Web3 Companies to Know: Who Builds What and Why It Matters

TL;DR
– Web3 companies fill roles, not one niche: they run blockchains, build wallets, operate exchanges, sell developer tools, issue stablecoins or host NFT marketplaces.
– Roles last longer than names: several companies on 2022 “top Web3” lists have since gone bankrupt, closed or rebranded.
– Big names still carry big risks: Binance pleaded guilty to US charges in 2023 and kept operating; FTX filed for bankruptcy in 2022 and did not.
– Stablecoin issuers became regulated businesses: Circle, the issuer of USDC, became a publicly listed company in June 2025, which means more disclosure, not lower risk.
– This is a map, not a shopping list: nothing here is investment advice, and being listed is not an endorsement.

Contents
1. What makes a company a Web3 company
2. Blockchains and infrastructure
3. Wallets and exchanges
4. Developer tools, stablecoins and marketplaces
5. What happened to the 2022 names
6. How to read any Web3 company list
7. FAQ

Lists of “top Web3 companies” age badly. Egorithms published two of them in 2022, and within three years one featured brand had been shut down by its owner, one token had been renamed, and the wider sector had lived through a major exchange bankruptcy. So this version takes a different approach. It explains the jobs that Web3 companies do, then names a few well-known examples for each job, with a short note on their status and a source you can check.

What makes a company a Web3 company

“Web3” describes a version of the internet built on blockchains, where users can hold digital assets and make payments without a bank or a platform in the middle. According to ethereum.org, the term was coined by Ethereum co-founder Gavin Wood shortly after Ethereum launched in 2014. The same page lists the core ideas as decentralized ownership, permissionless access, native payments in cryptocurrency, and systems that run on incentives rather than trusted third parties.

It also lists the limits plainly: transaction costs are too high for many people, the user experience is hard, and much of the ecosystem still depends on centralized services. That last point matters for this article. Most “Web3 companies” are ordinary companies, with offices, executives and legal liability, that build products on top of open networks.

A useful way to sort them is by role:

Blockchains and infrastructure

These organizations run or maintain the networks themselves, or supply the data and storage those networks cannot handle on their own.

An “oracle” deserves a sentence of explanation. Blockchains cannot read the outside world by themselves, so they cannot know an exchange rate or a weather report. Oracle networks such as Chainlink fetch that data and post it onchain so contracts can use it. If the oracle is wrong, the contract is wrong, which is why this boring layer gets so much attention.

Wallets and exchanges

Wallets hold the keys that control digital assets. Exchanges are where most people buy, sell and swap them. These two roles carry the most direct risk for ordinary users.

The difference between “self-custody” and “custodial” is the most important thing to understand here. With a self-custody wallet, you hold the keys and nobody can reverse your mistakes. With an exchange account, the company holds the assets for you, which is convenient until the company fails. Pick your risk.

Developer tools, stablecoins and marketplaces

These are the companies that most users never think about, plus the ones they think about a lot.

A stablecoin is only as stable as the issuer’s reserves and the rules it follows. “Pegged to the dollar” is a promise, not a law of physics. The Terra collapse below shows what happens when the promise rests on an algorithm instead of reserves.

What happened to the 2022 names

The two older Egorithms lists included exchanges, brands and tokens that look different today. A short, factual record:

Note that FTX did not appear on our earlier lists, but it was one of the best-known Web3 brands of 2022, which is exactly the point.

How to read any Web3 company list

Company lists, including this one, are snapshots. A few questions make any list more useful:

• Which role does the company play? A wallet failing and a blockchain failing hurt you in different ways.
• Who holds your assets? If it is the company, its solvency is your problem.
• Where is it regulated, and has it been charged with anything? Court and regulator websites are public. Check them.
• Is the “status” recent? A logo on a 2022 list says nothing about today.
• Is someone paid to recommend it? Affiliate links are common in crypto content.

If you want to see where this is heading, AI agents are starting to use crypto wallets to pay for things on their own. We explain how that works in Cloudflare, wallets and AI agents, and the wider economic picture in the synthetic economy explained.

To repeat the obvious: this page is not investment advice. Crypto assets can lose most or all of their value, and listing a company here is not an endorsement.

FAQ

About the Author

Ralitsa Bozhilova

Editor with a passion for everything digital, who got lucky to geek out about it as a full-time job.

See author's posts