2022 Crypto Death Projects: Total Funding Exceeds $3.6 billion, with DeFi leading the way
The crypto market in 2022 has been filled with too much bad news. In May, Terra collapsed, followed by the crash of crypto giants such as Three Arrows Capital and Voyager. At the end of the year, the exchange giant FTX collapsed, driving the entire crypto industry into a bleak bear market and directly or indirectly causing a large number of crypto projects to cease operations.
Recently, RootData released the “2022 Crypto Dead Projects List” collection, which included 97 crypto projects that died this year, all of which had specific products but ceased operation for various reasons. This collection can partly reflect the state of development of the crypto industry.
From the perspective of specific categories, DeFi, CeFi, and NFT are the categories with the highest proportion of dead projects, accounting for 42%, 16%, and 13% respectively.
At the same time, 28 of these projects have received financing, with a total financing amount of $3.6 billion, mainly contributed by projects such as FTX, Voyager Digital, Celsius Network, BlockFi, and FTX US.
From the perspective of investment institutions, Alameda Research, Galaxy Digital, Arrington Capital, Paradigm, X21 Digital, Pantera Capital, and Coinbase Ventures have three or more invested projects that have ceased operation.
The vast majority of these crypto projects died due to the impact of the Terra and FTX crashes. The projects that were affected by Terra alone and ceased operations were Anchor Protocol, Mirror Protocol, Proteus Finance, LoTerra, Nebula, Steak, Alice, Terra Name Service, and Terranova.
In addition, several projects have also announced that they are ceasing operations due to market demand, internal governance and funding issues, including Babylon Finance, Porta Network, Rentable, Skynet Labs, mistX, PandaDAO, Magnety, etc.
CeFi
FTX is a one of the biggest cryptocurrency exchange strives to develop a platform robust enough for professional trading firms and intuitive enough for first-time users. FTX stopped processing user withdrawals on Nov. 9 before entering bankruptcy proceedings. On December 13, Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of FTX, was arrested in Panama and be extradited back to the United States to face multiple charges. About 130 affiliates of FTX Group filed for bankruptcy, including its independent US platform FTX.US.
Alameda Research is a quantitative cryptocurrency trading firm that provides liquidity in cryptocurrency and digital assets markets. Alameda Research founder Sam Bankman-Fried started Alameda in 2017 to take advantage of cryptocurrency arbitrage opportunities. SBF tweeted on Nov. 10 to announce that the company is winding down operations. Caroline Ellison, CEO of the Alameda, who pleaded guilty to seven charges following the collapse of Alameda Research.
BlockFi service clients worldwide and in all U.S. states, with USD loans backed by crypto, interest earning accounts, and trading. BlockFi filed for bankruptcy on Nov. 28, according to the company’s filings with U.S. bankruptcy court, the top 10 creditors alone are owed nearly $1.2 billion. At the time of the bankruptcy filing, BlockFi had $257 million in cash that it will use to continue certain operations through the bankruptcy process.
Celsius Network is a cryptocurrency earning and borrowing platform offers its customers interest of as much as 18 per cent on deposits of cryptocurrencies. Celsius entered bankruptcy proceedings on July 14. The platform has been promoting its income products with an annual return rate of nearly 19% to users. It has attracted 1.7 million users in 4 years and managed $30 billion in assets at its peak.
Voyager is a crypto-asset broker that provides retail and institutional investors with a solution to trade crypto assets. Voyager filed for bankruptcy on July 5, not only provides retail customers with cryptocurrency trading services, but also attracts cryptocurrency holders to deposit assets at interest rates of up to 12%, and then lends them out. Voyager suffered a loss of as much as $600 million from Three Arrows Capital. In the end, Binance.US bid about $1.022 billion to acquire its business.
Nuri is the app to manage, save and invest money directly from a German bank account. Nuri filed for bankruptcy on Aug. 10 , amid the sell-off in the crypto market and the collapse of Celsius. The platform claims that the bankruptcy proceedings will not affect users’ funds. Its trading services end on November 30, and users need to withdraw all assets before December 18.
