CoinGecko Reports Record Token ‘Mortality’ in 2025

Over 11.6 million tokens failed in 2025, linked to volatility and meme coin collapse.

Over the past year, more than 11.6 million tokens have failed. CoinGecko analysts attributed the record level of ‘mortality’ to volatility and the collapse of the meme coin sector.

INSIGHT: 11.6 million crypto tokens failed in 2025 alone ☠️

What tokens do you think will succeed in 2026? pic.twitter.com/w90YIdNuf9

— CoinGecko (@coingecko) January 15, 2026

According to the study, the total number of failed projects has reached 53.2% of all cryptocurrencies ever recorded by GeckoTerminal.

The peak occurred in the fourth quarter of 2025 after the October crash—during this period, 7.7 million coins ‘died’, accounting for 34.9% of the failures recorded by analysts.

An Absolute Record Low

The past year set a record low, accounting for 86.3% of failures from 2021 to 2025.

“Such a sharp decline in ‘survivability’ may be linked to the overall market turbulence throughout the year, which particularly affected the meme coin sector,” experts suggested.

For comparison, in 2024, the number of ‘dead’ coins was 1.3 million, and in 2023, it was 245,049.

Despite the mass failures, the total number of crypto projects continued to grow rapidly:

• 2021 — 428,383;
• 2025 — 20.2 million.

CoinGecko explained the trend by the ease of launching tokens through specialized platforms like Pump.fun, leading to an explosive emergence of low-quality meme coins and other speculative tokens.

The year 2024 remained record-breaking for the number of new cryptocurrencies, with over 3 million projects launched.

Back in late December, CoinGecko experts identified the most profitable sectors in the crypto market. The RWA segment took the top spot.