Crypto Startup Failures

India largest crypto exchange lost 235M dollars in a North Korean hack in August 2024 and suspended withdrawals for all 15M users.

Hotbit froze millions of users' funds in 2023, blaming a criminal probe into a former partner for its sudden shutdown.

The retail crypto phenomenon that burned tokens to make holders feel rich while insiders drained $200M

Crypto's Bloomberg — became a cost center when the crypto market no longer needed terminal subscriptions

The Southeast Asian crypto exchange that froze withdrawals and then its CEO disappeared

5 million users trusted Atomic Wallet; North Korea's hackers drained $100M in a silent supply chain attack.

Crypto custody infrastructure for institutions — raised $8B, then institutions stopped arriving

The Argentine operations of Mexico's leading crypto exchange were forced to exit in 2023 as Argentina's central bank imposed currency control restrictions that made crypto exchange services unworkable within the regulatory framework.

Brazil's largest crypto exchange gutted by the global crypto winter and FTX contagion

One of crypto's earliest US exchanges, outlasted rivals only to be killed by compliance costs

The celebrity-backed crypto on-ramp that raised $555M as the crypto on-ramp market evaporated

The Bulgarian crypto lender that survived 2022 but collapsed under regulatory and fraud allegations in 2023

The biggest crypto lender nobody outside crypto had heard of — until FTX collapsed and froze $175M of its assets.

The European yield platform that promised 17% returns and delivered total loss

Liquid survived a $97M hack only to be finished off by FTX's collapse erasing its $120M lifeline.

The crypto lender that offered 12.68% APY until the market proved that impossible

The Solana DEX was drained of $117M through its own governance system by a trader who then voted himself a pardon

An ICO-funded Polish crypto startup survived regulatory warnings only to be killed by Terra's collapse.

Blockchain cobalt tracking collapsed when DRC miners said no to GPS surveillance.

Blockchain ID pioneer that got lost in the crypto winter.

Argentina's dollar-substitute crypto exchange collapsed as FTX and LUNA wiped out its user base's trust

South Korean algorithmic stablecoin erased ~$40B in 72 hours in May 2022—the largest single crypto collapse in history and the trigger for a global contagion wave.

The most influential crypto hedge fund in the world — wiped out in weeks by a levered bet on Terra/LUNA and stETH.

The UK's oldest crypto exchange that quietly shut down after a decade, beaten by Coinbase and Binance

Panama crypto gateway bet on UST stability and a law that never passed — lost both in weeks.

Coinseed secretly converted user funds to Dogecoin and blocked withdrawals until regulators shut it down.

A hacker drained $116M from a DAO, tweeted about it openly, and called it legitimate trading.

The crypto yield platform backed by Sequoia that hit withdrawal limits when Three Arrows Capital collapsed

Hong Kong crypto exchange backed by NYSE technology halted withdrawals in November 2022 claiming a "system upgrade"—then its executives vanished and $60M in user funds disappeared.

The crypto broker with $5.9B in assets felled by a $655M unpaid loan from Three Arrows Capital

The $60B algorithmic stablecoin that proved math can't substitute collateral.

Facebook's global stablecoin project raised the greatest regulatory panic in financial history and was dead before it launched

The algorithmic stablecoin raised $19M from a16z and attracted $1.3B in its launch day only to collapse within months

Globitex sold EU regulation as its differentiator, then collapsed when banking partners fled and compliance costs mounted.

The crypto lender that offered 9% interest on Bitcoin — and collapsed the week FTX did

The Solana-Ethereum bridge was exploited for $320M in the second-largest DeFi hack ever

Blockchain credit scores that banks never wanted and users never trusted.

The Singapore crypto lender that hid its Anchor Protocol losses until it was too late

The Chinese crypto exchange that suspended withdrawals and blamed it on a "system upgrade"

A retail crypto brokerage felled by a single $650M uncollateralized loan to a hedge fund that then imploded.

The Hong Kong crypto prime broker that lost $280M of client funds in proprietary trading

The Terra-based synthetic stock protocol lost $90M to an oracle exploit then died with Luna

$60 billion evaporated in seventy-two hours when an algorithmic stablecoin's peg broke—and its founder allegedly knew it could.

The algorithmic reserve currency protocol reached $3.8B TVL promising 8,000% APY and collapsed 99% when reality arrived

$160M drained in minutes by an exploit the team knew existed but hadn't patched

A crypto lending platform promising "banking for the people" that secretly deployed retail deposits into catastrophically risky DeFi bets.

An 80,000% APY DAO whose CFO turned out to be a convicted crypto fraudster.

The algorithmic stablecoin that wiped $40B from crypto markets in 72 hours

Built a crypto metaverse in a country that just banned all crypto.

Leverj raised $4M via ICO to build decentralized derivatives but couldn't compete with BitMEX's UX and liquidity.

Thailand's billion-dollar crypto dream evaporated with the 2018 crypto winter.

Thodex's CEO fled Turkey with up to $13B in user funds, earning a 11,196-year prison sentence.

