually meet the criteria for such a determination. For example, in late July this year, Movement Labs (MVMT), the original core development company behind the Movement blockchain, announced it had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in a U.S. Delaware court, leading many to interpret this as Movement being declared dead. However, the company that filed for bankruptcy is no longer substantially connected to the Movement blockchain; development of Movement has been handled by Move Industries for the past six months.
The decentralized storage protocol Storj also filed for Chapter 11 restructuring in July this year in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of West Virginia, but this does not mean the project has ceased operations; its primary goal is to address early outstanding liabilities, while the company continues to operate.
The original Polkadot parachain, Moonbeam, announced its official shutdown in July this year, but the Moonbeam project itself has not ceased operations—it has transitioned into a decentralized AI agent communication and settlement network. The GLMR token will migrate on a 1:1 basis to Base, becoming a native ERC-20 token. Therefore, Moonbeam does not meet the criteria for being labeled as discontinued.
In short, the core criteria for determining a RootData dead project are: the project ecosystem has completely halted, the team has ceased operations, and there is no ongoing development or maintenance. Merely changing the entity, shifting business focus, or restructuring debt does not constitute project death.
II. Observations and Reflections on Dead Projects
Among the over 20,000 crypto projects currently listed on RootData, approximately 12,000 have X accounts that have not been deactivated. If activity is defined by posting tweets in August, the number of active projects in today’s crypto market is roughly 2,200. Extending the time frame to June–August, the number of active projects is approximately 3,400.
However, some projects that have not updated their tweets recently may simply be reducing posting frequency due to market conditions. Certain crypto projects that no longer post on Twitter continue to update other social platforms such as GitHub, LinkedIn, and blogs, while some crypto projects do not have Twitter accounts at all. Therefore, this metric cannot accurately reflect the number of active projects in the crypto market, but it still serves as a highly relevant indicator—it at least outlines the shrinking profile of the industry’s “voice actors,” and the willingness to speak often correlates positively with team confidence and resource allocation.
When further categorized by the number of projects that ceased updating tweets each month, the count has been rapidly increasing month over month, exceeding 200 every month since the beginning of this year.
Meanwhile, RootData records that the number of new projects each month this year has ranged between 70 and 100. By comparing the two datasets, it is evident that starting from mid-2025, the number of active crypto projects entered a "net decline" state, with the scale of new project entries far insufficient to offset the scale of project exits.
Undoubtedly, as more crypto giants consolidate and expand, and as major internet and financial players enter the space, the golden age of crypto entrepreneurship has passed. Rather than focusing on the number of failed projects, we should pay more attention to the quality and quantity of new projects.
The bulk liquidation of dead projects is a passive purification of the industry cycle, while the continuous emergence of high-quality new projects and the implementation and iteration of new narratives are the core drivers propelling the industry beyond bear markets to achieve renewed growth.
Among the newly listed projects on RootData, the proportion of infrastructure projects has dropped significantly to under 10%, indicating that the next wave of crypto projects will increasingly focus on the application or distribution layer rather than directly competing with existing infrastructure.
Data shows that predictive markets and their tools, RWA cards, tokenized stocks, perpetual contracts, AI agents, and memecoin projects account for over 65% of new projects.
As VC investment declines significantly, more startup projects will need to rely on founders' own resources or cash flow generated by their core business in the early stages. This may push new projects to adopt a more pragmatic approach to their business models—shifting from “burn cash for growth” to “validate unit economics before scaling,” and from chasing narrative trends to focusing on niche demands.
Although short-term pain is unavoidable, this "forced discipline" may help identify teams with true business resilience, cultivating healthier seeds for the next cycle.
The crypto industry has never lacked cyclical booms and busts. Death is part of the lifecycle and a catalyst for ecological iteration. RootData will continue to uphold the principles of objectivity, neutrality, and data-driven analysis, documenting and witnessing every iteration and evolution of the Web3 industry.