Over 50% of All Cryptocurrencies Ever Launched Since 2021 Are Now Defunct

Over 50% of all cryptocurrencies ever launched since 2021 have now gone defunct. In an even more alarming trend, the percentage of failed tokens launched this year has reached the same level in just the first five months.

These failures are just another reminder of the need to launch viable projects, backed by solid tokenomics and a robust community.

Ghost Tokens Skyrocket

A recent CoinGecko report highlighted that out of the roughly 7 million cryptocurrencies listed on GeckoTerminal since 2021, 3.7 million have reached their end.

Several factors are considered when evaluating whether a coin has reached its end.

“A coin is classified as ‘dead’ when it loses all utility, liquidity, and community engagement. Key indicators include near-zero trading volume, abandoned development (no GitHub commits for 6+ months), and a price drop of 99%+ from its all-time high. Teams often vanish without warning—social media accounts go dormant, domains expire,” Alsie Liu, Content Manager at Dune Analytics, told BeInCrypto.

A significant 53% of listed cryptocurrencies have failed, with most collapses concentrated in 2024 and 2025. Notably, the over 1.82 million tokens already stopped trading in 2025 significantly outpaced the approximately 1.38 million failures recorded throughout 2024.

With seven months out of the year ahead, this trend of increasing failures in the current year will continue to grow.

Why do so many crypto projects fail?

Experts attribute the high failure rate of cryptocurrency projects, often termed “ghost coins,” to various factors, including broader macroeconomic conditions affecting the crypto market.

CoinGecko specifically suggested a potential link between economic concerns like tariffs and recession fears, noting a surge in meme coin launches after a certain election, which was later affected by market volatility.

However, not all responsibility can be placed on a greater economic downturn. Other aspects can contribute to these project failures.

“Common factors include inability to find product market fit leading to negligible interest from users or investors, or project teams that focus too much on short-term speculation with no long-term roadmap, and sometimes abandonment by developers (rug pulls). Broader issues like fraudulent intentions, weak user traction, novelty-driven hype, financial shortfalls, poor execution, strong competition, or security failures also contribute to project failure,” a Binance spokesperson told BeInCrypto.

The rapid rise in ghost tokens also came with the exponential launch of projects en masse, particularly since the start of 2024.

Analyzing the Life-Death Ratio

Last year was novel in its own right following the proliferation of meme coins. This new narrative emerged particularly after the launch of Pump.fun, a Solana platform that allows anyone to launch a token at a minimal cost.

According to CoinGecko data, 3 million new tokens were listed on CoinGecko in 2024 alone. Half of these projects died, but the other half survived. However, the situation in 2025 appears less stable.

While the number of new token launches remains high, the number of failures is nearly equivalent, with launches only marginally exceeding deaths by about a thousand.

“Ecosystems with low barriers to token creation see the highest number of ghost coins. In general, platforms that make it very easy and cheap to launch new tokens see the most abandoned coins. During this cycle, Solana’s meme coin surge (e.g., via token launchpads like Pump.fun) drove a flood of new tokens, many of which lost user traction and daily activity once initial hype faded,” Binance’s spokesperson explained.

The greater meme market has also taken a particular blow to its popularity.

As of March 5, the meme coin market capitalization had sharply decreased to $54 billion, marking a 56.8% drop from its peak of $125 billion on December 5, 2024. This downturn was accompanied by a significant decrease in trading activity, with volumes falling by 26.2% in the preceding month alone.

Certain token categories have been hit harder than others.

Music and Video Tokens Among the Hardest-Hit Categories

A 2024 BitKE report highlighted that video and music were prominent categories with many failed cryptocurrency projects, reaching a 75% failure rate. This outsized percentage suggests that niche-focused crypto ventures often face challenges in achieving long-term viability.

“These niches face adoption and utility gaps. Music tokens struggle to compete with Spotify/YouTube, and ‘listen-to-earn’ models often lack demand. As more mainstream celebrities get into the space without knowing much about blockchain technology, tokens have become the new cash-grab business,” Liu explained.

Binance’s spokesperson noted that legal and technical hurdles, such as music licensing and the significant resources needed for video delivery, complicated the scaling of decentralized alternatives.

They further