Crypto bottom signal? Messari, valued at 300 million, is being sold off for just 10 million

Messari used to be the closest data platform to Bloomberg in the crypto industry, with a peak valuation of $300 million.

Its founder Ryan Selkis was one of the first to expose Mt.Gox’s insolvency, gaining fame from that battle before founding Messari, aiming to integrate data, research, and disclosures into a professional platform for the crypto world. It covers over 40k crypto assets, and the Mainnet conference held annually in New York is one of the industry’s most important summits.

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

On June 12, 2026, Messari was acquired by competitor Blockworks for just over $40k.

This is not the current state of a company. When the primary market valuation and the coins in your wallet are both shrinking significantly, has the entire crypto industry’s collective revaluation finally happened?

Crypto Companies Shrinking Collectively

In July 2024, Messari founder Selkis resigned as CEO amid a series of controversial statements, with co-founder Eric Turner taking over. By March 2026, Turner also left, with CTO Diran Li stepping in, and the company underwent large-scale layoffs, shifting focus to AI and announcing it would become an AI-first company.

But AI is not just a pivot for Messari; it’s also one of the reasons for its decline. Messari’s core products are research reports and data organization. Previously, an analyst would spend a week writing an industry report; now, AI tools can do it in a few hours. When research costs approach zero, selling research reports becomes much less profitable. This is not a cyclical difficulty but a structural threat.

Ultimately, Messari’s data platform and API were integrated into Blockworks, ending an eight-year entrepreneurial story.

But Messari is not an isolated case.

From 2025 to 2026, a quieter, deeper change is happening: those companies that don’t issue tokens and rely on selling products and services are also struggling to survive.

Data platforms are shutting down. DappRadar, operating for seven years, tracking over 18k decentralized applications across 93 chains, with 500k monthly active users, announced closure in November 2025 due to “financial unsustainability.” On-chain analytics platform Parsec, operating for five years, shut down in February 2026. CoinGecko is in talks to sell entirely, hiring investment bank Moelis as an advisor.

Media outlets are being sold cheaply or laying off staff. CoinDesk, a flagship crypto media outlet once rumored to sell for $300 million, laid off 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 crypto podcasts with over 1,300 episodes and a $35 million VC fund, quietly laid off most of its team this May.

Blockworks, which acquired Messari, also shut down its entire news division in October 2025, consolidating all resources into data services. Its founder bluntly stated: “Users are increasingly treating data as their main source of information, rather than news.”

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

Venture Capital Stops Investing

Since 2017, over 800 crypto investment funds have been established worldwide. Now, only about half are still operating. In 2025, 63% of crypto hedge funds posted losses.

New funds are also struggling to raise capital. In Q1 2026, only 8 new crypto VC funds were launched, the fewest since Q3 2020, with fundraising only 12% of the peak in 2022. From October 2025 to April 2026, crypto VC monthly investments plummeted from $3.85 billion to $660 million, a drop of over 80% in six months.

Where did the money go? Into AI. In 2025, AI sector VC funding reached $192.7 billion, surpassing half of the total global VC funding for the first time. A partner at Robot Ventures, a crypto fund founded by the creator of Compound, said plainly: “AI has sucked the oxygen out; talent and LP attention have been diverted. Many who should be working on crypto startups are now building AI companies.”

People are leaving too. Kyle Samani, co-founder of Multicoin Capital, managing $5.9 billion in assets and one of Solana’s earliest and most steadfast institutional investors, announced his departure in February, shifting focus to AI and robotics.

He wrote in a later deleted tweet: “Cryptocurrency isn’t as interesting as many (including myself) once imagined.” Even Paradigm, once one of the purest crypto VCs, has begun expanding its investment scope into AI and robotics.

The batch of crypto VC funds from 2020 to 2022, heavily invested during high valuations, has yet to return profits to LPs. LPs are no longer reinvesting, funds can’t raise new money, new projects can’t get funding, startups can’t raise capital, products can’t continue, and some are shutting down or being sold cheaply. This is a complete transmission chain, now completing its last few steps in the primary market.

Dragonfly Capital’s partner described the current environment with a single word: “extinction.”

Maybe, that’s a good sign

Bitcoin has fallen from its high of $126k in October last year to around $65k now, a decline of nearly 48%. Altcoin bubbles are accelerating their deflation, with Starknet’s market cap dropping from $8 billion to $200 million, a 95% shrinkage. Scroll, Wormhole, Magic Eden all fell more than 95%. Over 70% of tokens issued in 2021-2022 are now either worthless or worth less than one-tenth of their peak.

The crypto fear and greed index hit 5 in February this year, 11 in March, and 13 in early June, staying in the “extreme fear” zone for over 50 days.

Historically, this index has only fallen below 10 three times: December 2018, March 2020 during the COVID crash, and November 2022 during the FTX collapse. After each, Bitcoin’s gains within three years exceeded 500%, with the most extreme being 2,050% in 2018.

Another quieter signal comes from on-chain data: long-term Bitcoin holders now control nearly 80% of the circulating supply. Although this ratio has been slowly rising over time, during the sharp 50% correction from the $126k high, the proportion of long-term holders remained high and continued to increase, forming a clear divergence from price trends. This indicates that the remaining market is mainly composed of those unwilling to sell—long-term holders.

Historically, when this ratio approaches or exceeds 75-80% along with deep price corrections, it often marks the bottom of a bear market.

Looking at the primary market. The last time crypto VC deal activity was this low was in 2020, before DeFi Summer. The last time the number of new funds was this small was also in 2020.

And the phrase “extinction” was used by Dragonfly. In February, it contrarily raised $650 million for a new crypto fund, exceeding its target by 30%. Its managing partner said: “Morale is low, fear is extreme, the bear market gloom has set in.” But their strategy remains to keep investing. The last time Dragonfly raised funds during a panic was in 2022, investing in Polymarket and Ethena, which became its best-performing fund.

Blockworks, which bought Messari, just completed a $192 million valuation round on April 29, explicitly stating its goal: to consolidate the crypto data industry. It’s not expanding but acquiring peers at a discount.

With prices halved, fear index in single digits, long-term holders near maximum, VC deal activity back to five years ago, and infrastructure companies shutting down or being sold cheaply—each signal alone is grim. But when they all appear together, history shows only three such times, each followed by a new major cycle.

$300 million turning into $10 million may seem like the end of an era. But every true bottom looks more like an opportunity to be missed.