Crypto Market Sees Massive Token Failures Since 2021
Over 3.7 million cryptocurrency tokens have vanished since 2021. Nearly half of these failures happened during teh Pump.fun-driven memecoin craze.
New data from GeckoTerminal reveals that 1.8 million tokens failed in Q1 of this year alone. This accounts for nearly half of all token failures between 2021 and 2025. In 2024, about 1.4 million projects also shut down. These numbers highlight a significant decline in token survivability.
GeckoTerminal, a crypto pricing platform, conducted this research.
market turbulence, especially after Donald Trump’s inauguration in January 2025, may have contributed to this decline. The crypto market faced a downturn during this period.
Though, the number of new crypto projects has surged. In 2021, around 428,000 tokens were listed. By 2025, this number skyrocketed to nearly seven million. The growth is largely due to Pump.fun, which simplified token creation, leading to a flood of meme coins and low-effort projects.
Before Pump.fun’s launch in 2024, failures were significantly lower. From 2021 to 2023, failures were in the low six digits, accounting for just 12.6% of total token deaths.
GeckoTerminal defines “dead tokens” as those no longer actively traded. Only tokens with at least one trade before going defunct were considered.
