The cryptocurrency market, known for its volatility and rapid innovation, has also seen a darker trend in the past two years: mass token failure. Between 2024 and early 2025, a staggering number of cryptocurrency tokens have disappeared. According to recent research by GeckoTerminal, over 1.8 million tokens failed in Q1 of 2025 alone. This represents nearly 50% of all token failures from 2021 to 2025.
The spike in project failure is significant, especially considering the rapid pace of token launches. According to data from several aggregator platforms, around 428,000 new crypto tokens were listed in 2021. By 2025, that number had risen to nearly seven million.
This influx of new tokens can be partly attributed to platforms like Pump.fun, which made it easier than ever for anyone to launch their token. While such platforms foster innovation, the ease of use led to an abundance of meme coins and experimental projects, most of which lacked a long-term vision and ultimately failed, adding to the cryptocurrency tokens’ failure statistics.
A Token Is Considered Dead When It No Longer Has Any Trade Activity on A Platform
According to GeckoTerminal, they only count tokens that had at least one trade before dying. This means the statistics don’t inflate test tokens or inactive launches. Instead, they represent real projects that once had some form of life on them. This adds weight to the issue and shows that token death is a growing concern. It’s not just abandoned ideas, it’s real investors, real money, and real disappointments in the crypto market tokens.
The simplicity of launching tokens through platforms like Pump.fun memecoin tools resulted in a major saturation of the market. Most of these new tokens had no long-term plan or real purpose. Instead, they were created for quick profits or fun. But when everyone is launching, standing out becomes harder. Eventually, liquidity dries up, and the tokens die.
This explains why the number of token deaths has been much higher post-2023. Creating cryptocurrency tokens has become easier, but that doesn’t mean they’ll succeed. For anyone entering the crypto space, whether to invest or to launch projects, it’s important to study this wave of failures. Quality, community trust, real utility, and transparency matter more than ever. The crypto space is evolving rapidly, and trends like the Pump.fun memecoin surge show us that even fun ideas can have serious consequences. The hope is that future projects focus more on value creation and less on hype.
