A new report from CoinGecko has revealed the staggering scale of cryptocurrency project failures in recent years. According to their study, more than half of all digital tokens ever created are now inactive. Out of nearly 20.2 million tokens listed on GeckoTerminal, over 10 million have already disappeared, marking a death rate of 53.2%.
The year 2025 was particularly devastating for the crypto market. Analysts note that 11.6 million projects failed during this period alone, representing 86.3% of all project closures recorded between 2021 and 2025. This surge in failures coincided with heightened market volatility and extreme events, particularly affecting smaller and meme-based tokens.
The collapse was further intensified by a historic liquidation cascade on October 10, 2025, which wiped out $19 billion in leveraged positions in just 24 hours. Market watchers describe this as the largest single-day deleveraging in crypto history, which directly contributed to the sharp decline in token survivability, particularly in the fourth quarter, which alone saw 7.7 million token failures, or 34.9% of all recorded project closures.
Token Boom and Meme Coin Surge
Despite the high failure rate, the total number of cryptocurrency projects has continued to grow rapidly. In 2021, GeckoTerminal recorded 428,383 projects, but by 2025, the number had ballooned to nearly 20.2 million. The surge is largely driven by the ease of launching new tokens on blockchain launchpads, which has encouraged the creation of thousands of low-effort meme coins and other speculative projects.
Market analysts suggest that this flood of new projects has intensified competition and diluted investor attention. Many of these tokens were launched with minimal development or real-world utility, making them highly vulnerable to market swings and investor sell-offs. The trend highlights a growing divide between serious blockchain projects and short-term speculative ventures.
Historical Trends Show Growing Market Volatility
Looking at the broader five-year picture, cryptocurrency project failures have accelerated dramatically. Between 2021 and 2023, failures accounted for just 3.4% of all recorded closures. In 2024, the market saw 1.4 million project failures, roughly 10.3% of the total, coinciding with over 3 million new token launches. But the explosive collapse in 2025 dwarfs previous years, underlining the extreme risks of the current crypto ecosystem.
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