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The Great Crypto Extinction: How 11.6 Million Tokens Died in 2025 and What It Means for 2026

· 8 min read
Dora Noda
Dora Noda
Software Engineer

In just 365 days, more cryptocurrency projects collapsed than in the entire previous four years combined. According to CoinGecko's data, 11.6 million tokens failed in 2025 alone—representing 86.3% of all project failures since 2021. The fourth quarter was particularly brutal: 7.7 million tokens went dark, a pace of roughly 83,700 failures per day.

This wasn't a gradual decline. It was an extinction event. And it fundamentally reshapes how we should think about crypto investing, token launches, and the industry's future.

The Numbers Behind the Carnage​

To understand the scale of 2025's collapse, consider the progression:

  • 2021: 2,584 token failures
  • 2022: 213,075 token failures
  • 2023: 245,049 token failures
  • 2024: 1,382,010 token failures
  • 2025: 11,564,909 token failures

The math is staggering. 2025 saw more than 8 times the failures of 2024, which itself was already a record-breaking year. Project failures between 2021 and 2023 made up just 3.4% of all cryptocurrency failures over the past five years—the remaining 96.6% occurred in the last two years alone.

As of December 31, 2025, 53.2% of all tokens tracked on GeckoTerminal since July 2021 are now inactive, representing roughly 13.4 million failures out of 25.2 million listed. More than half of every crypto project ever created no longer exists.

The October 10 Liquidation Cascade​

The single most destructive event of 2025 occurred on October 10, when $19 billion in leveraged positions was wiped out in 24 hours—the largest single-day deleveraging in crypto history. Token failures immediately surged from roughly 15,000 to over 83,000 per day in the aftermath.

The cascade demonstrated how quickly systemic shocks can propagate through thinly traded assets. Tokens lacking deep liquidity or committed user bases were disproportionately affected, with meme coins suffering the worst losses. The event accelerated an ongoing sorting mechanism: tokens that lacked distribution, liquidity depth, or ongoing incentive alignment got filtered out.

Pump.fun and the Meme Coin Factory​

At the center of the 2025 token collapse sits Pump.fun, the Solana-based launchpad that democratized—and arguably weaponized—token creation. By mid-2025, the platform had spawned more than 11 million tokens and captured roughly 70-80% of all new token launches on Solana.

The statistics are damning:

  • 98.6% of tokens launched on Pump.fun showed rug-pull behavior, according to Solidus Labs data
  • 98% of launched tokens collapsed within 24 hours, per federal lawsuit allegations
  • Only 1.13% of tokens (about 284 per day out of 24,000 launched) "graduate" to listing on Raydium, Solana's main DEX
  • 75% of all launched tokens show zero activity after just one day
  • 93% show no activity after seven days

Even the "successful" tokens tell a grim story. The graduation threshold requires a $69,000 market cap, but the average market cap of graduated tokens now stands at $29,500—a 57% decline from the minimum. Nearly 40% of tokens that do graduate achieve it in under 5 minutes, suggesting coordinated launches rather than organic growth.

Of all tokens launched on Pump.fun, exactly one—FARTCOIN—ranks in the top 200 cryptocurrencies. Only seven rank in the top 500.

The 85% Launch Failure Rate​

Beyond Pump.fun, the broader 2025 token launch landscape was equally devastating. Data from Memento Research tracked 118 major token generation events (TGEs) in 2025 and found that 100 of them—84.7%—are trading below their opening fully diluted valuations. The median token in that cohort is down 71% from its launch price.

Gaming tokens fared even worse. More than 90% of gaming-related token generation events struggled to maintain value after launch, contributing to a wave of Web3 gaming studio closures including ChronoForge, Aether Games, Ember Sword, Metalcore, and Nyan Heroes.

Why Did So Many Tokens Fail?​

1. Frictionless Creation Meets Limited Demand​

Token creation has become trivially easy. Pump.fun allows anyone to launch a token within minutes with no technical knowledge required. But while supply exploded—from 428,383 projects in 2021 to nearly 20.2 million by the end of 2025—the market's capacity to absorb new projects hasn't kept pace.

The bottleneck isn't launching; it's sustaining liquidity and attention long enough for a token to matter.