Blocknom, a platform that provides users with a secure way to manage money, has partnered with crypto infrastructure company Fireblocks, allowing users to earn stable, high-yielding interest of up to 13% per year, and users can withdraw funds at any time without any fees.
Coinsuper is a virtual asset trading platform covering fiat to crypto and crypto to crypto trading, clearing, settlement, custodial, and block trade services. Coinsuper has been reported by many users that they cannot withdraw funds since January, and the official website of the platform can no longer be accessed. Coinsuper has received financing from Pantera Capital,sky9 Capital, Fundamental Labs and other Capitals.
Genesis Block is the OTC trading company for digital assets, which’s business comprises of OTC/Proprietary trading, Investments, building online/offline communities mainly in Hong Kong and Thailand. Genesis Block suspended trading on November 18 and closed its OTC website on December 10. The closure of Genesis Block was affected by the FTX incident.
2gether is a Spanish cryptocurrency platform. The platform notified users on July 6 that it would close all user accounts due to lack of resources.
Bitfront is a digital currency exchange under LINE. The platform stopped new user registration on November 28, and gradually stopped the operation of wealth management products in December. User withdrawal will be closed on March 31, 2023, Beijing time. Bitfront explained that this measure is in the best interest of the LINE blockchain ecosystem.
ZeFi allows users to deposit cash into USDC/USDT, and lend to borrowers who use digital assets such as BTC and ETH as collateral to obtain interest income, with an APY of up to 10%. ZeFi has suspended new user registrations,stopped all income services.
DeFi
Babylon Finance is an Ethereum-based asset management platform leverages these features to let individuals and groups create investment communities. On August 31, Ramon Recuero, the founder of Babylon, issued a document stating that the operation was officially suspended in mid-November, mainly because the hacker attack on the Rari/FEI lending pool in April this year caused irreparable losses to the team.
Serum is a decentralized exchange built on top of Solana. At the beginning of the year, the Serum Community Foundation completed a token financing of 75 million dollars at a 15% market discount, and Tiger Global and others participated in the investment. The project ceased operations due to the FTX incident. Serum developers then plan to fork to create a new protocol that is not controlled by FTX private keys.
Anchor Protocol
Anchor is a decentralized money market built on Terra that offers UST (Terra’s USD-pegged stablecoin) depositors a stable 20% annual percentage yield (APY). Borrowers can collateralize UST loans using bonded LUNA (bLUNA), Terra’s native token. The protocol earns a return for the depositors by staking borrowers’ LUNA collateral. The project ceased operations due to the crash of Terra.
Mirror Protocol
Mirror Protocol is a decentralized synthetic assets protocol that allows users to create synthetic assets and trade them. The project ceased operations due to the crash of Terra.
Beaker Finance is a permissionless protocol for deploying and contributing to Beakers. A Beaker is a smart contract used to pool assets for the purpose of executing specific smart contract transactions and to share ownership of the assets held by the Beaker after the transactions are executed.
Cryptolocally is a decentralised P2P crypto trading platform. The platform was previously invested by IOSG Ventures.
mistX is a DEX to use Flashbots technology, enabling users to have the added benefit of protection from sandwich bots. The project shut down its services at the end of June after incubator accelerator Alchemist decided to terminate the incubation agreement for mistX, whose functionality became redundant following the general use of EIP-1559.
KAKI is a decentralized options protocol built on Arbitrum and BSC, with DeFi as the core and Game as the coat, dedicated to creating an options DEX for retail users.
Swim Protocol
Swim Protocol is a multi-chain liquidity protocol builds on Wormhole, provides a highly capital-efficient and seamless experience for performing cross-chain asset transfers, particularly for stablecoins. Swim announced shut down Swim on May 1, 2023, due to external factors as well as Swim’s internal trajectory and traction.
Ardana
Ardana is a DeFi hub built on the Cardano blockchain. The protocol developed a decentralized stablecoin platform and Danaswap.Ardana tweeted on Nov. 24 that it would stop developing dUSD due to uncertainty over funding and project timelines.
