Top 10 shutdowns since the beginning of 2026. The bear market has been brutal, even for the long builders. @RootDataCrypto counted 99 dead projects by late July alone. Here are 10 that leave me with a heavy heart. 1. @BitMEX The OG exchange that basically invented the 100x perpetual swap back in 2014. BitMEX's closing on Sep 23, after years of losing ground to Binance and newer players like Hyperliquid, plus a heavy legal history from its AML case. 2. @BitMartExchange Another mid-tier exchange, nearly a decade old, 13m users claimed. BitMart's sunset comes with a controversy from its own CEO said he found out from the public announcement, not from his own company. BMX token crashed almost 70%. 3. @AscendEX_ Formerly BitMax, once a real top-tier exchange. Ascend shuts down on July 1 after MiCA rules in Europe caught it without a license, on top of financial troubles. Users are stuck in a slow manual-withdrawal process with no guarantee they'll get funds back. 4. @goldfinch_fi One of the earliest names in RWA lending, famous for funding fintechs in emerging markets. Goldfinch's sunset is a big loss for the RWA crowd, since it helped prove the whole "lend to real businesses on-chain" idea could work at all. 5. @BITofficial_EN Bitdotcom wound down back in March, migrating its users over to Matrixport, quietly, without much drama, but still one more established name gone. 6. @zapper_fi One of the very first DeFi portfolio trackers. Zapper's shutting down in August. For a lot of long-time DeFi users, Zapper was basically the dashboard they opened every morning. 7. @Exmo_Com One of the oldest exchanges serving Eastern Europe and the CIS region, running since 2014. It's now in liquidation, reportedly due to UK sanctions and other regulatory pressure. 8. Knaken A Dutch exchange declared bankrupt by a Rotterdam court in July. About €7 million in client funds reportedly can't be located, which is exactly the nightmare scenario every custodial-exchange user worries about. 9. @loopringorg A zk-rollup DEX projects, a name a lot of early Ethereum L2 fans grew up following. It's now officially terminated, which feels like the end of an era for early zk pioneers. 10. @StreamDefi A yield-vault protocol that ran into serious trouble this year and folded amid the broader DeFi shakeout, adding to the long list of "high yield" products that didn't survive a tough market. Which sunset is the most dissatisfying?
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