Crypto’s Darwinian Moment is Separating Utility from Hype

By Nirup Ramalingam, CEO and Co-Founder of BridgePort

Since September 2025, over 100 crypto projects have closed their doors, including big names like BitMex, Balancer, Everclear, and ZeroLend. Exchanges, DeFi protocols, wallets, NFT marketplaces, and blockchains have all experienced their fair share of bankruptcy filings and shut downs. In 118 TGE launches in 2025, 100 landed below their valuation, the median token was down 71% from its launch value. Over 53% of all tokens launched since 2021 are now inactive, with 7.7 million failing in the fourth quarter of 2025. 

In a space that not long ago was skyrocketing in hype and value, this is an uncomfortably necessary development. For years, the crypto industry has operated under the assumption that growth itself was validation of existence. Projects that could attract capital, launch tokens, and accumulate transaction volume were automatic successes. This leads, naturally, to an explosion of products all solving the same problem. There can only be so many OTC platforms. Only so many DeFi banking projects. Now, as retail capital continues to exit and the bear market drags along, crypto is asking how projects differentiate themselves. For most, that’s a much tougher question to answer. In an era defined by the dawn of institutional participation, every product must either improve the cost of trading, give access to liquidity, allow firms to deploy capital more efficiently, reduce operational complexity, or provide some other form of institutional utility. A lot of these dying protocols provide none of the above.