Arco Protocol
Arco Protocol (ARCO) is the first cross-chain decentralized, transparent and non-custodial liquid assets lending protocol on Aptos and Sui. After the agreement failed at the IDO on October 29, partners such as Wormhole and Celer Network announced the cessation of cooperation, and then the agreement voted for users to decide whether to refund.
Qubit
Qubit is a decentralized money market platform. Qubit stolen 206,809 BNB on Jan. 28, worth more than $80 million at the time.
Blur Finance is a yield aggregator intended to leverage different decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols and strategies to maximize user profits. Blur Finance deleted Twitter feed and Discord channel on August 11th, the team walked away with more than $600,000, and BLR tokens fell by 99%.
Level01
Level01 is a DeFi platform with AI-guided derivatives trading services across financial , commodities and digital asset markets.
ForceDAO is a DeFi quantitative hedge fund provides yield strategies and auto compound earnings . ForceDAO announced on March 6 that the protocol would officially end operations after failing to recover after the exploit. Prior to April 2021, the ForceDAO contract loophole was exploited, resulting in a large number of additional tokens being issued.
Bexplus is a professional cryptocurrency derivatives trading platform that provides copy trading. Bexplus announced on July 18 that it decided to stop providing services, and users can withdraw 100% of their assets in Bexplus.
Freeway is a crypto yield platform offers users up to 43% returns via staking rewards. The platform announced the suspension of services on October 24, involving over $100 million in assets. Two days later, the platform said it was ceasing operations due to unprecedented dollar gains and cryptocurrency volatility.
Starstream is a yield aggregation protocol on Metis. In the early morning of April 8th, the protocol was affected by a vulnerability in its distributor treasury contract and more than 500 million STARS were stolen. Then the attacker mortgaged STARS to the lending agreement Agora DeFi and lent USDC, METIS and other assets, causing Agora DeFi to lose about $8.2 million.
Proteus Finance is a decentralized yield farming aggregator that its AI algorithm maximizes yield by automatically proposing portfolio distributions & providing automated DeFi strategies.
Aleph Finance
Aleph Finance is a hybrid passive income protocol on the Avalanche. The protocol announced its dissolution on June 21st, mainly due to poor market conditions, node niche being “destroyed” by Strongblock’s mismanagement, and public sentiment towards locking and staking products.
Mensa protocol is a decentralized lending platform based on fantom chain, which aims to provide a decentralized and safe market for platform users to obtain loans and earn interest.
LoTerra is a smart contract, a self-executing contract in which the terms of the protocol between the Player and the Lottery are written directly in lines of code. The protocol was affected by the Terra debacle. The team announced on May 15th that it would prepare a statement, but it has not been updated since.
Mushrooms Finance is a crypto earning vault with focus on seeking sustainable profit in DeFi universe. The protocol issued a farewell statement on May 17, the website will be inaccessible in June, and the remaining funds in the treasury will be converted to USDC in the Polygon and distributed to token holders in proportion.
Scranton Finance is a brand new yield farm on FTM focused on community and relationships.
Gaj is a multichain platform. With a vision to be a one-stop solution for DeFi and NFT. The platform announced on November 25 that it would no longer provide support for further services due to risks in the underlying DeFi protocol.
Nebula Protocol is a flexible & efficient passive asset management protocol. The protocol was snapshotted on May 25 at block 7780000 in preparation for the restart.
KSwap is an AMM-based token exchange protocol for OKExChain ecosystem.
Levinswap is an AMM DEX on Gnosis Chain powered by the LightningDAO. The project announced that starting January 4, 2023, “levinswap.org” will no longer be active. But the smart contract is still valid and secure.
Parrot DeFi
Parrot Defi is a Yield farming and staking on the Arbitrum network.
Bagels Finance is a cross-chain leveraged yield farming protocol. Due to a problem with node downtime last year, the protocol was launched on January 18. V1 users have established a solution. Users who cannot close positions need to contact the community administrator.
