Research directory · Updated
High-profile products that stopped working, never launched, or were officially wound down. Each case file uses a lifecycle label, a confidence level and primary sources.
2
Enforcement
6
Insolvency
3
Protocol failure
2
Abandoned
2
Obsolete / sunset
Case files
Showing 15 of 15 researched cases.
Investment scheme · OneCoin · 2014–2019
US authorities describe OneCoin as a global investment scheme that marketed a purported cryptocurrency and defrauded investors of more than $4 billion.
Investment scheme · BCC · 2016–2018
BitConnect promoted a high-yield lending programme around BCC. The SEC later charged that it operated a multi-billion-dollar unregistered securities offering that collapsed in early 2018.
Protocol · UST / LUNA · 2022 contagion
TerraUSD was marketed as an algorithmic stablecoin that would stay near one US dollar through LUNA. In May 2022 that mechanism failed. Later US cases targeted Terraform Labs and Do Kwon.
Exchange · FTT · 2022 contagion
FTX filed for bankruptcy in November 2022. US prosecutors later convicted founder Samuel Bankman-Fried of fraud offences connected to the misuse of customer funds.
Exchange · CEL · 2022 contagion
Celsius marketed high-yield crypto accounts, paused withdrawals in June 2022 and filed for US bankruptcy protection the following month.
Exchange · VGX · 2022 contagion
Voyager was a centralised crypto broker that filed for Chapter 11 in July 2022 after the Three Arrows Capital default.
Fund · 3AC · 2022 contagion
Three Arrows Capital was a large crypto hedge fund ordered into liquidation in the British Virgin Islands on 27 June 2022.
Exchange · 2018–2019
QuadrigaCX collapsed after founder Gerald Cotten died and customers could not access funds. The OSC later published a staff investigation report.
Exchange · 2010–2014
Mt. Gox halted withdrawals in 2014 after a massive loss of customer bitcoin and entered Japanese legal proceedings that have continued for years.
Protocol · TITAN · 2021 DeFi experiments
Iron Finance suffered a bank run on 16 June 2021. This is a documented design failure, not a confirmed fraud judgment.
Protocol · BEAN · 2021–2022 DeFi experiments
In April 2022 an attacker used a flash loan to seize Beanstalk governance and drain about $182 million.
Protocol · TIME · 2021–2022 DeFi experiments
Wonderland lost trust in January 2022 after treasury manager 0xSifu was identified as Michael Patryn, a QuadrigaCX co-founder.
Corporate project · 2019–2022 corporate
Libra, later Diem, was Meta/Facebook’s planned global payment coin. It never launched. The Diem Association sold assets to Silvergate and wound down in 2022.
Protocol · LRC · 2024–2026 sunsets
On 28 June 2026 Loopring announced that it was shutting the DEX, AMM and relayer immediately and returning remaining user balances to Ethereum wallets.
Protocol · GFI · 2024–2026 sunsets
In June 2026 Goldfinch token holders backed GIP-87 to wind down Goldfinch Prime, stop new development and move into maintenance mode.
This is a researched sample of famous failures and sunsets, not a count of every unused meme token.
CoinGecko’s GeckoTerminal research found that 13.4 million of 25.2 million tracked cryptocurrencies had stopped trading by the end of 2025. That is a no-trade definition, not a list of 3,300 famous dead coins and not a list of proven scams.
Dead means the original product no longer works as marketed. Abandoned means development or launch stopped. Obsolete or sunset means the team officially wound the product down. A leftover ticker can still trade in all three cases.
No. We only use fraud or enforcement language when a court, regulator or prosecutor has said so.
EOS raised a record ICO and later lost mindshare, but the chain still operates. This directory does not treat reduced popularity as death.
CoinGecko’s GeckoTerminal research counts tokens that stopped trading. Most of those are unused meme tokens. This page is a sourced case file, not a census.
No. This is educational research, not investment, legal or tax advice.
Disclaimer: Educational research only. Not financial, legal or tax advice. A remnant market is not a restored product.