Crypto Graveyard: 50% Of Tokens Have Failed In the Past 5 years – Report

Rubmar Garcia

Last Updated: May 1, 2025 1:00 pm

3 mins read

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A recent report revealed that over 50% of all crypto tokens have failed in the past five years, with a significant decrease in token survivability over the past year.

50% Of Crypto Tokens Have Collapsed

On Wednesday, CoinGecko published a report claiming that over half of the tokens registered in its Decentralized Exchange (DEX) tracker, GeckoTerminal, have died in the past five years.

The study examined the total number of crypto tokens once listed in the DEX tracker with one trade or more before going defunct.

Since 2021, nearly 7 million tokens have been listed in the real-time tracker, with 3.7 million cryptocurrencies no longer actively traded and considered to have failed. As a result, 52.7% of all examined crypto died, 86.5% failing between 2024 and early 2025.

According to the report, 49.7% of all recorded project failures between July 2021 and March 2025 occurred in the first quarter of this year. By March 31, 1.8 million tokens had collapsed, representing the highest number of failures recorded in a single year.

In 2024, nearly 1.4 million crypto projects failed, accounting for 37.7% of all collapses during the analyzed period. The number of failing projects has significantly increased from 0.5% in 2021 to 25% in 2025’s first three months.

Nonetheless, CoinGecko noted that 2024 has the highest number of launches, seeing over 3 million new projects deployed in the crypto market. Since 2021, the total number of projects has skyrocketed by around 1,550%, going from 428,383 listed projects on GeckoTerminal to nearly 7 million crypto projects.

Memecoin Frenzy Responsible For Most Failures?

The massive increase in token launches was fueled by the launch of the Solana-based memecoin launchpad Pump.fun, which facilitated the deployment of tokens. The platform’s creation led to a “flood of meme coins and low-effort projects entering the market.”

Notably, the start of this cycle’s memecoin frenzy saw the launch of hundreds of PolitiFi tokens, celebrity tokens, and scam tokens, with many reaching market capitalizations of hundreds of millions in record time.

The report highlighted that crypto failures were in the low six digits before Pump.fun’s launch, with only 12.6% of all dead tokens between 2021 and 2023. By July 2024, reports revealed most celebrity memecoins had crashed over 90% since launch, with the majority essentially “dead.”

Amid the Q1 market retraces, most cryptocurrencies have seen a sharp price decline, with some of the strongest tokens retesting monthly and yearly lows.

The recent nosedive in token survivability could be related to the market exhaustion and market turbulence, which coincided with the launch of the official TRUMP and MELANIA memecoins and the LIBRA token scandal.

“This sharp decline in token survivability may be linked to broader market turbulence, particularly following Donald Trump’s inauguration in January 2025, which coincided with a downturn in the crypto market,” the report concluded.

crypto, TOTAL — Total crypto market capitalization is at $2.89 trillion in the one-week chart. Source: TOTAL on TradingView

Featured Image from Unsplash.com, Chart from TradingView.com

Rubmar Garcia

Rubmar is a writer and translator who has been a crypto enthusiast for the past four years. Her goal as a writer is to create informative, complete, and easily understandable pieces accessible to those entering the crypto space. After learning about cryptocurrencies in 2019, Rubmar became curious about the world of possibilities the industry offered, quickly learning that financial freedom was at the palm of her hand with the developing technology.

From a young age, Rubmar was curious about how languages work, finding special interest in wordplay and the peculiarities of dialects. Her curiosity grew as she became an avid reader in her teenage years. She explored freedom and new words through her favorite books, which shaped her view of the world. Rubmar acquired the necessary skills for in-depth research and analytical thinking at university, where she studied Literature and Linguistics. Her studies have given her a sharp perspective on several topics and allowed her to turn every stone in her investigations.

In 2019, she first dipped her toes in the crypto industry when a friend introduced her to Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, but it wasn’t until 2020 that she started to dive into the depth of the industry. As Rubmar began to understand the mechanics of the crypto sphere, she saw a new world yet to be explored.

At the beginning of her crypto voyage, she discovered a new system that allowed her to have control over her finances. As a young adult of the 21st century, Rubmar has faced the challenges of the traditional banking system and the restrictions of fiat money.

After the failure of her home country’s economy, the limitations of traditional finances became clear. The bureaucratic, outdated structure made her feel hopeless and powerless amid an aggressive and distorted system created by hyperinflation. However, learning about decentralization and self-custody opened a realm of opportunities. Cryptocurrencies allowed her to experience financial control for the first time and expand her financial education.

Moreover, the peculiar nature of the crypto community sparked Rubmar’s curiosity about the other layers of the industry. As a result, she found a particular interest in discovering the diverse perspectives of investors, market watchers, experts, and developers. Her attempts to better understand the crypto space made her realize the strong links of the community with other industries, enriching her perspective of the sector. As someone who spends most of her day online, Rubmar enjoys finding the points where the crypto world meets with her other passions and hobbies –or her favorite memes.

In her free time, she usually finds joy in different art forms. As a child, she enlisted in every extra-curricular activity in her hometown, including music classes, dancing, jewelry making, and the local chorus. Despite her many attempts to learn different instruments, Rubmar only knows how to play the xylophone, which she played for 7 years in her school’s marching band.

She also has a passion for learning new languages and cultures, having set the goal to learn another six languages – currently attempting to learn Italian and Korean. Scrapbooking, paper crafting, and bookbinding are her biggest interests outside of work, constantly taking classes and attending workshops to learn new techniques. The rest of her free time is spent stressing over football matches and transfer market news or feeding cats –hers or stray.

In summary, Rubmar seeks to present entertaining and educational pieces to be enjoyed by everybody, aiming to report on the latest news and offer a unique perspective while adding a meme or a pun whenever possible.

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