Magnety is a decentralized asset management protocol on Starknet. The protocol announced the suspension of operations on Sept. 11. Due to asset management on the chain is very complicated and involves many legal issues, so a lot of legal fees are required. At present, Magnety has refunded all investors.
Steak is a liquidity staking protocol on Terra network.
Goblin FTM is a DeFi yield farming protocol on Fantom.
ACoconut is a decentralized Bitcoin yield aggregato. After announcing the launch of v3 on January 3, the protocol has not been updated again, and its TVL has been reduced to 0 for v1 and v2.
1Swap is a stableswap DEX on Moonriver, Its official website and Twitter have ceased operations.
NFT
Unifty provides CAAS (Contracts As A Service) solutions to enable digital artists and any kind of collectible issuer to create their own contracts for different purposes without coding knowledge. Unifty announced its acquisition on March 18, the new team is drafting a new white paper.
Dropp GG
Dropp GG is a social NFT minting platform that aims to bring the metaverse into the real world. It currently offers exclusive, geo-based NFT releases. The project is developing Dropp Land, a metaverse where NFT tokens for virtual land plots have counterparts in the physical world.
The Kingdom is a multi-platform metaverse project. In The Kingdom Metaverse, people can also visit shops, user housing, public buildings, and experience a variety of digital experiences.
Eternal is an NFT marketplace for trading Twitch streamer clips. The platform announced the cessation of operations on October 3, due to strategic mistakes and too slow decision-making, as well as various external unfavorable factors in the NFT and gaming communities, which prevented the platform from finding products suitable for the market.
Rentable is the renting protocol for NFTs enables any dApp to offer rentals for their users without integrations. Its founders concluded that the reason for the failure was that the NFT leasing track had not grown large enough, and the team had not conducted financing to utilize external resources.
SudoRare
SudoRare is an NFT platform that forked from SudoSwap. The project deleted its official website and Twitter on August 23, taking away 519 ET from users, worth about $810,000 at the time.
NeoNexus
NeoNexus is a Solana-based NFT project. Its founder Jack tweeted on March 22 that the team will no longer develop the project and hopes to hand it over to the community for development. The reason is that the price of the SOL token has dropped significantly. Additionally, NeoNexus was unable to raise enough new rounds of funding.
OmArt is an ERC20 NFT platform based on original oNFT and infinite scrolling auctions modes. Its official website has ceased operations.
Stratos is an NFT marketplace to discover, collect, and sell digital items on Arbitrum. Its official website has indicated that it is no longer available.
Polygram is an NFT marketplaces built on top of DeSo.
CherryTrader is an NFT liquidity solution.Its official website has ceased operations.
Blin Metaverse is a decentralized NFT infrastructure based on Binance Smart Chain. It aims to achieve diversified virtual reality innovative interaction through IP remodeling, virtual social networking, NFT asset casting on the chain, confirmation of rights and value circulation.
Solvent is a platform to enable index funds for NFTs on Solana. Any NFT holder that wants liquidity out of their NFTs can deposit their NFT asset into its particular NFT collection on Solvent (bucket) for minting fungible tokens (droplets) of that particular NFT project in exchange.
Beat Foundry wanst to leverage NFTs to provide an alternative to the traditional model of releasing music. Funding a project through NFTs instead of a traditional record label allows for more creative freedom–and ultimately–more honest and relatable art.
Infrastructure
Novi is a digital wallet that lets anyone use digital currency to transfer money with family and friends instantly, securely, and with no fees. When users add money to Novi account, Novi’ll convert it to USDP, a digital currency that can be sent to friends and family. Beginning July 21, users could no longer top up their accounts, and the program officially ceased service on September 1.
Alice aims to build a simple and easy-to-use non-custodial wallet for everyday commerce, all the while retaining self-custody. Alice hopes to enable the use of UST for real-life payments with the broader Terra community.
Porta Network is a Substrate-based, Proof-Of-Stake blockchain network. The agreement announced the cessation of operations on March 26 because the project was stolen about 600,000 USDT in November last year. The founder Shane was the only person who controlled the company’s funds and wallets. He withdrew all liquidity from PancakeSwap and alleged fraud.
