DappRadar shuts down after seven years of operation, a move the team attributed to financial unsustainability. An immediate offer of assistance from Binance-owned CoinMarketCap is drawing sharp criticism, with some analysts arguing the sequence of events reflects a growing pattern of consolidation.
The sequence of events, a long-standing independent project failing and its centralized rival publicly offering to “help,” has ignited a debate over the economic viability of builders in an ecosystem dominated by large centralized exchanges.
CoinMarketCap’s Offer After DAppRadar Shuts Down Draws Scrutiny
Hours after founders announced that DAppRadar shuts down on November 17, CoinMarketCap CEO Rush Lu posted an offer on X to keep the platform alive. The gesture was immediately flagged by on-chain risk analyst MastrXYZ.
“The CMC CEO sends @DappRadar a DM offering help while the platform is collapsing?” MastrXYZ wrote, pointing to CoinMarketCap’s ownership by Binance. “Step by step everything is moving under the Binance umbrella. Decentralisation is turning into a joke.”
CoinMarketCap has not publicly responded to the criticism.
Treasury Data Shows High Self-Exposure
The shutdown followed a sharp decline in the RADAR token’s price, which fell 38% to approximately $0.00072. The crash had a direct impact on the project’s finances.
According to on-chain records, the DappRadar DAO treasury held $1.6 million in assets. However, 97% of that value was concentrated in its own RADAR token.
With a reported monthly burn rate of $15,500, the treasury’s remaining stablecoin reserves provided only a three-month operational runway. The platform had previously raised $7.33 million from investors, including Prosus and Lightspeed Venture Partners.
An End to a Crypto Mainstay
Launched in 2018 amid the CryptoKitties boom, DappRadar grew to become a key industry resource, tracking over 18,000 dApps across more than 90 blockchains. Its data was widely cited by journalists, researchers, and investors as a neutral benchmark for a decentralized ecosystem.
Its closure follows other 2025 Web3 shutdowns, including gaming projects Nyan Heroes and Blast Royale, which also cited funding shortages. MastrXYZ connected the failures to a systemic issue where “real builders” developing infrastructure cannot compete with the economics of transaction-based platforms.
DappRadar’s founders stated that decisions regarding the DAO and the RADAR token will be communicated separately.
Chain Street’s Take
As DAppRadar shuts down, the industry faces another reminder of how fragile independent infrastructure has become. A platform that mapped the entire ecosystem couldn’t sustain itself, while a Binance-owned rival stepped in at the moment of collapse.
Watchdogs say this isn’t an isolated case. It’s part of a larger trend: consolidation tightening, margins thinning, and the ecosystem losing yet another neutral source of truth.
