Crypto token failures soar, with 1 in 4 launched since 2021 dying in Q1: CoinGecko
About one in four crypto tokens launched since 2021 have failed in the first quarter of this year amid a crypto market downturn and token creation becoming easier than ever, says crypto data platform CoinGecko.
Since 2021, nearly 7 million cryptocurrencies have been listed on CoinGecko’s token tracking tool GeckoTerminal, and over half, or 3.7 million tokens, “have since stopped trading and are considered failed,” CoinGecko research analyst Shaun Paul Lee said in an April 30 report.
“Alarmingly, the first quarter of 2025 alone saw the collapse of 1.8 million tokens,” he added, which is “the highest number of failures recorded in a single year.” It also comprises just under half of all failures and represents a quarter of all tokens launched since 2021.
CoinGecko recorded tokens with at least one trade before going defunct and only Pump.fun tokens that graduated, or completed the token creation platform’s bonding curve.
Lee linked the recent token die-off to “broader market turbulence” after Donald Trump’s inauguration in January, which saw Bitcoin (BTC) hit a peak high but was followed by a sharp downturn in the crypto market.
More crypto tokens used to survive
Last year saw the second-highest number of token failures at 1.3 million, and in comparison, Lee said that the three previous years had a much lower attrition rate.
Lee attributed the ballooning number of tokens and their failures to the token creation tool Pump.fun, “which simplified the process of creating tokens, leading to a flood of memecoins and low-effort projects entering the market.”
Pump.fun went online in January 2024. CoinGecko’s report shows that last year had the largest number of new crypto tokens with over 3 million launched, compared to 2023, which saw just over 835,000.
“Before the launch of Pump.fun in 2024, cryptocurrency failures numbered in the low six digits. Project failures between 2021 and 2023 made up just 12.6% of all cryptocurrency failures over the past five years,” Lee said.
Pump.fun’s graduation rate, where token trading moves off the site, has never been particularly high, with roughly 98% of tokens failing.
The platform’s best-performing week so far was in November 2024, when 1.67% of memecoins moved on to the open market.
Related: AI tokens, memecoins dominate crypto narratives in Q1 2025: CoinGecko
CoinGecko founder Bobby Ong said in a March 6 report that memecoin investor interest appears to have cooled after a series of bad launches, noting the fallout from the Libra (LIBRA) token launch.
Pump.fun had a weekly trading volume high after the launch of Trump’s memecoin on Jan. 18, but both crypto and stock markets were hit with extreme volatility starting in March following Trump’s threats of sweeping tariffs.
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