BitMart is facing mounting complaints from customers who say withdrawal requests remain pending weeks after the exchange’s July 26 “orderly wind-down” announcement. The company had said withdrawals would remain available, but users on social media claim they still cannot access funds, with one customer alleging that $10.1 million remains stuck on the platform and another saying only $5 was released from a roughly $24,000 request. Complaints have also come from crypto projects including Gen6, Paxi Network, and Scandic Coin, each describing delayed or refused withdrawals after July 26. On Saturday, founder Sheldon Xia responded after two weeks of silence, denying that BitMart had disappeared or misappropriated user assets. He said the team is still tallying and consolidating holdings and raised the possibility of using courts and independent third-party auditors to produce a transparent report. His statement, however, included no figures, no timetable, and no proof of reserves. Blockchain tracking data cited in the report adds to scrutiny. Arkham Intelligence data attributed to BitMart showed holdings falling from about $102 million on July 6 to $69 million by July 27, while BMX dropped 81% in a week. DefiLlama’s estimate was far lower, at about $2.6 million in assets.

Coinbase’s second-quarter 2026 results landed with a clear market reaction. After closing regular trading at $163.55 on July 30, up 2.16%, the stock fell to around $153 in after-hours trading after the company reported a wider-than-expected loss and revenue below Wall Street estimates for a third straight quarter. Coinbase posted a loss of $1.36 per share, versus expectations for a roughly break-even quarter at negative $0.01, while revenue came in at $1.22 billion against a projected range of $1.29 billion to $1.35 billion. The report showed a familiar pressure point for crypto exchanges in a quiet market: transaction revenue fell as global spot volumes dropped 25% quarter over quarter and total crypto market capitalization shrank 11%. At the same time, Coinbase’s subscription and services revenue reached 48% of total revenue, with USDC-related income accounting for more than half of that segment. The article argues this shift says more about the direction of exchange business models than the headline loss does. Set against Coinbase’s quarter, the shutdown announcements from BitMEX and BitMart in July point to a wider divide across centralized exchanges. The piece frames compliance, customer acquisition and cybersecurity as the three biggest burdens facing smaller platforms, while larger firms with scale and cash reserves keep pushing toward custody, stablecoin income and other service-based revenue streams.

Two exchange shutdown announcements in one week and a separate wallet depletion case in Europe have pushed a familiar question back to the front of the crypto market: are customer assets really still sitting on the exchange? BitMEX said on July 23 that it will shut its platform on Sept. 23 and stop new user registrations immediately, ending an 11-year run. Three days later, BitMart said it had begun an orderly liquidation, will halt all trading on Aug. 26, and expects to complete the process by Jan. 31, 2027. Its exchange token BMX fell 81.5% over the week following the announcement. The article also points to Zondacrypto, where a hot wallet’s BTC balance fell from 55.7 BTC to 0.086 BTC in April 2026, a 99.7% drop, while the platform continued to claim solvency. Around 30,000 users were affected. Against that backdrop, the report lays out what a complete proof-of-reserves system should include, why Merkle tree-based verification matters, where snapshot-based disclosures fall short, and how exchanges including Binance, OKX, Kraken and Ourbit approach reserves verification, audits and security disclosures.

Storj Labs, the company behind the decentralized cloud storage platform Storj, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the United States, saying the move is aimed at resolving legacy debt rather than addressing a breakdown in its current business. The company said the platform will continue operating without service disruption during the restructuring process, and added that Inveniam, which acquired Storj last year, supports the plan and will continue assisting the company. Storj also plans to sell some previously acquired business lines and non-core assets to simplify its operating structure. The filing came as STORJ, the project’s native token, fell about 16% to roughly $0.06. Reported daily trading volume was close to $20 million, against a market capitalization of about $27 million. The article also said STORJ is down 79% over the past year and about 98% from its March 2021 peak of $3.81. Storj’s restructuring proposal includes an unusual provision: equity in the reorganized company would be distributed to management, token holders, and investors. Over the past seven days, BitMEX, BitMart, and Ethereum Layer2 project Movement Labs have also announced shutdowns, wind-downs, or Chapter 11 proceedings, as capital is increasingly redirected toward AI.

