Summary
⚈ 2025 alone accounts for nearly half of all crypto failures, driven by market fear.
⚈ Meme coin platforms and Trump-era volatility accelerated the death rate of crypto projects.
Over half of all cryptocurrency projects have failed.
To be more precise, the percentage is actually 52.7% — as 3.7 million cryptocurrencies listed on GeckoTerminal since 2021 have died, per an April 30 report from crypto market analytics platform CoinGecko.
Alarmingly, the rate of failure seems to be accelerating — as the first quarter of 2025 has already seen 1,821,549 dead projects, an increase of 31.8% compared to the entirety of 2024, which accounted for 1,382,010 failed cryptocurrencies.
Broader market volatility and the meme coin frenzy were outlined as key reasons behind crypto project failures
The report also highlights the rapid growth of the cryptocurrency industry. In 2021, 428,383 projects were listed on GeckoTerminal — by 2025, that number had increased more than sixteen-fold, to almost 7 million.
With 1,821,549 dead projects in 2025, this year already accounts for a stunning 49.7% of all failed cryptocurrencies.
Broader market turbulence on account of Donald Trump’s second presidency was outlined as one of the key factors contributing to the increase in dead cryptocurrencies.
Unlike with traditional assets, retail investors play a much larger role in the cryptocurrency market — so worries regarding a recession or resurgent inflation tend to cause an exodus of traders seeking to diminish their exposure to risky assets. With gold’s recent outperformance, even Bitcoin’s (BTC) role as a hedge and store of value has been brought into question.
Moreover, the launch of meme coin platforms such as pump.fun, has simplified the process of creating and launching tokens — leading to a veritable flood of low-effort projects that aren’t even intended to survive for long, as corroborated by Binance’s findings that 97% of meme coins have died.
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