Coingecko Data: 11.5 million projects will die by 2025, the most devastating year in cryptocurrency history

Author: Shaun Paul Lee

Translation: Deep潮 TechFlow

How many cryptocurrencies have “died” already?

According to GeckoTerminal data, 53.2% of crypto projects have declared failure, with most of these failures concentrated in 2025. In 2025 alone, 11.6 million token projects came to an end, accounting for 86.3% of all failed projects. This phenomenon is closely related to the intense market volatility throughout the year, especially the significant impact on the memecoin sector.

The sharp decline in the survival rate of these tokens may be linked to the market turbulence experienced throughout the year, particularly affecting the meme coin space.

Shockingly, in the fourth quarter of 2025 alone, 7.7 million token projects collapsed, representing 34.9% of all failures. This sharp drop is closely related to the “liquidation chain reaction” that occurred on October 10. During this record-breaking event, leverage positions worth up to $19 billion were liquidated within 24 hours, making it the largest single-day deleveraging in cryptocurrency history.

Despite the extraordinary market turbulence in 2025, the total number of crypto projects has surged dramatically. From 428,383 projects on GeckoTerminal in 2021 to nearly 20.2 million projects in 2025. This growth is mainly due to the rise of various token issuance platforms, making it extremely easy to create low-quality memecoins and projects.

86.3% of cryptocurrencies died in 2025

As of December 31, 2025, a total of 11.6 million crypto projects failed, setting a new record for the number of failed projects in a single year. These failed projects account for 86.3% of all failures from 2021 to 2025.

Following closely is 2024, with approximately 1.4 million projects failing that year, representing 10.3% of the total failures over the past five years. 2024 was also the second peak year for the growth of crypto projects, with over 3 million new projects entering the market. However, before the launch of the pump.fun platform, the number of failed cryptocurrencies remained in the low six figures. In comparison, the total number of failed projects from 2021 to 2023 only accounts for 3.4% of the failures over the past five years.

By Year: Crypto Project Failure Data

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

Research Methodology

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

Only tokens that had at least one trade before failing are included.

Additionally, only tokens that have “graduated” on the pump.fun platform are considered.