Failed Crypto Startups
111 venture-backed crypto startups have shut down after raising $6.9B combined — about 5% of the entire graveyard. The biggest cohort last raised in 2022, and the most common final round was Seed.
Crypto shutdowns concentrate around the 2022 credit cascade — exchanges, lenders, and trading platforms that were solvent only as long as prices rose and counterparties held. It includes the most notorious failure in the whole database.
The Damage, by the Numbers
$5.0M
Median raised before shutdown
$61.8M
Average raised — the big flameouts drag it up
9
Died holding $100M+ in funding
2
Raised $1B+ and still closed
Class of the crash
Closed crypto startups by year of their final funding round
16
53
28
13
2021
$90.6M
2022
$6.1B
2023
$441.1M
2024
$207.3M
How far they got
Last round raised before shutting down
Pre-Seed
19
Seed
53
Series A
12
Series B
2
Series C+
1
Post-IPO
2
Debt & Notes
6
Other
16
Based on the last five years of fundraising data tracked in the VCbacked database.
The Graveyard
Showing 100 of 111 closed startups
Company | Raised | Last Round | What They Did | Location | Founders | Site | Contact |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
FTX | $1.8B | Venture | FTX is a cryptocurrency exchange company that develops a mobile trading platform. | Nassau, New Providence, Bahamas | Sam Bankman-Fried | Reveal | |
BlockFi | $1.4B | Debt | BlockFi develops a blockchain-driven wealth management platform for crypto investors. | Jersey City, New Jersey, United States | Flori Marquez | Reveal | |
Celsius Network | $903.8M | Corporate | Celsius Network is a blockchain-based lending platform that is accessible through a free mobile app. | London, England, United Kingdom | Alex Mashinsky | Reveal | |
Voyager | $510.1M | Post-IPO | Voyager Digital is a crypto-asset brokerage company that offers a secure way to invest in cryptocurrencies and altcoins. | Wilmington, Delaware, United States | Oscar Salazar | Reveal | |
 Compute North | $451.1M | Debt | Compute North delivers cryptocurrency mining and infrastructure solutions to customers around the globe. | Eden Prairie, Minnesota, United States | Dave Perrill | Reveal | |
FTX US | $400.0M | Series A | FTX US allows users to trade a variety of digital assets like bitcoin, ethereum, solana, and dogecoin. | Santa Barbara, California, United States | Justin Yang | Reveal | |
Prime Trust | $176.0M | Series C | Prime Trust powers innovation in the digital economy by providing fintech and digital asset innovators with financial infrastructure. | Las Vegas, Nevada, United States | Jon Jiles | Reveal | |
Naetion | $150.7M | Seed | Marketplace, Digital Workplace, Mobile App, Web3 | Copenhagen, Hovedstaden, Denmark | Buddhika Perera | Reveal | |
Babel Finance | $120.0M | Series B | Babel Finance is a global cryptocurrency financial service provider serving institutional and HNW investors. | Hong Kong, Hong Kong Island, Hong Kong | Del Wang | Reveal | |
Blockmetrix | $89.9M | Debt | Blockmetrix is a Bitcoin mining company that offers a peer-to-peer payment network that helps validate crypto transactions. | Dallas, Texas, United States | David Kiger | Reveal | |
Freechat | $82.0M | Series A | Super applications based on Web 3.0 social networks | Hong Kong, Hong Kong Island, Hong Kong | Jack Long | Reveal | |
Bridge | $58.0M | Series A | Bridge is developer of an application programming interface for money movement within the financial technology sector. | San Antonio, Texas, United States | Sean Yu, Zach Abrams | Reveal | |
0xBoost Finance | $53.0M | Series A | 0xBoost Finance is a decentralized staking and revenue aggregator. | Southbank, Victoria, Australia | — | Reveal | |
Nuri | $49.2M | PE | Nuri empowers people to manage and grow their wealth through innovative technologies. | Berlin, Berlin, Germany | Benjamin Jones | Reveal | |
Tessera | $43.9M | Series A | Tessera is where you go to own, govern, and experience extraordinary things through NFTs, together. | New York, New York, United States | Andy Chorlian | Reveal | |
Wyre | $29.1M | Note | Wyre is a crypto and payment infrastructure company that develops a variety of payment APIs. | San Francisco, California, United States | Ioannis Giannaros | Reveal | |