2. Hype-Dependent Models​

The memecoin boom was powered by social media momentum, influencer narratives, and rapid speculative rotations rather than fundamentals. When traders shifted focus or liquidity dried up, these attention-dependent tokens collapsed immediately.

3. Liquidity Wars​

DWF Labs managing partner Andrei Grachev warned that the current environment is structurally hostile to new projects, describing ongoing "liquidity wars" across crypto markets. Retail capital is fragmenting across an ever-expanding universe of assets, leaving less for each individual token.

4. Structural Fragility​

The October 10 cascade revealed how interconnected and fragile the system had become. Leveraged positions, thin order books, and cross-protocol dependencies meant that stress in one area rapidly propagated throughout the ecosystem.

What 2025's Collapse Means for 2026​

Three scenarios for 2026 project token failures ranging from 3 million (optimistic) to 15 million (pessimistic), compared to 2025's 11.6 million. Several factors will determine which scenario materializes:

Signs of a Potential Improvement​

  • Shift to fundamentals: Industry leaders report that "fundamentals started mattering more and more" in late 2025, with protocol revenue becoming a key metric rather than token speculation.
  • Account abstraction adoption: ERC-4337 smart accounts exceeded 40 million deployments across Ethereum and Layer 2 networks, with the standard enabling invisible blockchain experiences that could drive sustainable adoption.
  • Institutional infrastructure: Regulatory clarity and ETF expansions are expected to drive institutional inflows, potentially creating more stable demand.

Reasons for Continued Concern​

  • Launchpad proliferation: Token creation remains frictionless, and new launch platforms continue to emerge.
  • Retail liquidity erosion: As millions of tokens vanish, retail confidence continues to erode, reducing available liquidity and raising the bar for future launches.
  • Concentrated attention: Market attention continues to concentrate around Bitcoin, blue-chip assets, and short-term speculative trades, leaving less room for new entrants.

Lessons from the Graveyard​

For Investors​

  1. Survival is scarce: With 98%+ failure rates on platforms like Pump.fun, the expected value of random meme coin investments is essentially zero. The 2025 data doesn't suggest caution—it suggests avoidance.

  2. Graduation means nothing: Even tokens that "succeed" by platform metrics typically decline 57%+ from their graduation market cap. Platform success is not market success.

  3. Liquidity depth matters: Tokens that survived 2025 generally had genuine liquidity, not just paper market caps. Before investing, assess how much you could actually sell without moving the price.

For Builders​

  1. Launch is the easy part: 2025 proved that anyone can launch a token; almost no one can sustain one. Focus on the 364 days after launch, not day one.

  2. Distribution beats features: Tokens that survived had genuine holder bases, not just whale concentrations. The product doesn't matter if no one cares.

  3. Revenue sustainability: The industry is shifting toward revenue-generating protocols. Tokens without clear revenue paths face increasingly hostile market conditions.

For the Industry​

  1. Curation is essential: With 20+ million projects listed and half already dead, discovery and curation mechanisms become critical infrastructure. The current system of raw listings is failing users.

  2. Launchpad responsibility: Platforms that enable frictionless token creation without any friction for rug pulls bear some responsibility for the 98% failure rate. The regulatory scrutiny Pump.fun faces suggests markets agree.

  3. Quality over quantity: The 2025 data suggests the market can't absorb infinite projects. Either issuance slows, or failure rates remain catastrophic.

The Bottom Line​

2025 will be remembered as the year crypto learned that easy issuance and mass survival are incompatible. The 11.6 million tokens that failed weren't victims of a bear market—they were victims of structural oversupply, liquidity fragmentation, and hype-dependent business models.

For 2026, the lesson is clear: the era of launching tokens and hoping for moonshots is over. What remains is a more mature market where fundamentals, liquidity depth, and sustainable demand determine survival. The projects that understand this will build differently. The projects that don't will join the 53% of all crypto tokens that are already dead.

Building sustainable Web3 applications requires more than token launches—it requires reliable infrastructure. BlockEden.xyz provides enterprise-grade RPC nodes and APIs across multiple blockchains, helping developers build on foundations designed to last beyond the hype cycle. Explore our API marketplace to start building.

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