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.

A wide set of crypto, equity and AI developments shaped the July 27 news cycle. BitMart said it will wind down its exchange in phases, with new registrations, deposits and fresh orders already set to stop and all trading services ending on Aug. 26, 2026, while withdrawals remain open. Around the same time, Odos and Dango each published shutdown timetables, including read-only periods, trading cutoffs and fund withdrawal arrangements. Elsewhere, ChangXin Technology is set to list today at RMB 8.66 per share, with single-lot profit estimates ranging from roughly RMB 12,000 to RMB 20,200 based on different IPO gain benchmarks cited by Chinese media. Robinhood is also in talks with Crypto.com over a prediction-market partnership, according to The Wall Street Journal, and Binance Research said Gen Z is now the largest user group for its equity-linked products, contributing $80 billion in cumulative trading volume. The broader digest also covered Nvidia’s open-weight AI letter, OpenAI and Anthropic’s reported lobbying on open-source models, expected record earnings at SK hynix, Storj Labs’ Chapter 11 filing, a suspected security incident on WEMIX 3.0, and Fidelity’s call for the U.S. Senate to pass the CLARITY Act.

Storj Labs, the parent company of decentralized cloud storage project Storj, said it has voluntarily filed for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. The company said the process is intended to address historical debt while allowing the business to keep operating. According to Storj Labs, customer services will continue without interruption during the restructuring. The company also said the reorganized entity is expected to be jointly owned by management, the community, STORJ token holders, and investors. Founded in 2014, Storj runs a decentralized storage network where users share unused hard drive space to provide cloud storage services to customers worldwide, with the STORJ token used for incentives and payments.

Storj Labs, the company behind the decentralized storage project Storj, filed a voluntary petition for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on July 26 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of West Virginia, according to Techub News, which cited CryptoBriefing. The case was filed under number 5:26-bk-00512. The filing is intended to address historical operating debt, while the company said customer service and network operations will continue as normal. Techub also noted that Storj Labs was acquired by Inveniam Capital Partners in October 2025. The project’s ecosystem token, STORJ, has a fixed supply of 425 million tokens and is used to pay storage fees and reward node operators. In May this year, Binance placed the token under its monitoring tag, warning of a potential delisting risk.

Cryptocurrency exchange Korbit has been acquired by South Korean financial group Mirae Asset and renamed Digital X, according to Techub News, citing CoinDesk. The platform plans to build an investment venue covering real-world assets (RWA), security token offerings (STO), stablecoins, and traditional assets. Korbit is one of South Korea’s oldest cryptocurrency exchanges, making the deal notable in the local market. The report says the acquisition marks a formal move by a traditional financial heavyweight into digital assets. By combining traditional financial products with crypto assets, Digital X is positioning itself as a broader investment services platform rather than remaining only a conventional crypto exchange.

BlackRock launches the iShares Space Technologies UCITS ETF (ticker STAR) in Europe, tracking companies tied to space, satellites and drones, with an IPO fast-entry rule and a 0.50% expense ratio.

US congressional trade disclosures filed under the STOCK Act show Bitcoin as the most common crypto holding among lawmakers, followed by Ethereum, Solana, XRP, and Cardano, with a few smaller tokens also appearing.

First Block, Onpharma, and Crito Capital launch the first Solana-based Security Token Offering for an established US operating business. The tokenized offering funds Onpharma's dental anesthesia buffering device, combining atomic settlement with Regulation S compliance for non-US investors.