Entropy | $26.9M | Seed | Entropy provides crypto custody services to keep private keys secure and make assets available on demand. | New York, New York, United States | Tux Pacific | Reveal | |
DeFli Networks | $25.0M | Debt | Infrastructure for Unmanned Airspace | New York, New York, United States | — | Reveal | |
Metatime | $21.0M | Seed | Metatime is a fintech firm that offers a single distributed blockchain ecosystem that enables a user to manage all from a single screen. | Istanbul, Istanbul, Turkey | Yusuf Sevim | Reveal | |
Skolem Technologies | $20.0M | Series A | Skolem provides robust institutional-grade asset management and execution services for hedge funds, treasuries, and service providers. | New York, New York, United States | JP Smith | Reveal | |
Stronghold Digital Mining | $15.0M | Post-IPO | Stronghold Digital Mining operates a power generation facility that converts waste coal used to mine bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. | Kennerdell, Pennsylvania, United States | Gregory A. Beard | Reveal | |
nameless | $15.0M | Seed | Nameless sets new industry standards for rich Web3 experiences. | Sheridan, Wyoming, United States | Jim McNelis | Reveal | |
Bitget Wallet | $15.0M | Series A | Bitget Wallet is a decentralized multi-chain digital wallet that provides safe and convenient digital asset management services to users. | Grand Cayman, Midland, Cayman Islands | Kevin Como | Reveal | |
Donut | $14.8M | Seed | Save & earn high yield with DeFi. | Los Angeles, California, United States | Neel Popat | Reveal | |
Atani | $12.9M | Seed | Atani is the one-stop crypto trading platform: trading on 20+ exchanges, integrates technical analysis tools and automates tax reporting. | Madrid, Madrid, Spain | Haydee Barroso Bañales, Paul Barroso | Reveal | |
SPICYEST | $12.1M | Seed | SPICYEST is a consulting and financial services firm specialized in digital assets | New York, New York, United States | David Liao | Reveal | |
FlexyStakes | $12.0M | Seed | Cryptocurrency Staking | Southbank, Victoria, Australia | — | Reveal | |
InfinityStakeChain | $12.0M | Series A | InfinityStakeChain - Unique Multichain Staking Platform | Melbourne, Victoria, Australia | — | Reveal | |
Ather Digital | $12.0M | Seed | Ather Digital develops a frequency trading system for centralized and decentralized digital asset markets. | New York, New York, United States | — | Reveal | |
Kryptomon | $11.1M | Series A | Kryptomon is an NFT Game where Pokémon meets Cryptokitties and Tamagotchi Telegram official channel: http://t.me/Kryptomon | Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, The Netherlands | Bartolomeo De Vitis | Reveal | |
Bumper | $10.0M | Venture | BUMPER is a DeFi price protection protocol that protects the value of crypto assets. | London, England, United Kingdom | Go Wo | Reveal | |
Aladdin Tech | $10.0M | PE | Aladdin Tech is a Fintech platform that builds cutting-edge digital infrastructure for the financial service sector. | London, England, United Kingdom | David Aldridge | Reveal | |
Fando | $10.0M | Seed | Fando Network is a developer of a tokenization platform for sports, esports creators, and fans. | Singapore, Central Region, Singapore | Manit Parikh | Reveal | |
BIKA | $10.0M | Series A | BIKA is a blockchain contract exchange. | Singapore, Central Region, Singapore | — | Reveal | |
ZenSports | $10.0M | Series B | Mobile sports betting against the house or peer-to-peer, using fiat or cryptocurrencies | Miami, Florida, United States | Etan Mizrahi-Shalom | Reveal | |
Cega | $9.3M | Seed | Cega is a software development company that provides a platform for decentralized financial products. | Singapore, Central Region, Singapore | Arisa Toyosaki, Victor Zhang, Winston Zhang | Reveal | |
Vertex Protocol | $8.5M | Seed | Vertex Protocol is a decentralized FX trading platform. | San Francisco, California, United States | Alwin Peng | Reveal | |
Verida | $8.5M | Seed | Verida features a data platform, wallet, and identity services to enable users to securely manage their personal data and credentials. | Sydney, New South Wales, Australia | Chris Were, Ryan Kris | Reveal | |
