The crypto market has seen major success stories over the last 17 years, with Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, and Binance Coin among the most successful. However, it has had many notable flops that promised too much and underdelivered. This article explores some of the top flops in the crypto industry, including popular names like Cardano (ADA), Pi Network (PI), Berachain (BERA), and Hamster Kombat (HMSTR).
Pi Network (PI)
Pi Network is one of the most popular cryptocurrencies in the world. Launched in 2018, it aimed to address the biggest challenges Bitcoin faced. For example, it can be mined using any smartphone, making it available to billions of users.
Pi Network also aimed to become a global currency available in small and big businesses. This is unlike Bitcoin, which has become a store of value instead of an alternative to fiat currencies.
Pi Network became highly popular globally, especially in emerging markets such as China, India, and Nigeria. All its products, including the browser and the mining app, gained millions of users.
Pi launched its mainnet in February 2025, and since then, the token has plunged by over 90%. This decline occurred as the network faced major challenges, including the fact that major exchanges like Coinbase and Binance have resisted listing it. It has become a ghost chain, with little happening on its network. Also, the daily volume has remained below $20 million.
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Cardano (ADA)
Cardano is another top flop in the crypto market, as its price has plunged from $3 in 2020 to $0.39, and its market capitalization has fallen from over $90 billion to $14.2 billion.
Its surge occurred in 2020, when many investors believed it was the best alternative to Ethereum, which was known for its slow speeds and high carbon footprint because it was a proof-of-work (PoW) network. Ethereum was also known for its slow speeds and high carbon footprint, though it later switched to proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus.
Cardano did not live up to expectations as the network failed to attract major developers. As a result, it has a negligible market share across all industries in the crypto sector, including decentralized finance, non-fungible tokens, and real-world asset tokenization.
Cardano is now working to solve these challenges. It has launched Midnight, a sidechain that will likely bring in more assets to the network. Also, the developers are working on the Leios upgrade that will boost its performance over time.
Cardano is also working on Pentad, a proposal that aims to bring more stablecoins, oracles, and analytics tools to the network.
Hamster Kombat (HMSTR)
Hamster Kombat is another big flop in the crypto industry. Launched in 2025, Hamster was the biggest player in the Telegram gaming industry. It was a major player in the tap-to-earn industry that boomed for some time.
Hamster Kombat had over 300 million users at its peak, and the expectation was that it would receive a multi-billion-dollar valuation after the airdrop. Besides, Notcoin had received a $1 billion valuation.
It was also the fastest-growing YouTube channel, adding over 35 million subscribers in less than a month.
However, the HMSTR flop was significant, as many players dumped their tokens after the airdrop, leaving buyers on the sidelines. As a result, the token dropped from a high of $0.0029 in April last year to the current $0.00020. Its market capitalization has dropped from over $600 million to $16 million today, and not many people are playing its games.
Other Top Flops in the Crypto Industry
There were more major flops in the crypto industry. One of them is Zilliqa, a network that introduced sharding, a concept that has been embraced by top networks like Ethereum and Near Protocol.
Berachain is another top crypto project that flopped. Data shows that the total value locked (TVL) in the highly anticipated platform has plunged to $575 million from a high of $7.2 billion last year.
IOTA’s big upgrade, known as Rebase, launched in May last year and also flopped, as the network has not attracted any major developers, with its TVL remaining below $20 million.
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