Token deaths reset crypto risk

Investor fatigue and rising skepticism deepened in 2025 as a massive crypto wipeout reshaped perceptions of risk across the digital asset market.

Over 11 million crypto tokens vanished in 2025

Last year marked the largest purge of new crypto projects in the industry’s history, underlining how saturated the market had become with short-lived assets and speculative bets.

According to a CoinGecko report published on January 12, more than half of all cryptocurrencies launched over the past five years are now inactive. Moreover, 2025 alone accounted for more than 85% of all recorded project failures.

The study examined 20.2 million GeckoTerminal token listings introduced between mid-2021 and the end of 2026. Of these, 11.6 million tokens, or 53.2%, effectively died during 2025, making it a historic outlier for attrition in the digital asset space.

The scale of these crypto project failures illustrates how quickly many new listings disappeared from trading activity or investor interest. However, it also highlights how low-friction issuance tools and aggressive speculation distorted the apparent growth of the sector.

Low-effort launches and meme coin frenzy drove failures

2025 saw more than eight times as many project failures as 2024, a spike that coincided with an explosion in ultra-low-effort meme coins, pump-and-dump launches, and automated token factories across multiple chains.

Networks such as Solana (SOL), Base, and BNB were particularly flooded during the 2025 cycle. Many of the new tokens listed there survived only briefly and registered minimal liquidity or trading depth before activity evaporated.

Analyst Shaun Paul Lee attributed the wave of failures largely to launch platforms that slashed the cost and complexity of issuing coins. In his view, launchpads like pump.fun created conditions where thousands of experimental or purely speculative tokens could appear daily.

These launchpad enabled tokens often recorded only a handful of trades before fading entirely. That said, the same infrastructure that fueled the meme coin explosion also made it harder for investors to distinguish credible projects from opportunistic cash grabs.

Lee argued that the 2025 cycle showed how a powerful crypto wipeout can follow periods when issuance grows faster than transparency, due diligence, or user education. This structural mismatch helped turn many new listings into statistical noise rather than sustainable ecosystems.

Q4 2025 became the worst quarter on record

The report singles out the final quarter of 2025 as the most destructive period for new crypto tokens. In only three months, 7.7 million tokens failed, representing roughly 35% of all token deaths recorded since 2021.

One of the key triggers was a violent market event on October 10, when a liquidation cascade erased $19 billion in leveraged positions in a single day. Moreover, Lee described it as the largest deleveraging event the industry has ever seen.

The shock accelerated losses for thinly traded tokens and fragile projects that depended on speculative flows. Many assets tied to pump and dump schemes or heavily leveraged bets simply collapsed, never recovering liquidity or user interest after the cascade.

In comparison, 2021 looked relatively benign. The same CoinGecko analysis counted only 2,584 project failures that year, before the number jumped dramatically to 1.3 million in 2024 and then soared again in 2025.

Market quality and trader sentiment under pressure

The sharp escalation in dead projects has left traders uneasy about overall market quality. However, the data also reflects how easily superficial narratives and quick-profit speculation can crowd out utility-focused development.

Many observers fear that the sheer volume of abandoned tokens has made the landscape harder to navigate, as credible teams compete for attention with short-lived experiments and aggressive promotional campaigns.

The dead cryptocurrencies report further notes that retail participation is waning. For instance, crypto YouTube viewership has dropped to its lowest point since early 2021, signaling fatigue with bots, hype-driven channels, and predatory tactics.

Moreover, this decline in engagement suggests that many users are stepping back to reassess risk rather than chase the latest hot listing. Traders appear increasingly wary of markets dominated by schemes that offer little real innovation or long-term value.

In summary, the 2025 wipeout of more than 11 million tokens underscored the risks of frictionless issuance, excessive leverage, and speculative manias, while reigniting debate over how to restore trust and quality in the crypto ecosystem.