The unofficial Netflix Squid Game crypto went from $0.01 to $2,861 in days then the developers pulled $3.4M and vanished

The first large-scale DeFi bank run — a $2B partial-reserve stablecoin drained to zero in under 24 hours, with Mark Cuban among the casualties.

FCoin's 'trans-fee mining' innovation was a debt time bomb that exploded, stranding $130M in user funds.

$1.7 billion raised in 2018 — the SEC called it an unregistered securities offering and Telegram paid $1.2B back.

BitMEX's AML failures led to DOJ charges against all founders, triggering a $1.5B bank run in 24 hours.

OKEx froze $5B in user funds for 5 weeks because a single private key holder was detained by Chinese police.

New Zealand's largest crypto exchange — hacked for $16M+ in January 2019, placed into liquidation four months later with a 900,000-user ownership dispute still ongoing in 2024

VinDAX was hacked for $500K just months after launch, exposing how listing-fee-hungry micro-exchanges cut security corners.

Canada's biggest crypto exchange: CEO died in India with the only passwords. $145M locked forever. Later revealed to be a Ponzi from day one.

Mozambique's first crypto remittance startup died when its banks got a call from the central bank.

The original crypto Ponzi scheme that promised 1% daily returns — and made the phrase "Hey hey hey" famous before collapsing with $2.6 billion in investor losses.

$534 million vanished overnight because basic crypto security was ignored.

Italy's BitGrail lost 17M NANO tokens and its founder was later convicted of concealing the theft.

Blockchain identity for everyone — until no one wanted it.

The Ethereum client company froze $280M in ETH with a single buggy smart contract and never recovered trust

The exchange that handled 70% of all Bitcoin transactions — and lost 850,000 BTC to hackers while the CEO claimed everything was fine

Colombia's DeFi protocol that FTX collapsed before it could reach critical mass

Crypto fund management platform evaporated with the 2018 bear market

Puerto Rico's crypto exchange in a US territory where Coinbase is domestic competition

Algorithmic stablecoin returned $133 million to investors when securities law made it impossible

Venezuela's crypto exchange taxed out of viability by the same government that legalized it

Israeli blockchain startup pivoted through three identities and found none

Chile's second crypto exchange in a market Buda.com had already claimed

Argentina's crypto exchange that the BCRA prohibited just as it reached profitability

Dominican Republic's crypto exchange that its central bank classified as a threat to financial stability

UK crypto asset manager that pivoted operations to Hong Kong after FCA regulatory crackdowns made UK operations unviable.

Peru's crypto exchange regulated out of business before legislation existed to regulate it

Southeast Asian peer-to-peer crypto on/off ramp that raised $27M and exited markets under Hong Kong licensing pressure.

The Swiss crypto exchange founded by a forex legend declared insolvency in 2024 after a decade of fighting for relevance against Binance and Coinbase.

A Southeast Asian crypto exchange that raised $50M and was brought down by its exposure to Babel Finance and Celsius.

South African crypto exchange acquired by Digital Currency Group that lost direction after the 2022 crypto crash gutted emerging market volumes.

Bitcoin Law euphoria startup that collapsed with the crypto winter

Zipmex operated a regulated crypto exchange across Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, and Australia — then the Celsius and Three Arrows Capital collapses froze 53 million dollars of customer funds, triggering judicial management and leaving 200,000 users unable to withdraw their money.

Guatemala's crypto exchange shut down before the bull run ended

Facebook assembled the most credentialed team in crypto history to launch a global digital currency — and got regulated out of existence before shipping a single transaction

Nigerian crypto exchange that froze customer withdrawals in 2023 following a security breach, stranding millions of dollars of customer funds.

Nicaragua's crypto exchange that new crypto regulation shut down before it could define what crypto was

Uruguay's crypto exchange that Buda and Bitso absorbed before it could build brand

Venezuela's crypto startup caught between SUNACRIP licensing, Petro failures, and US OFAC sanctions

Panama crypto second attempt: FTX collapsed the market, FATF pressure froze bank crypto access, and the regulatory law passed but regulations weren't finalized

El Salvador's DeFi protocol that the same government enabling Bitcoin was simultaneously regulating into impossibility

Argentine crypto exchange destroyed by the 2022 crypto winter and BCRA hard forex controls

The Japanese crypto exchange survived a $90M hack by borrowing from FTX, then collapsed entirely when its savior filed for bankruptcy.

Venezuela's crypto exchange regulated into existence and then taxed out of it

British institutional crypto custody startup that raised 75 million dollars targeting the safest end of the market and was devastated when institutional appetite for crypto evaporated.

Mexico's crypto exchange that Bitso turned into a rounding error

Colombia's crypto exchange shut down by a regulator that still hasn't written the rules

Had $650M in loans to Three Arrows Capital — 3AC collapsed, Voyager Chapter 11'd, FTX offered to rescue Voyager for $1.4B, then FTX itself collapsed

South Korean crypto yield platform promising 10 percent annual returns by deploying customer assets through algorithmic trading strategies

Indian DeFi lending protocol shut down as Aave and Compound made it irrelevant

Swiss algorithmic stablecoin protocol shut down 18 months after $30M ICO