More than 53% of all cryptocurrency tokens launched since 2021 are now inactive, according to a new analysis by CoinGecko.
The study found that over 13.4 million tokens were erased between mid-2021 and the end of 2025.
Nearly 20.2 million tokens entered the market during that period, with 53.2% no longer actively traded.
A total of 11.6 million token failures occurred in 2025 alone, accounting for 86.3% of all project collapses in the past five years.
The surge in failed projects was driven by low-effort meme coins and experimental tokens launched through platforms such as pump.fun.
These launchpads lowered barriers to token creation, resulting in speculative assets with little or no long-term development.
Many of these tokens never made it past a handful of trades before disappearing.
CoinGecko analyst Shaun Paul Lee said.
The fourth quarter of 2025 marked the worst period, with 7.7 million tokens failing in just three months.
This collapse followed an October 10 liquidation cascade that wiped out $19 billion in leveraged crypto positions in a single day.
It was the largest deleveraging event in crypto history.
Lee said, adding that it severely shook already fragile markets.
By comparison, only 2,584 crypto projects failed in 2021, rising to more than 1.3 million in 2024 before exploding in 2025.
The data highlights how crypto’s open-access model can rapidly lead to oversaturation and mass project failure.