Terra Name Service (TNS) is a name service based on the IBC chain. TNS maps human-readable names like ‘terra.ust’ to machine-readable terra addresses.
Terranova is an Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) project designed to connect the TerraUSD stablecoin ecosystem to Ethereum.
Raze Network is a EVM-compatible privacy protocol. It is built as a native privacy layer that can provide end-to-end anonymity for the entire DeFi and Web3.0 stack. The project has received financing from OKX Ventures, Signum Capital, CMS Holdings and other institutions.
Hypernet Labs is the creator of the Hypernet Protocol, a platform and ecosystem that is helping to drive the tech industry’s transition from Web 2 to Web 3. Hypernet Labs is also developing applications on top of the Protocol, such as the Galileo cloud services marketplace and Hypernet.ID. The Hypernet Labs Twitter account has ceased operations.
Symbiont is an enterprise blockchain firm solves real problems in financial services with enterprise blockchain platform, Assembly. Assembly is designed specifically for institutions to issue, track and manage financial instruments, such as data, loans and securities. These instruments live in a digital form as smart contracts, from inception through their entire lifecycle.
Game & Metaverse
Business Age of Empires is a P2E game built on the BSC platform where players will embody cyborgs, go on an adventure to uncover the treasures, and learn more about mankind’s once-famous civilizations. The project had raised $3 million in financing in January.
Survival Game Online is a survival simulation game. The official Telegram channel has ceased operations, and a large number of users reported that the project has engaged in fraudulent activities.
I WORLD GAME is an NFT live-action RPG Game, Its official website has ceased operations.
KaraStar is a metaverse game where players here are no longer ruthless mining machianes. They can collect more and more resources in the game by constantly exploring the core gameplay of the game and mastering the game skills that suit them. KaraStar received funding from Kucoin Ventures last December.
Endless Battlefield is a military strategy and exploration sandbox metaverse built on UE engine. Endless Battlefield has received investment from LD Capital, EVG and other institutions.
NASH Metaverse is an interoperable NFT metaverse based on galactic Sci-Fi. Players can import their own spaceships, play the role of space pirates to traverse the remains of different planets in the universe, and compete for treasures. The project has been invested by Fundamental Labs and Initiate Capital.
DAO
PandaDAO is a decentralized data development organization that develops more Web2 Internet products and liberates more Web2 human resources. In less than a year since its launch, it has developed a programmable data reference platform Pansight, a mutual fragmentation protocol for NFT collections to ERC20, etc. In September 2022, the project announced its dissolution after a community vote due to governance structure issues and DAO management issues.
Spice DAO is a decentralized autonomous organization formed to buy Alejandro Jodorowsky’s storyboard collection known as the “Dune Bible”. The Spice DAO announced its dissolution on July 29, with plans to return ETH to Spice token holders.
Reputation DAO is dedicated to becoming the reputation layer for the open blockchain economy. The project is an Aave grant recipient and has also received $4.74 million in investments from Framework Ventures and others. Currently, the official website of Reputation DAO has ceased operation.
NinjaDAOs
NinjaDAOs was a platform for connecting Axie scholars and managers, Backed by Folius Ventures.
Others
The Ethereum Gas Limit (EGL) project proposes a solution that (i) helps reveal the “optimal” gas limit using a market, and (ii) a mechanism to actually affect the limit. At present, its official website shows that it has ceased operation.
Polystarter
Polystarter is the native launchpad for projects building on Polygon, Investors include Huobi Ventures.
Solstarter is an IDO platform for Solana that empowers launchpad projects to raise liquidity in a fair & decentralized manner. Investors in the project include Gate.io Labs.
Bihu
BIHU is a Chinese blockchain community platform. In 2022, BIHU announced that it will be closed due to policy reasons.
Skynet Labs is the blockchain company behind Siacoin. On August 13, Skynet Labs announced that it was closing due to failure to obtain new financing.
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