Niftify | $7.9M | Seed | Niftify is a platform where users can create, sell, buy, and swap NFTs. | Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, United States | Emil Sterndorff | Reveal | |
BastionZero | $7.5M | Seed | BastionZero is developing technology to allow traders to maintain custody of their coins while trading at a cryptocurrency exchange | Boston, Massachusetts, United States | Ethan Heilman | Reveal | |
Beam | $7.0M | Venture | Beam is a payment service that uses stablecoins to help people send money globally faster and cheaper. | San Francisco, California, United States | — | Reveal | |
gem.xyz | $7.0M | Seed | gem.xyz discover & buy NFTs across all marketplaces. | Singapore, Central Region, Singapore | — | Reveal | |
KurateDAO | $6.8M | Seed | KurateDAO provides an infrastructure for content curation. | New York, New York, United States | Michael Fischer | Reveal | |
Coinpanion | $6.5M | Seed | Coinpanion makes investing in digital assets as easy as investing in stocks with ETFs. | Vienna, Wien, Austria | Aaron Penn | Reveal | |
Bidvest Crypto Spot | $6.5M | Seed | Bidvest Investment is a highly esteemed company in the financial industry, known for its expertise and professionalism. | Nebraska City, Nebraska, United States | — | Reveal | |
GameOn | $6.3M | Grant | GameOn creates games that utilize NFTs, predictive gaming, and fantasy elements, all crafted to optimize fan involvement. | Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada | Matt Bailey | Reveal | |
G. G.T. Enterprises, Inc. | $6.2M | Undisclosed | Gaffney-Thompson Enterprises was an American private investment group with global reach to Antigua & Barbuda and Poland. | Cincinnati, Ohio, United States | Conlan Thompson | — | Reveal |
BSX | $6.2M | Venture | BSX is a trading company that offers specializes in options and perpetual futures trading. | Grand Cayman, Midland, Cayman Islands | — | Reveal | |
GamerGains Lab | $5.8M | Seed | GamerGains Lab is the first-ever token and cryptocurrency-based play and earn platform. | Miami, Florida, United States | Jonathan Brovda | Reveal | |
evaluate.xyz | $5.6M | Seed | Trade NFTs on Flow. Search for trading partners, swap NFTs, and shop across marketplaces. | Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States | Alex Ramirez | Reveal | |
Friktion Labs | $5.5M | Venture | Solana’s largest portfolio and risk manager for individuals, DAOs, and Institutional Asset Managers | Austin, Texas, United States | Uwe Cerron | Reveal | |
Stakes | $5.3M | Seed | Stakes is a social wagering platform for NFTs that transforms sports betting into a more social activity | New York, New York, United States | Kevin W. | Reveal | |
Flood | $5.2M | Seed | Flood is a DeFi aggregator that offers its platform to provide the best price available for all supported assets. | New York, New York, United States | — | Reveal | |
Revix UK Limited | $5.0M | Seed | Revix is a multi-asset, B2B and B2C, WealthTech business with the overarching mission to enable everyone to grow and manage their own wealth | London, England, United Kingdom | Sean Andrew Sanders | Reveal | |
Jupiter Exchange | $5.0M | Seed | Jupiter Exchange was a NYC-based alternative asset exchange using fractional NFT technology. (NOT Jupiter exchange aka "Jupiter Swap") | New York, New York, United States | Brad Parkes | Reveal | |
Tulip Protocol | $5.0M | ICO | Tulip Protocol is an aggregation platform that is built on solana with auto-compounding vault strategies. | San Francisco, California, United States | — | Reveal | |
Mecha Morphing | $4.9M | ICO | Mecha Morphing is a aesthetic blockchain game platform. | Santa Clara, California, United States | Jack Pan | Reveal | |
Harpie | $4.5M | Seed | Harpie is the first on-chain firewall that prevents hacks, scams, and theft. | New York, New York, United States | — | Reveal | |
Mint Songs | $4.3M | Seed | Mint Songs is the largest music NFT marketplace helping music artists build web3 communities | Washington, District of Columbia, United States | Dwight Torculas | Reveal | |
Tempus | $4.0M | Series A | Tempus is building the most important blocks of DeFi and Web3 in a way that’s scalable and accessible to all. | Grand Cayman, Midland, Cayman Islands | David Garai | Reveal | |