Crypto exchange BitMart said Sunday it will shut down its trading platform after nine years, making it the second major exchange in a week to announce a closure. The company stopped new registrations, deposits, and orders at 01:30 UTC on Sunday. Spot and derivatives trading will end on August 26, while the platform itself is scheduled to formally shut on January 31, 2027. BitMart said withdrawals remain available, though processing may slow as users rush to leave and the exchange applies identity, device, sanctions, and source-of-funds checks. The company cited its operating conditions, the market environment, and future strategic direction, but did not specify which factor drove the decision. CoinGecko data shows BitMart’s BMX token has fallen 81% over the past week to $0.057, leaving it with a market capitalization of $19.6 million. The shutdown comes days after BitMEX said it would close after 11 years, a sequence that Echo Base CEO Roshan Dharia described to Decrypt as part of a broader consolidation phase across digital assets.

BitMart moved from an upbeat first-half report to an orderly shutdown in just nine days, capping a month in which BitMEX, AscendEX and EXMO also left the market. RootData’s 2026 list of dead crypto projects has now reached 100, but the number alone does not match the collapse years of 2022 or 2023. The more striking shift is in who is disappearing: not just short-lived token plays, but older brands with users, revenue and long operating histories. The report argues that this year’s casualties point less to sudden systemic blowups and more to a breakdown in business models, especially among mid-sized platforms squeezed between dominant exchanges and low-cost on-chain products. It also highlights Storj’s Chapter 11 case, where the company said it would explore a court-approved path for STORJ token holders to participate in post-reorganization equity, a move that could test the legal treatment of utility tokens in bankruptcy. Even so, the report says project shutdowns are a lagging indicator and cannot, on their own, confirm that the market has bottomed.

BitMart said it will wind down its trading platform and formally cease operations on Jan. 31, 2027, laying out a staged shutdown that begins with restrictions on registrations, deposits, spot orders and automated trading services from July 26. From Aug. 26, the exchange plans to halt all spot, derivatives and other trading services, while products including wealth management, staking, lending and Launchpad offerings will be terminated in phases. The announcement hit the exchange’s native token BMX, which fell from around $0.3 to $0.064, leaving its market capitalization at $20.57 million. The exchange said withdrawals remain available, though some requests may face manual review tied to KYC, device and account security, source of funds, withdrawal addresses, Travel Rule requirements and sanctions screening. Arkham data cited in the report showed 58 wallets completed withdrawals totaling about $805,000 over the past 24 hours, while no withdrawal requests had been processed in the preceding eight hours. The report also highlighted internal uncertainty. Former Global CEO Nenter Chow said he was told on July 24 that his role would be terminated and that he did not participate in, or know in advance about, the shutdown decision announced on July 26. Binance founder Changpeng Zhao described the moment as a “tough time” and said acquiring a centralized exchange is possible, but far more complicated because of risks such as legacy backdoors and accountability if a hack happens after an acquisition.

RootData’s running tally of dead crypto projects has reached 100 in 2026, yet the number alone does not make this year the industry’s harshest washout. The larger story is what kind of companies are disappearing and how they are shutting down. In the span of a month, BitMart, BitMEX, AscendEX and EXMO all exited or moved into wind-down or liquidation processes. These were not fresh token launches with no users. Some had operated for years, built brands and survived earlier downturns. The article argues that this cycle is less about spectacular blowups and more about business models running out of room. In 2022, collapses were tied to leverage, customer asset misuse, frozen withdrawals and cascading contagion. In 2026, many closures have come through orderly wind-downs, long withdrawal windows and restructuring processes. That shifts the signal from systemic panic to operating models that no longer generate enough revenue to cover fixed costs. The pressure appears concentrated in crypto’s middle tier, especially mid-sized exchanges and token-incentive-dependent protocols. Funding data, ETF flow trends and the pace of shutdowns in these segments now offer a clearer read on market conditions than the project death count alone. Storj’s Chapter 11 case also introduces a closely watched legal experiment: whether token holders could eventually participate in post-reorganization equity under court approval.