ChainCatcher reported, citing a compilation titled the "2026 Crypto Industry Dead Project List," that the number of crypto projects classified as dead this year has reached 368, up by 244 from the figure previously disclosed on Aug. 14.
Among them, 85 projects publicly announced that they had stopped operating, accounting for 23.1% of the total. The other 283 projects, or 76.9%, were identified by RootData through operating-status monitoring and review.
List spans on-chain projects and trading platforms
The list includes on-chain projects such as Blast, Abstract, Balancer, Goldfinch, Zapper, Proof of Play, and Linera. It also includes trading platforms such as CoinEx and BitMEX.
In funding terms, 37 projects on the list had raised more than $10 million, while 94 had raised more than $1 million.
DeFi accounts for the largest share
By sector tag, DeFi projects made up the largest group, with 110 projects, or 29.9%. Infrastructure projects totaled 64, or 17.4%, including 13 Layer1 projects and 13 Layer2 projects. Projects carrying an AI tag totaled 27.
The list covers multiple segments, including trading and lending, underlying networks, gaming, and AI.
How RootData classifies projects
According to the report, RootData regularly checks the operating status of more than 21,000 projects in its database. In addition to judgments based on announcements and news reports, it also conducts manual review of projects whose official websites and social media accounts have not been updated for more than six months. More details are available in the article "Statistical Logic and Reflections on RootData's Dead Project List."
