Crypto’s easy-money era is ending in a wave of failures

Crypto's accelerating wave of shutdowns is less a mystery than the delayed consequence of how the industry funded itself during the boom years, according to Ryan Kirkley, CEO of Global Settlement Network.

More than 100 crypto projects have shut down, filed for bankruptcy or effectively disappeared in 2026, according to RootData figures cited by CoinDesk, as falling altcoin prices, depleted token treasuries and scarce venture funding expose businesses without sustainable economics.

Kirkley argues many of those failures were effectively baked in during the 2020-21 fundraising frenzy.

Galaxy Research said venture investors deployed about $4 billion across 355 crypto and blockchain deals in the first quarter of 2026. This was roughly half the capital invested in the fourth quarter 2025, although the number of deals fell only 16%, indicating the decline was largely due to fewer mega-rounds.

Global Settlement Network (GSN) is a blockchain infrastructure company building settlement rails for banks, governments and other regulated financial institutions. Its technology is designed to support the issuance of digital currencies, including stablecoins and central bank digital currencies, the settlement of tokenized assets and cross-border payments, with compliance and interoperability built into the network.

Too much money, too little revenue

"If you raise at too high a valuation, you guarantee yourself a negative outcome," Kirkley told CoinDesk in an interview.

Many projects, he said, raised enormous rounds despite having little revenue and no realistic path to profitability, leaving them dependent on becoming multibillion-dollar businesses simply to justify another financing.

Crypto's fundraising culture made matters worse.

Unlike most industries, announcing a large raise could boost a project's token and generate retail attention, creating incentives to present financing in the most flattering possible light.

The headline number could also obscure how firm the financing actually was. Kirkley said Global Settlement Network experienced investors failing to ultimately fund signed commitments, illustrating how announced rounds can differ from cash actually received.

Token governance meets reality

Another experiment now being tested is decentralized governance.

Token ownership did not necessarily translate into active participation, Kirkley said, while governance votes could make it harder for struggling protocols to pivot quickly. "Token holders do not mean active participants in your ecosystem," he said.

The result is a market increasingly deciding what crypto actually needs.

Kirkley points to stablecoins, neobanks and institutional-grade wallet and settlement infrastructure as emerging winners, while areas including social tokens, memecoins and parts of Web3 gaming face a harsher reckoning.

Bitcoin faces a key support test

The shakeout could intensify if bitcoin BTC $64,044.13 breaks its next major support zone.

Kirkley described the market as a "soft bear market," but sees support at $61,200 as critical.

A failure there could trigger forced selling among leveraged players and potentially open a path toward $41,000.

Bitcoin was trading around $64,100 at publication time.

Adoption arrives, but with a catch

Yet beneath the market weakness, Kirkley sees something crypto spent years waiting for --- adoption.

Over the past month, he said he met representatives of seven governments interested in blockchain technology. Global Settlement Network itself pitches regulated infrastructure for digital currencies, tokenized assets and cross-border settlement.

The catch is that adoption looks increasingly unlike crypto's original vision.

Governments and institutions see blockchain's potential to lower costs and modernize finance, Kirkley said. They just aren't necessarily interested in doing it through decentralized rails.

Crypto may finally be seeing mass adoption, even as it becomes clear that decentralized money was never the outcome the market ultimately wanted.