Memecoins drive record 11.6 million crypto token failures in 2025

Crypto market turbulence decimated memecoins in 2025, driving the number of crypto project failures to over 11.6 million last year, according to a report by CoinGecko research analyst Shaun Paul Lee released on Friday. The fourth quarter of 2025 was among the worst, with 7.7 million tokens listed on GeckoTerminal ceasing active trading during the period, the report said.

Lee identified the Oct. 10 market crash — which saw over $19 billion of crypto leverage liquidated in a day — as a key catalyst. "This sharp decline in token survivability may be linked to the broader market turbulence throughout the year, which particularly affected the memecoin sector," he added.

Failures jumped from prior years: more than 1.3 million projects listed on GeckoTerminal failed in 2024, while 2,584 failed in 2021, Lee said. GeckoTerminal showed 3 million tokens listed at the end of 2024 and 20 million by the end of 2025. Lee pointed to the January 2024 launch of Solana memecoin launchpad pump.fun and said, "The ease of launching tokens on launchpads has led to a surge in low-effort memecoins and projects entering the market." The report also noted memecoins saw strong market activity into 2026.

CoinMarketCap data cited in the report shows memecoin market capitalization rose from $38 billion on Dec. 29 to $47.7 billion by Jan. 5, before cooling to around $43.7 billion as of Monday.

Key Topics

Crypto, Memecoins, Coingecko, Geckoterminal, Pump.fun, Solana