As early as 2025, the crypto industry had already seen an unprecedented wave of failures, with 1.8 million crypto tokens failing in the first three months of this year alone, according to crypto information platform CoinGecko. For perspective, this accounts for almost 25% of all tokens issued since 2021.
Out of the nearly 7 million cryptocurrencies that were launched since 2021, more than half, or 3.6 million, have stopped trading completely, according to an analysis by Shaun Paul Lee of CoinGecko. He notes that the mortality rate of these tokens has been increasing sharply in recent times.
The first three months of this year saw more token failures than any calendar year on record, and this figure stands out when compared to the period from 2021 to 2023, which saw only 12.6% of the last five years’ total crypto failures.
The token failures coincide with broader market volatility since Donald Trump was sworn in as U.S. President in January 2025, and Bitcoin (BTC) reached an all-time high, but the crypto market itself slid sharply.
Market conditions deteriorated further in March 2025, when both crypto markets and stock markets experienced unprecedented volatility. This volatility was triggered by Trump’s threat to impose broad tariffs, which caused panic in various financial markets.
However, it was the emergence in January 2024 of an easy-to-use token creation tool called Pump.fun that really flooded the market with new crypto offerings. The website made it simple for anyone to create their own cryptocurrencies, leading to a surge in memecoins and less-innovative projects.
More than 3 million new crypto tokens were issued in 2024 alone, nearly four times the number in 2023, which saw a total of 835,000 new tokens. Before Pump.fun, crypto failures were less common, with numbers remaining in the “low six-digit” range, according to Lee’s analysis.
Out of the tokens created on Pump.fun, around 98% do not survive to leave the site, according to statistics. Even in the platform’s best week in November 2024, only 1.67% of the memecoins made it to the open market.
The report highlights how the combination of simple token creation software and volatile market conditions has created the perfect storm for crypto failures, with no indication that this trend will slow down as 2025 progresses.
This content aims to enrich readers’ information. Pintu collects this information from various relevant sources and is not influenced by outside parties. Note that an asset’s past performance does not determine its projected future performance. Crypto trading activities are subject to high risk and volatility, always do your own research and use cold hard cash before investing. All activities of buying andselling Bitcoin and other crypto asset investments are the responsibility of the reader.