Cabital | $4.0M | Seed | Payment on-and-off ramp solution enabling users to buy and sell cryptocurrencies. | Singapore, Central Region, Singapore | Gene Wu | Reveal | |
MetaBlaze | $3.7M | Venture | MetaBlaze is a blockchain-based gaming startup gaming platform to earn crypto metaverse. | Tórtola, Castilla-La Mancha, Spain | — | Reveal | |
Roi | $3.6M | Seed | Roi is a mobile app that lets you trade crypto, stocks, NFTs, and more with your existing brokerages and wallets. | New York, New York, United States | Chip Davis | Reveal | |
Fire | $3.5M | Venture | Fire is a free browser plugin that simulates web3 transactions. | Miami, Florida, United States | — | Reveal | |
Thred Technologies | $3.5M | Seed | Thred Technologies is an AI-powered NFT search and discovery platform that is currently in private beta. | Seattle, Washington, United States | Ben Straley | Reveal | |
Housecat | $3.4M | Pre-Seed | Housecat is democratizing crypto investment strategies for users, empowering individuals to become asset managers. | Zug, Zug, Switzerland | Ville Vesterinen | Reveal | |
Ottr Finance | $3.1M | Pre-Seed | Ottr Finance is a Wallet For Everyone. | San Francisco, California, United States | Alexey Zakharov | Reveal | |
Aesthetic | $3.1M | Seed | Aesthetic is an e-commerce platform that enables NFT creators to create free and paid drops, and share content with token-holders. | San Francisco, California, United States | Andrew Look | Reveal | |
Sumi Network | $3.0M | Seed | Sumi Network is a decentralized storage solution provider. | San Francisco, California, United States | — | Reveal | |
Mpeppe | $3.0M | ICO | Mpeppe is the revolutionary meme cryptocurrency at the intersection of sports fandom and blockchain innovation. | New York, New York, United States | — | Reveal | |
Security Token Partners (now Security Token Group) | $3.0M | Series A | Security Token Partners rebranded into Security Token Group in 2018. | Miami, Florida, United States | — | Reveal | |
GalaxE by HODL Assets | $3.0M | Seed | GalaxE NFT aggregator platform, was the first to facilitate the creation, buying, and selling of non-fungible tokens on multiple blockchains | San Francisco, California, United States | Aj Bosch | Reveal | |
EN Envoy | $2.5M | Pre-Seed | Your favourite NFTs in one profile | Willemstad, Noord-Brabant, The Netherlands | Bram Verstraeten | — | Reveal |
Polygen | $2.3M | Seed | Polygen provides a breath of fresh air in the world of blockchain launchpads. | London, England, United Kingdom | Michael Hepburn | Reveal | |
insrt finance | $2.2M | Pre-Seed | Insrt Finance offers direct access to bluechip NFTs. | Washington, District of Columbia, United States | — | Reveal | |
Staging Labs | $2.2M | Pre-Seed | Staging Labs making crypto safe and easy to use. | Miami, Florida, United States | — | Reveal | |
Imperium Empires | $2.1M | Seed | Imperium Empires builds a AAA-quality metaverse with an experienced team of in-house game developers, game designers | Central and Western, Hong Kong Island, Hong Kong | — | Reveal | |
Genesis Block | $2.1M | Debt | Genesis Block is a developer of a Blockchain-powered online banking application to provide a full-service banking experience. | Lehi, Utah, United States | Mick Hagen | Reveal | |
Greenwood Finance | $2.0M | Seed | Greenwood Finance is a decentralized finance platform that helps crypto borrowers pay less interest on their loans. | New York, New York, United States | Nathaniel Mendoza | Reveal | |
Nametag | $2.0M | Seed | Nametag is a digital collector lens to search the internet for collectors, view their NFTs and Nokens, and badges. | San Francisco, California, United States | — | Reveal | |
Peri Labs | $1.7M | Pre-Seed | Peri Labs lets compress, optimize, and run AI models on any device for edge deployment. | London, England, United Kingdom | Advait Jayant, Mohammed Junaid, Sungjung Kim | Reveal | |
Kandle | $1.7M | Seed | Kandle is a gameFi that empowers the existing and next billion crypto traders globally by introducing fantasy gaming to crypto. | Singapore, Central Region, Singapore | Jaideep Yadav | Reveal | |
Gambit | $1.5M | Pre-Seed | Gambit is a crypto-powered play-and-earn fantasy sports game | Palo Alto, California, United States | — | Reveal | |
