Crypto market downturn forces five companies to cease operations this week
On Thursday, Fantasy.top, Everclear and ZERO Network joined the expanding roster of cryptocurrency ventures shutting down operations in 2025, as market conditions continue to deteriorate.
A minimum of five cryptocurrency enterprises have ceased operations during the current week as an extended bearish trend in the digital asset sector continues to exert negative pressure on both user engagement and capital investment.
On Thursday, Fantasy.top, a platform for crypto-based trading cards, Everclear, a company specializing in cross-blockchain infrastructure, and ZERO Network, an Ethereum layer-2 blockchain solution, each declared their intention to cease operations, attributing their decisions to products that either failed to achieve adequate market positioning or generate sufficient revenue streams.
These announcements arrived during the same week that Syndicate Labs, an Ethereum infrastructure provider, revealed it would be closing its doors after operating for five years in what has become a contracting rollup marketplace, while Bitcoin Depot, an operator of cryptocurrency ATM machines, submitted bankruptcy filings in the United States on Monday, referencing both financial difficulties and mounting regulatory challenges.
Cryptocurrency businesses have encountered significant headwinds throughout this year during a widespread market decline that has witnessed Bitcoin (BTC) drop approximately 40% from its October peak of $126,000. Numerous publicly traded companies similarly disclosed losses during the first quarter earnings period, and the digital currency sector has eliminated more than 5,000 positions this year.
In a Thursday post on X, Fantasy.top announced its June shutdown following two years of business operations, explaining that its trading volume "was not sufficient to sustainably support long-term operations."
The organization further elaborated that it experimented with alternative products, including prediction markets, in an effort to remain viable, but "none reached durable market fit."
"Kipit," co-founder of Fantasy.top, acknowledged the company's failure stemmed from attempting to "put crypto on top of a model that was never built for crypto," which resulted in attracting individuals "who want to make money from cards" rather than genuine enthusiasts of trading card games.
In a parallel development, Everclear announced the dissolution of both the Everclear Foundation and Everclear Labs, the two entities responsible for protocol management and development, citing the project "never developed the commercial depth we needed" and proved incapable of generating meaningful revenue.
The protocol disclosed that it pursued multiple acquisition opportunities without success and transitioned to an alternative model centered on strategic partnerships, but had "underestimated how long it would take those partners to go live — and our runway ran out before they did."
Everclear indicated it is evaluating the possibility of open-sourcing its protocol technology to provide its community with the opportunity to maintain operations independently.
Also during Thursday's announcements, the development team behind ZERO Network published on X that the network would be discontinued to allow concentration on Zerion, its affiliated cryptocurrency wallet and data service platform.
We launched ZERO believing users shouldn't pay to transact on-chain. We were obsessed with moving on-chain mainstream. We still are. But the world didn't need more blockchains — it needs a better way to access them.
Evgeny Yurtaev, Zerion co-founder and CEO
Additional recent shutdowns in the cryptocurrency space include Legend, a crypto mobile superapp that declared its closure on May 13. Step Finance, a Solana-based aggregator, Polynomial, a crypto derivatives protocol, Seamless, a crypto lending protocol, and Balancer Labs, the development team responsible for the Balancer protocol, have similarly shut down operations either as consequences of security breaches or due to insufficient market demand.
In February, Greg Cipolaro, research lead at NYDIG, observed that the pool of crypto projects capable of attracting investor capital is diminishing, with only applications or services that "extend traditional finance products onto blockchain infrastructure" receiving the majority of attention.
Hyperliquid, a crypto platform recognized for its cryptocurrency perpetual futures offerings, has maintained strong investor interest, driving its token price above $62 on Thursday, based on CoinGecko data.
Prediction market platforms including Kalshi and Polymarket, which leverage blockchain technology, have also experienced sustained growth in trading activity, achieving a combined record monthly trading volume of $23.8 billion during April, as reported by Token Terminal data.
In contrast, prominent publicly listed cryptocurrency companies, among them Bullish, BitGo, Galaxy Digital and Coinbase, all reported financial losses in their first-quarter earnings reports, attributing the poor performance to prevailing market conditions.