Memecoin launch platforms such as pump.fun flooded the crypto market in 2025 with millions of low-effort tokens, contributing to an unprecedented surge in failed cryptocurrency projects.
Heightened volatility across the crypto market hit memecoins especially hard last year, pushing the total number of token failures above 11.6 million in 2025, the highest annual figure on record. According to a report released on Friday by CoinGecko research analyst Shaun Paul Lee, the fourth quarter proved particularly damaging.
Lee noted that roughly 7.7 million tokens listed on GeckoTerminal stopped trading during Q4 alone. He pointed to the sharp market selloff on October 10 — when more than $19 billion in leveraged positions were liquidated in a single day — as a major trigger.
The scale of failures marked a dramatic increase compared with previous years. In 2024, around 1.3 million crypto projects failed, while in 2021 the number stood at just 2,584. CoinGecko defines a failed cryptocurrency as one that was once actively traded on GeckoTerminal but has since seen trading activity disappear.
Memecoins are widely viewed as one of the riskiest segments of the crypto market, with their boom-and-bust cycles often reflecting how much risk investors are willing to take during different market phases.
Token launchpads fuel oversupply
Another key factor behind the spike in failures was the sheer volume of new tokens created in 2025. Data from GeckoTerminal shows that the number of listed tokens jumped from about 3 million at the end of 2024 to roughly 20 million by the end of 2025.
Lee highlighted the launch of pump.fun on the Solana ecosystem in January 2024 as a major driver of this expansion. He said the platform dramatically lowered the barriers to creating new tokens, leading to an influx of low-effort memecoins and speculative projects.
Before the emergence of such launchpads, total crypto project failures typically remained in the low six figures. Lee added that failures recorded between 2021 and 2023 accounted for just 3.4% of all cryptocurrency failures over the past five years.
Memecoin market shows renewed activity
Despite the high failure rate, memecoins entered 2026 with renewed momentum. According to CoinMarketCap, total memecoin market capitalization climbed from $38 billion on December 29 to $47.7 billion by January 5, before easing back to around $43.7 billion as of Monday.
Transaction activity also surged, with memecoin trading volumes jumping nearly 300% over the same period, rising from $2.17 billion to $8.7 billion. Although volumes have since cooled to about $3.69 billion, daily transaction value was still up more than 34% on Monday, signaling lingering speculative interest in the sector.
