Author: Bibi News

Messari was once the data platform closest to Bloomberg in the cryptocurrency industry, with a peak valuation of $300 million.

Its founder, Ryan Selkis, was among the first to expose Mt. Gox's insolvency. After gaining fame from this battle, he founded Messari with the goal of consolidating data, research, and disclosures from the crypto world into a professional platform. It covers over 40,000 crypto assets, and the Mainnet Conference held annually in New York is one of the most important summits in the industry.

In September 2022, the crypto division of hedge fund giant Brevan Howard led its Series B financing, with Point72 and Coinbase Ventures participating, giving it a valuation of about $300 million.

On June 12, 2026, Messari was acquired by competitor Blockworks for just over $10 million.

This is not just the situation of one company. When primary market valuations and the coins in your wallet are significantly shrinking, has the collective repricing of the entire cryptocurrency industry really occurred?

Cryptocurrency Companies Shrinking Collectively

In July 2024, Messari founder Selkis resigned as CEO after a series of controversial remarks, with co-founder Eric Turner taking over. In March 2026, Turner also left, and CTO Diran Li took over, while the company underwent mass layoffs and shifted its focus toward AI, announcing it would become an AI-first company.

However, AI is not just a directional shift for Messari but is also one of the reasons for its decline. The core products Messari sold were research reports and data organization; previously, an analyst would spend a week writing an industry report, but now AI tools can accomplish this in just a few hours. As research costs approach zero, the business of selling research reports can hardly earn money anymore. This is not a cyclical challenge but a structural threat.

Ultimately, Messari's data platform and API were integrated into Blockworks, marking the end of an eight-year entrepreneurial story.

But Messari is not an isolated case.

From 2025 to 2026, a quieter and deeper change has been taking place: companies that do not issue tokens and rely on selling products and services for profit are also struggling.

Data platforms are shutting down. DappRadar, which operated for seven years and tracked over 18,000 decentralized applications across 93 chains with 500,000 monthly active users, announced its shutdown in November 2025 due to "financial unsustainability." The on-chain analysis platform Parsec, which operated for five years, also shut down in February 2026. CoinGecko is negotiating a complete sale and has hired investment bank Moelis as an advisor.

Media companies are selling off or laying off staff. CoinDesk, a benchmark in crypto media, was once rumored to be worth $300 million but cut 45% of its editorial team in August 2023 and was acquired by Bullish for about $75 million in November of the same year. Bankless, one of the most influential brands in crypto podcasts with over 1,300 episodes and a $35 million VC fund, quietly laid off most of its team in May this year.

Blockworks, which acquired Messari, closed its entire news department in October 2025, reallocating all resources to its data business. Its founder stated bluntly: users are increasingly viewing data as a primary source of information rather than news.

On-chain data company Dune laid off 25% of its staff in May 2026.

VCs Are Not Investing Anymore

Since 2017, over 800 cryptocurrency investment funds have been established globally. Now, only about half are still operational. In 2025, 63% of crypto hedge funds reported losses.

New funds are also struggling to raise capital. In Q1 2026, only eight new crypto VC funds were established, the fewest since Q3 2020, with funding amounts being only 12% of the peak period in 2022. From October 2025 to April 2026, monthly investments in crypto VCs plummeted from $3.85 billion to $660 million, a drop of over 80% in six months.

Where has the money gone? To AI. In 2025, VC financing in the AI sector reached $192.7 billion, surpassing half of the global total for the first time. A partner from the crypto fund Robot Ventures, founded by Compound's creator, remarked, "AI has sucked up the oxygen, diverting the attention of talent and LPs. Many who should be starting crypto ventures are now moving to AI companies."

People are also leaving. Kyle Samani, co-founder of Multicoin Capital, which manages $5.9 billion in assets and is one of the earliest and most steadfast institutional investors in Solana, announced his departure in February this year to pivot toward AI and robotics.

In a now-deleted tweet, he wrote: "Cryptocurrency is not as interesting as many people (including myself) once imagined." Even Paradigm, once one of the purest crypto VCs, has started to expand its investment scope to include AI and robotics.

The batch of crypto VC funds from 2020 to 2022 invested heavily during a period of high valuations and have yet to return capital to LPs. LPs are no longer reinvesting, funds cannot raise new money, cannot invest in new projects, startups cannot secure financing, products cannot continue, and many are shutting down or selling off cheaply. This creates a complete chain of transmission, which is now completing its last few steps in the primary crypto market.

A partner from Dragonfly Capital used a word to describe the current environment: mass extinction.

Perhaps, This is a Good Signal

Bitcoin has dropped from a high of $126,000 in October last year to around $65,000 now, a nearly 48% decline. The altcoin bubble has accelerated its clearing, with Starknet, once valued at $8 billion, now worth only $200 million, a 95% decrease. Scroll, Wormhole, and Magic Eden have all seen declines exceeding 95%. Over 70% of tokens issued between 2021 and 2022 are now either worth zero or have dropped below one-tenth of their peak value.

The crypto fear and greed index dropped to 5 in February this year, fell to 11 in March, and hit 13 in early June, staying in the "extreme fear" range for over 50 consecutive days.

Historically, this index has only fallen below 10 three times: in December 2018, during the COVID crash in March 2020, and after the FTX explosion in November 2022. After each of these instances, Bitcoin saw increases of over 500% within three years, with the most extreme case in 2018 seeing a 2050% increase.

Another quieter signal comes from on-chain data: long-term Bitcoin holders currently control nearly 80% of the circulating supply. Although this percentage has been slowly trending upward over time, during the significant price pullback of nearly 50% from the $126,000 high, long-term holders have maintained a high percentage that continues to rise, showing a notable divergence from price trends. This indicates that the remaining players in the market are primarily those long-term holders who are unwilling to sell.

Historically, when this ratio approaches or exceeds 75-80% alongside a significant price adjustment, it often corresponds to the bottom of a bear market.

Looking at the primary market, the last time cryptocurrency VC deal numbers were this low was in 2020, before the DeFi Summer. The last time so few new funds were established was also in 2020.

The firm that coined the term "mass extinction," Dragonfly, raised a $650 million new crypto fund in February this year, exceeding its target by 30%. Its managing partner stated: "Morale is low, fear is extreme, and the gloom of the bear market has descended." Yet, what he is doing is continuing to invest. The last time Dragonfly raised capital during a panic in the market was in 2022, and that fund went on to invest in Polymarket and Ethena, becoming the best-performing fund in its history.

Blockworks, which acquired Messari, just completed financing with a valuation of $192 million on April 29, with the clear purpose of consolidating the crypto data industry. It is not expanding its business; it is seizing the opportunity to acquire peers at a low cost.

With coin prices halved, fear indexes in single digits, long-term holder ratios approaching extreme values, VC deal counts returning to five years ago, and infrastructure companies collectively shutting down or selling off cheaply. Each of these signals, when viewed individually, is quite pessimistic. But when they all appear simultaneously, it has only occurred three times in history, and each time afterward led to a new round of major cycles.

The change from $300 million to $10 million appears to mark the twilight of an era. Yet, every real bottom seems not to present itself as an opportunity.

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