The cryptocurrency industry in 2026 is entering a year marked by multiple overlapping pressures: on one side, trading platforms are opening new fronts in fee competition, while on the other side, there is an accelerated systematic elimination of projects. Further out, there is potential reshaping of risk asset pricing frameworks due to geopolitical factors. According to publicly available information, MSX.COM founder Bruce recently spoke on the X platform, stating that if the acquisition of the exchange Bitmart is successful, it will push for zero trading fees on spot and contract trading. This zero-fee commitment is contingent upon the successful completion of the acquisition, and as of July 26, 2026, no public conclusion has been reached regarding the acquisition. Meanwhile, statistics from RootData show that 99 cryptocurrency projects have already been classified as "dead" within 2026, covering scenarios such as shutdowns, bankruptcies, and Rug Pulls. In the absence of specific on-chain addresses and funding path details, this number itself constitutes a clear quantitative signal of survival pressure within the industry. A more macro risk comes from the Strait of Hormuz: Al Jazeera cited reports from the Iranian National Broadcasting Company indicating that the Iranian Parliament's National Security Committee is reviewing a draft bill related to this critical energy and shipping corridor, adding uncertain variables to the global trade and risk asset sentiment. This article will break down three threads: trading fee competition, acceleration of project deaths, and the geopolitical dimensions of the Hormuz-related legislation, analyzing the cost, elimination, and external environmental pressures faced by the cryptocurrency industry in 2026.
Zero Fee Pressure Amidst Bitmart Acquisition Rumors
MSX.COM founder Bruce recently publicly stated on the X platform that "zero fees" are directly tied to the rumors surrounding the acquisition of Bitmart: the premise is that if the acquisition succeeds, he will push for a fee-free model in both spot and contract trading at Bitmart. This statement elevates fee competition to an extreme position, but as of 2026-07-26, there has been no public information revealing that the acquisition has been completed or regulatory approval has been granted. The zero fee remains at the conditional commitment stage, a forward-looking idea needing further validation rather than a settled fact.
From the revenue structure perspective, trading fees are usually the clearest and most direct source of income for exchanges, and a zero-fee commitment means proactively bringing the traditional fee collection space down to "zero," which puts pressure on any existing business model. Once such a model is genuinely implemented, the competitive landscape may be forced to shift from "whose rate is lower" to "who can better manage other costs and risks under zero visible fees," including whether to introduce more alternative charging methods, value-added service fees, or embed hidden costs through product design. For users, if zero fees merely change the name and location of the charging items while increasing interface complexity and making rules harder to understand, the actual experience may not improve. Therefore, before the acquisition is confirmed as completed, a reasonable stance regarding this commitment is to view it as a signal source intensifying the fee war and a variable that needs ongoing observation, rather than an already established industry new normal.
99 Dead Projects: Concentrated Risk Exposure
According to statistics from RootData, 99 cryptocurrency projects have been categorized as "dead" within 2026, covering several distinctly different scenarios: some have ceased operations for a long time, passively or actively exiting the market; some have entered bankruptcy proceedings, confirming they can no longer fulfill existing obligations; and others are typical online scams, namely Rug Pulls—where the project team or related addresses abscond with funds, stopping maintenance or directly shutting down the project. In terms of time distribution, these events were recorded or confirmed in 2026, forming a snapshot of project eliminations within the industry that year.
From the perspective of risk signals, the 99 dead projects are not just an abstract number. They reflect an imbalance among project quality, risk control capabilities, and external environments: projects with weak product and governance designs are more vulnerable to irreversible problems in operations, payments, or asset security under the compounded background of fee pressures, compliance uncertainties, and macro fluctuations; the existence of Rug Pull events exposes fundamental flaws in some projects' fund custody and accountability structures. It is important to emphasize that this briefing does not provide the names of these projects, their financing scales, or specific on-chain funding paths, nor does it contain any address-level data to verify individual behaviors. Therefore, we cannot conduct a deep trace on a project-by-project basis, nor deduce so-called funding flows or liquidity migrations; we can only view these 99 dead projects as a significant indicator of concentrated risk exposure in the industry for 2026.
Industry Pressure Under Fee Wars, Exclusions, and Geopolitical Risks
If we observe MSX.COM founder Bruce's commitment on the X platform—"if the acquisition of Bitmart is successful, zero fees will be implemented for spot and contract trading"—within the same framework as the 99 projects labeled as "dead" by RootData in 2026, we can see that the industry is simultaneously experiencing dual pressures from the cost side and the quality of existing projects. Zero fees represent an extreme fee strategy. Prematurely throwing out such a commitment without confirmed completion of the acquisition reflects trading platforms' expected pressures regarding customer acquisition costs and market share competition. Once the fee war expands over a larger scale, the revenue structure of trading platforms will be reshaped, and weaker projects unable to maintain technology, compliance, and operational spending in a low-fee environment are more likely to be weeded out in ongoing competition, thus forming a structural signal of accelerated survival of the fittest together with the already recorded data of the 99 project "deaths."
