5 Biggest Casualties of The 2026 Crypto Bear Market

As the 2026 crypto bear market prolongs, many projects are taking hits as they wind down operations. More than 100 casualties have occurred this year alone due to financial strain amid the crypto winter.

These projects cut across various spheres, including crypto exchanges, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), decentralized finance (DeFi), and more. This article will highlight five among them. For each of them, notice how long the project operated, how they performed before their shutdown, and what led to their eventual downfall.

#1: BitMEX

Year Founded: 2014

Shutdown Date: September 23, 2026

Cause of Shutdown: Loss of market share, departure of executives, and legal issues

BitMEX, a well-known crypto exchange co-founded by Arthur Hayes, was one of the biggest casualties of the crypto bear market in 2026. The platform served over two million users globally. In 2023, it held a market share of 0.9% among global crypto exchanges

The exchange popularized the concept of derivatives trading with up to 100x leverage. It held the leading position among derivatives exchanges until early 2020. It still stayed among the top 10 derivatives exchanges on CoinGecko for years, until 2025. After 11 years of operations, BitMEX ended operations.

Three key factors caused BitMEX’s shutdown. One was the loss of market share. Despite gaining ground in the derivatives market since 2014, rival platforms like Binance and newer decentralized derivatives platforms like Aster and Hyperliquid have taken the spotlight from BitMEX. This caused its market share to plummet significantly to around 0.01%.

A second driver behind the upcoming shutdown is the mass exodus of executives from the exchange. For instance, its CEO, CFO, and head of growth exited only weeks before the shutdown announcement in July 2026.

BitMEX’s woes also escalated when its founders were caught in a 2020 lawsuit for failing to comply with anti-money laundering laws. In 2022, the co-founders pled guilty to this charge from U.S. authorities and paid a $100 million fine. That same year, a New York federal court also ordered the three co-founders to pay an additional $30 million in civil penalties ($10 million each).

Although Donald Trump issued a presidential pardon to the three co-founders in March 2025, the financial damage had already been done. This affected the company’s overall finances, adding to its decision to shut down.

As of this writing, users have until September 23 to withdraw their assets from BitMEX. Those who fail to withdraw their assets until the set date will be charged a monthly account fee of $50 or 1% per annum (whichever is greater).

#2: BitMart

Year Founded: 2017

Shutdown Date: January 31, 2027

Cause of Shutdown: Difficult operating conditions and bearish market state

BitMart, a crypto exchange, is another casualty of the latest crypto bearish wave. After serving over 13 million users globally for over nine years, the firm revealed in July 2026 that it will be conducting an “orderly wind-down of its trading platform operations.”

In its official announcement, the firm cited “its operating conditions, market environment, and future strategic direction” as reasons for the shutdown decision. Although BitMart mentioned no further details on these reasons, experts believe the exchange was shaken by a shrinking trading margin, affecting most mid-sized centralized exchanges (CEXs). Rivals like OKX, Binance, Hyperliquid, and Lighter have consumed the market share of platforms like BitMart.

BitMart halted new user registration, deposits, trading positions, and orders in July. On August 26, the exchange will suspend other trading services, including spot and futures. Other services, such as staking, lending, and launchpad, will be suspended next. The exchange will finally draw the curtain on January 31, 2027.

Ahead of the sunsetting of the trading services, BitMart employees publicly called for payment of their salaries. The workers cited August 19 as the deadline for the payment of their owed wages. They threatened that if their demands are not met, they would take legal action. Hours later, the exchange’s founder, Sheldon Lee, refuted claims of unpaid wages. He explained that the official X account that shared the post was compromised. Shortly after, the X post about the unpaid wages was deleted.

#3: AscendEX

Year Founded: 2018

Shutdown Date: July 1, 2026

Cause of Shutdown: EU’s MiCA authorization issues, 2021 hack, and RIBK’s acquisition failure

AscendEX is a centralized exchange that served over 9 million users across 200+ countries for about 8 years before sunsetting its operations.

