The 300 million valuation is a thing of the past, and the market is repricing

author:Bibi News

Original title: Is the signal at the bottom of history reappearing? Messari, valued at 300 million, sold at a price of 10 million

Messari used to be the crypto industry's closest data platform to Bloomberg, with a valuation of 300 million US dollars at its peak.

Its founder, Ryan Selkis, was the first to reveal that Mt. Gox is insolvent. After becoming famous, he founded Messari with the goal of incorporating data, research, and disclosure from the crypto world into a professional platform. It covers more than 40,000 crypto assets, and the Mainnet conference held every year in New York is one of the industry's most important summits.

In September 2022, hedge fund giant Brevan Howard's crypto division led its Series B financing, followed by Point72 and Coinbase Ventures, with a valuation of about US$300 million.

On June 12, 2026, Messari was bought by rival Blockworks for around $10 million.

This isn't the current state of a company. When the primary market valuation and the coins in your wallet are shrinking drastically, is the entire crypto industry's collective repricing?

Crypto companies collectively shrink

In July 2024, Messari founder Selkis resigned as CEO due to a series of controversial remarks, and co-founder Eric Turner took over. Turner also left in March 2026, and CTO Diran Li took over. At the same time, the company made large-scale layoffs, turned a U-turn to AI, and announced that it would become an AI-first company.

But AI is not only the direction of transformation for Messari; it is also one of the reasons for its decline. The core products sold by Messari are research reports and data collation. In the past, an analyst spent a week writing an industry report, but now it can be completed in a few hours using AI tools. When research costs are close to zero, it is difficult for businesses selling research reports to receive any more money. This is not a cyclical difficulty; it is a structural threat.

Eventually, Messari's data platform and API were merged into Blockworks, and the eight-year entrepreneurial story came to an end.

But Messari is no exception.

From 2025 to 2026, a quieter and deeper change is taking place: companies that don't issue coins and make money by selling products and services can't hold up.

The data platform is closing its doors. DappRadar, which has been in operation for seven years, tracks more than 18,000 decentralized applications on 93 chains, uses 500,000 monthly users, and announced its shutdown in November 2025 due to “financial unsustainability”. The on-chain analysis platform Parsec has been in operation for five years and shut down in February 2026. CoinGecko is currently negotiating the overall sale and has hired investment bank Moelis as an advisor.

The media is underselling or layoffs. CoinDesk, the benchmark for crypto media, was once rumored to sell for 300 million US dollars, cut 45% of the editorial team in August 2023, and was bought by Bullish for about 75 million dollars in November of the same year. Bankless, one of the most influential brands in crypto podcasts, has over 1,300 shows, a $35 million VC fund, and quietly cut most of its team in May of this year.

Blockworks, which bought Messari, also shut down its entire news department in October 2025, putting all resources into the data business. Its founder put it bluntly: users are increasingly using data as their primary source of information rather than news.

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

VC is not voting

Since 2017, more than 800 crypto investment funds have been established worldwide. Today, only about half are still in operation. In 2025, 63% of crypto hedge funds lost money.

The new fund is also unable to raise money. Only 8 new crypto VC funds were set up in Q1 2026, the lowest since Q3 2020, and the amount raised was only 12% of the 2022 peak. From October 2025 to April 2026, monthly investment in crypto VC plummeted from $3.85 billion to $660 million, falling more than 80% in six months.

Where did the money go? Went to AI. In 2025, VC financing in the AI sector was 192.7 billion US dollars, exceeding half of the world's total VC for the first time. A partner at Robot Ventures, a crypto fund founded by the founder of Compound, said a very direct statement: “AI has taken away oxygen, and talent and LP's attention have been taken away. A lot of people who should have started crypto businesses are now starting AI companies.”

People are walking too. Multicoin Capital co-founder Kyle Samani, who manages $5.9 billion in assets and is one of Solana's earliest and most committed institutional investors, announced his departure in February this year to move to the AI and robotics sector.

In a tweet that was later deleted, he wrote, “Cryptocurrency isn't as fun as many people (myself included) once thought.” Even Paradigm, once one of the purest crypto VCs, has begun to expand its investment scope into AI and robotics.

The batch of crypto VC funds from 2020 to 2022 invested heavily during the period of high valuation, and so far they have not paid back their LPs. LPs are no longer being invested, funds cannot raise new money, cannot invest in new projects, startups cannot get financing, products cannot continue, close their doors, or sell at a low price. This is a complete transmission chain, and it is now taking the last few steps in the primary crypto market.

Dragonfly Capital's partners used one word to describe the current environment: mass extinction.

Maybe, that's a good sign

Bitcoin fell from a high of $126,000 in October last year to around $65,000 now, a decline of nearly 48%. The altcoin bubble cleared up at an accelerated pace, and the market value of Starknet, once valued at 8 billion US dollars, fell to 200 million, shrinking 95%. Scroll, Wormhole, and Magic Eden all dropped by more than 95%. More than 70% of the tokens issued in 2021 to 2022 either returned to zero or fell below one-tenth of their peak today.

The Crypto Panic Greed Index once fell to 5 in February this year, fell to 11 in March, and fell to 13 in early June, remaining in the “extreme fear” range for more than 50 days.

Historically, this index has only fallen below 10 three times: December 2018, the COVID-19 crisis in March 2020, and the FTX storm in November 2022. After each time, Bitcoin increased by more than 500% in three years, and in the most extreme case, in 2018, it rose by 2050%.

Another quieter signal comes from on-chain data: Bitcoin long-term holders currently control close to 80% of the circulating supply. Although this ratio has been slowly rising for a long time, the share of long-term holders remained high and continued to rise as the price pulled back sharply to 50% from the high point of 126,000 US dollars, which clearly deviated from the price trend. This means that what is left in the current market is mainly long-term holders who are unwilling to sell.

Historically, when this ratio approaches or exceeds 75-80% and is accompanied by deep price adjustments, it often corresponds to the bottom area of a bear market.

Let's take another look at the primary market. The last time the number of crypto VC transactions was this low was in 2020, before DeFi Summer. The last time that few new funds were established was in 2020.

Meanwhile, Dragonfly, which refers to mass extinction, bucked the trend and raised 650 million US dollars in new crypto funds in February of this year, exceeding the target by 30%. Its managing partner said, “Morale is low, fears are extreme, and the gloom of a bear market has loomed over.” But what he did was keep casting. The last time Dragonfly raised capital when the market was at its peak was in 2022. That fund invested in Polymarket and Ethena, making it the best return period in its history.

I bought Messari's Blockworks and just completed a $192 million valuation on April 29. The purpose was clearly written: integrate the encrypted data industry. It's not expanding its business; it's taking advantage of the bargain to acquire peers.

The price of the currency dropped, the panic index fell to single digits, and the share of long-term holders was approaching the extreme value. The number of VC transactions went back to five years ago, and infrastructure companies collectively closed their doors or sold cheaply. Looking at these signs alone, each one is very pessimistic. However, when they appeared at the same time, they only occurred three times in history, and each time was a new cycle of major cycles.

300 million to 10 million seems to be the end of an era. But the real bottom of every round doesn't seem like an opportunity.