Summary
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Explosive Growth: The number of new crypto projects listed on GeckoTerminal surged by over 1,500% between 2021 and early 2025, growing from roughly 428,000 to nearly 7 million.
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Pump.fun as Catalyst: CoinGecko attributes much of this growth to the Solana-based platform Pump.fun, which dramatically simplified the token creation process, leading to a proliferation of meme coins and low-effort projects.
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Majority Fail: Despite the massive increase in launches, over half (52.7% or 3.7 million) of the projects listed on GeckoTerminal since 2021 have failed and ceased trading.
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Recent Failure Spike: Project failures accelerated significantly in early 2025, with 1.8 million tokens collapsing in Q1 alone (nearly half the total failures since 2021), potentially linked to broader market turbulence around that time.
Explosion in Token Creation
The number of new cryptocurrency projects launched has surged dramatically over the past four years, increasing by more than 1,500%, according to data compiled by market aggregator CoinGecko.
According to their recent report, the decentralized exchange (DEX) monitoring platform GeckoTerminal tracked and listed only 428,383 new crypto projects in 2021.
By 2025, however, this figure had ballooned to nearly 7 million projects.
Pump.fun Identified as Key Catalyst
CoinGecko attributes a large portion of this exponential growth to the emergence of Pump.fun.
This platform, built on the Solana (SOL) blockchain, serves as a launchpad that simplifies the process for users to deploy new cryptocurrencies, particularly meme coins, without requiring extensive technical skills or significant financial investment.
Supporting this observation, data from the crypto analytics firm Dune reveals that Pump.fun has facilitated the launch of over 10 million distinct tokens since commencing operations last year.
CoinGecko stated, “Much of this jump can be attributed to the launch of pump.fun, which simplified the process of creating tokens, leading to a flood of meme coins and low-effort projects entering the market.”
High Failure Rate Accompanies Growth
Despite the explosion in project creation, sustainability has been a major issue.
The CoinGecko report reveals that a majority of these newly launched projects have not survived.
Of the nearly 7 million cryptocurrencies listed on GeckoTerminal since 2021, approximately 3.7 million have ceased trading and are now considered failed ventures.
This represents an overall failure rate of 52.7% for all cryptocurrencies tracked on GeckoTerminal during this period. The report notes that most of these failures occurred during 2024 and early 2025.
Recent Surge in Project Collapses
The trend of project failure intensified recently.
In the first quarter of 2025 alone, an estimated 1.8 million tokens collapsed.
This single-quarter figure represents nearly half (49.7%) of the total recorded project failures spanning from 2021 through early 2025.
CoinGecko suggests a potential correlation between this recent decline in token survivability and broader instability within the cryptocurrency market.
The report specifically mentions the downturn observed in the crypto market around the time of Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration in January 2025.
Also Read: Pump.fun Reinstates Livestreaming with Enhanced Content Moderation After Suspension
Pump.fun, a popular platform for launching meme coins on Solana, has reactivated its live streaming feature for a limited number of users, initially 5%, after a suspension due to problematic content. The platform has introduced a new content moderation policy, which prohibits harmful content like violence, harassment, and illegal activities but allows NSFW content under certain conditions. Pump.fun will exercise discretion in content moderation and enforce the new rules through stream termination and account suspension, with an appeal process available. The policy aims to mitigate behaviors that could jeopardize user safety and safeguard the platform from content deemed illicit or damaging. It also aims to uphold creativity and freedom of expression while fostering…[Read More]
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