It halted its crypto activities due to several reasons. One is the failure to secure authorization from the European Union (EU) for the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) license. As MiCA went live on July 1, AscendEX announced its closure on the same day. Recall that projects like Tether and Binance exited the bloc for the same reason.

Another driver behind AscendEX’s downfall is its financial setback dating back to December 2021 when it suffered a security breach. The infamous hacking group Lazarus exploited the exchange’s hot wallet, stealing $77 million in crypto assets. As of the company shutdown, these funds were yet to be recovered.

Investigations by an on-chain expert revealed that AscendEX does not have sufficient funds in its hot wallets to facilitate large withdrawals. The exchange, on its part, neither refuted nor confirmed this.

Adding to AscendEX’s financial challenges was the failure of The Royal Investment Bank (RIBK) to acquire the exchange. In September 2025, RIBK agreed to acquire the crypto exchange. Fast-forward to the present, and RIBK suddenly backed out of the agreement. This made AscendEX halt operations and resume “discussions with potential investors and restructuring partners” to recoup its finances.

The exchange’s team noted that an update will be shared on or before September 6, 2026.

#4: Nifty Gateway

Year Founded: 2020

Shutdown Date: February 23, 2026

Cause of Shutdown: Multi-year decline in trading activities

Reckoned as one of the top players in the NFT space, Gemini-owned Nifty Gateway served as a marketplace where creators and collectors could trade digital art. At its peak, the platform facilitated over $300 million in sales. Some deals were artworks from notable artists, such as Beeple and XCOPY.

The platform’s woes began when hype around NFTs began deteriorating. Trading volume within the NFT market crashed by over 90% in 2022, a year after seeing a significant rise. With attention shifting to other sectors like memecoins, fewer individuals continued trading these tokens. As a result, Nifty Gateway, like its peers, began to struggle financially, culminating in its eventual closure.

In January 2026, the project’s team announced plans to shut down the NFT marketplace. The team gave users until April to transfer their NFTs to other supported platforms. Notably, Nifty Gateway’s creator welcomed users to move their NFTs to Gemini Wallet. This allowed Gemini to continue enabling NFT activities rather than closing them down altogether.

#5: Step Finance

Year Founded: 2021

Shutdown Date: February 24, 2026

Cause of Shutdown: Security exploit

Step Finance is a Solana-based DeFi protocol that provides analytical tools for traders to track tokens, LP positions, and yield farming. It also enables token swaps and closer interactions with other Solana-based protocols. The project has a native token called STEP, which enables holders to participate in staking and on-chain governance.

According to DefiLlama data, Step Finance recorded a peak amount in staked tokens worth $24.14 million in December 2024. It also served about 300,000 monthly active users (MAU).

Step Finance fell victim to a security attack on January 31, 2026. Bad actors exploited the protocol’s private keys and gained access to its assets. About $30 million in SOL was drained from Step Finance’s treasury. About a month later, Step was forced to shut down operations as it was unable to retrieve the stolen funds.

The capital loss affected other projects owned by Step Finance. They are the news-focused SolanaFloor and the tokenized stock marketplace Remora Markets. Interestingly, Jito, a Solana-based liquid staking protocol, acquired and revived SolanaFloor in March.

Conclusion

Seeing a crypto project crash during bear markets is not new in the industry. Most of the time, the bear market forces platforms that have been struggling with their finances to finally sunset their operations. It means that each bear market purges out weak or struggling projects. We’ve seen this in the case of Terraform Labs, FTX, Three Arrows Capital (3AC), Celsius Network, BlockFi, and many others.

In most cases, these firms are unable to recover after hitting rock bottom. Will the same narrative play out for the projects that have shut down this year? We’d have to wait and see.

The fact, though, is that the crypto market has yet to experience any incoming significant rally. Leading crypto assets, such as bitcoin (BTC) and Solana (SOL), have continued to struggle in stagnant price zones for weeks. This means more projects might likely crumble as the bearish trend extends.

This stresses the need for each investor to carefully review the financial and security status of any project/exchange/product they intend to interact with. While this is not a foolproof guarantee that any project you research may not eventually crash, doing this helps you make well-informed financial decisions.