Mysterious | $1.5M | Seed | A crypto-native chat platform. Build a home for your community. | San Francisco, California, United States | — | Reveal | |
Pulsar Finance | $1.5M | Pre-Seed | Pulsar Finance aims to streamline access to relevant data for users and developers alike, making the management and development. | Sydney, New South Wales, Australia | — | Reveal | |
Union Avatars | $1.5M | Seed | Union Avatars is a company dedicated to creating avatars for the metaverse. | Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain | — | Reveal | |
Yoorbit | $1.4M | Seed | Rate-to-Earn Social Network | Istanbul, Istanbul, Turkey | — | Reveal | |
Bits | $1.2M | Pre-Seed | Bits set up automatic investments at regular intervals within the Bits app to strengthen the value of your micro-investments. | Las Vegas, Nevada, United States | — | Reveal | |
Oxalus | $1.1M | Seed | NFT Social Commerce Platform | Singapore, Central Region, Singapore | Nguyen Dang Hieu | Reveal | |
Holder | $1.1M | Seed | Holder develops a web3 CRM and customer engagement platform for the tokenized world. | Indianapolis, Indiana, United States | Drew Beechler | Reveal | |
Derisk | $1.0M | Pre-Seed | Derisk is a crypto custody infra and leverages Multi-Party Computation (MPC) cryptography. | Seattle, Washington, United States | — | Reveal | |
Powerbomb | $1.0M | Seed | Powerbomb is a DeFi revenue customizer. | América, Managua, Nicaragua | Dennis LK | Reveal | |
Skry | $1.0M | Pre-Seed | Skry provides data and insights on digital collectibles | Boulder, Colorado, United States | Mike Roth | Reveal | |
Chain Debrief | $900K | Seed | Chain Debrief operates as a media platform dedicated to crypto. | Singapore, Central Region, Singapore | Jacky Yap | Reveal | |
Elysium Lab | $720K | Pre-Seed | Elysium Lab develops resilient technology to power the future of authentication, encryption, and digital asset management. | Lugano, Ticino, Switzerland | Aron Clementi, Gianmarco Guazzo | Reveal | |
GGEM | $610K | Seed | GGEM develops a Web3 gaming platform offering blockchain gaming technology, game distribution streamlining, and game management services. | Hong Kong, Hong Kong Island, Hong Kong | Ruslan Volodkovichz | Reveal | |
Diamond Protocol | $500K | Seed | Diamond Protocol is a crypto investment platform designed to make complex trading strategies available to investors. | Singapore, Central Region, Singapore | — | Reveal | |
GETBOOF.CO.UK | $465K | Pre-Seed | London-based startup facilitating modernised payment methods. Venture discontinued in May 2023 after API being acquired. | London, England, United Kingdom | Jonathan Lukas | Reveal | |
Mverse.Audio | $455K | Pre-Seed | Enhancing music through models, empowering artists and fans to experience music like never before | Miami, Florida, United States | — | Reveal | |
Gravis Finance | $450K | Seed | Gamified DeFi ecosystem. High-Profit Yield Farming. Smart NFT assets. Multichain DEX. Cross-chain bridge. | New York, New York, United States | Darth Andeddu | Reveal |
+11 more closed startups
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many crypto startups have failed?
The VCbacked Startup Graveyard currently tracks 111 venture-backed crypto startups that have shut down, collectively raising $6.9B before closing. That is roughly 5 percent of all closed companies in the database, which is based on the last five years of fundraising data.
What is the biggest crypto startup failure?
By total capital raised, the largest crypto failure in the database is FTX, which raised $1.8B before shutting down.
Why do crypto startups fail?
Crypto shutdowns concentrate around the 2022 credit cascade — exchanges, lenders, and trading platforms that were solvent only as long as prices rose and counterparties held. It includes the most notorious failure in the whole database. Across the dataset, the most common last round before shutdown in crypto was Seed, and the largest cohort of failures last raised in 2022.
Can I contact founders of failed crypto startups?
Founder names are shown free on this page for every closed crypto company. VCbacked paid plans reveal verified founder contact details where available and unlock CSV export.