Beyond cost and project survival pressure, the Iranian Parliament's National Security Committee, in conjunction with judicial, economic, and civil affairs groups, is reviewing draft legislation concerning the Strait of Hormuz, adding geopolitical and global trade uncertainty to the industry environment in 2026. The Strait of Hormuz is a crucial passage for global energy and shipping, and while the bill itself is still under review and has not been implemented, its potential impact points to possible changes in regional tensions and trade costs. Such variables often transmit into global risk preferences and asset pricing frameworks. The signals of the zero fee fee war, concentrated "deaths" of 99 projects, and the review of legislation related to key shipping routes overlap within the same time window of 2026, collectively constituting a high-pressure environment where cost pressures, accelerated exclusions, and macro uncertainties coexist. However, there is currently no direct evidence proving a clear causal chain among the three, which can only be viewed as a parallel pressure field that requires ongoing tracking.
Hormuz Bill Discussions and Indirect Impacts on Crypto
According to Al Jazeera's report citing the Iranian National Broadcasting Company, the draft legislation concerning the Strait of Hormuz is still in the "under review" stage and has not yet entered voting or implementation phases. Participating institutions in the review include the Iranian Parliament's National Security Committee along with related judicial, economic, and civil affairs groups, indicating that the topic is regarded as a comprehensive policy discussion encompassing security, economic, and legal attributes. The critical position of the Strait of Hormuz in global oil and gas transportation is a commonly recognized background, but the briefing did not disclose the specific terms of the draft nor contain any direct regulatory content regarding crypto assets or blockchain activities.
Within this informational boundary, we can only discuss the potential macro transmission paths: if future policy adjustments disrupt shipping order or energy prices, they typically influence investor sentiment through global risk preferences and risk asset pricing frameworks, which indirectly reflects on cryptocurrency market performance. At the regional level, tighter compliance environments or increased uncertainties could alter the rhythm of cross-border fund movements and impact local mining operations through factors like electricity costs and regulatory attitudes, but these remain general risk channel extrapolations rather than already occurred facts. As of 2026-07-26, the Hormuz-related bill remains under review, lacking clear terms and implementation paths, rendering the actual policy direction and specific impacts on the cryptocurrency industry highly uncertain. Therefore, it is more appropriate to view it as a macro background variable requiring ongoing observation rather than a market input that can be directly incorporated into quantitative analysis.
Observations on Acquisition Completion and Project Survival Rates
From the midpoint of 2026, considering that if Bitmart is successfully acquired and zero fees are implemented for spot and contract trading, alongside the 99 "dead projects" reported by RootData and the still under-review Hormuz-related draft bill, we can depict a confluence of pressures in the industry across three lines: on one end, the revenue model at the exchange level is being actively compressed, on the other end, the project exit rate is gradually increasing, and externally, there exists geopolitical policy uncertainties that may affect global trade and risk asset sentiment. Currently, the Bitmart acquisition is still in the "if successful" premise state, and zero fees remain a conditional commitment; the 99 dead projects tracked by RootData are merely a snapshot for 2026 so far, and future numbers may continue to change; and the Hormuz bill has not yet been passed or implemented, with policy directions and specific impacts remaining highly uncertain. More importantly, the briefing does not provide any on-chain addresses, funding paths, or detailed financial and operational data of individual projects, meaning we cannot conduct quantitative validation on funding flows, position structures, or trading behaviors. The current signals are more appropriately viewed as early outlines of escalating fee wars and divergent project prospects rather than established structural trends verified by on-chain data. Key variables that need to be closely followed moving forward include: whether the Bitmart acquisition is completed and details of the transaction terms, the execution intensity and duration of the zero-fee strategy by MSX.COM and potential merger platforms, and whether the number of project deaths recorded by RootData continues to accelerate or marginally slow down in the second half of the year. From a risk management perspective, project teams need to tighten cash flow management against the backdrop of intensified fee competition and macro uncertainties, avoiding excessive reliance on short-term market heat to support long-term investments, and preemptively assess the feasibility of their customer acquisition and retention models under sustained falling trading costs; exchanges should also cautiously calculate impacts on revenue, risk control investment, and technical maintenance while advancing low-fee or zero-fee strategies, allowing for buffer space against potential upcoming fee wars and external shocks.
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