Author: Shaun Paul Lee

Translation: TechFlow

How Many Cryptocurrencies Have Died?

According to data from GeckoTerminal, 53.2% of cryptocurrency projects have failed, with the majority of these failures concentrated in 2025. In that year alone, 11.6 million token projects came to an end, accounting for 86.3% of all failed projects. This phenomenon is closely tied to the market's extreme volatility throughout the year, particularly impacting the memecoin sector.

The sharp decline in token survival rates may be linked to sustained market turbulence over the year, especially within the meme coin space.

Shockingly, 7.7 million token projects collapsed in just the fourth quarter of 2025, representing 34.9% of all failed projects. This dramatic downturn was closely tied to a "liquidation cascade" event on October 10. During this record-breaking incident, leveraged positions worth up to $19 billion were liquidated within 24 hours—the largest single-day deleveraging event in cryptocurrency history.

Despite the exceptional market turbulence in 2025, the total number of cryptocurrency projects surged dramatically. From 428,383 projects on GeckoTerminal in 2021, the number skyrocketed to nearly 20.2 million by 2025. This growth is largely attributed to the rise of various token creation platforms, making it extremely easy to launch low-quality memecoins and projects.

86.3% of Failed Cryptocurrencies Died in 2025

As of December 31, 2025, a total of 11.6 million cryptocurrency projects had failed, setting a new annual record for project failures. These accounted for 86.3% of all failed projects between 2021 and 2025.

Trailing behind was 2024, when approximately 1.4 million projects failed, representing 10.3% of total failures over the past five years. 2024 was also the second-highest peak in terms of new project launches, with over 3 million new projects entering the market. However, prior to the launch of the pump.fun platform in 2024, cryptocurrency failure counts remained relatively low at six-digit levels. In contrast, the total number of failed projects between 2021 and 2023 accounted for only 3.4% of the past five years' cumulative failures.

Annual Breakdown: Cryptocurrency Failure Data

Below is the annual count of failed cryptocurrency projects from 2021 to 2025:

Methodology

This study analyzed tokens and cryptocurrency projects (collectively referred to as “cryptocurrencies”) that were listed on GeckoTerminal between July 1, 2021, and December 31, 2025, but are no longer actively trading. These projects were classified as “failed” or “dead” and grouped based on the year of their last active trade.

• Only tokens that conducted at least one trade before failure were included.
• Additionally, only tokens that had already “graduated” from the pump.fun platform were counted.