Memecoin carnage: 11.6M tokens failed in 2025 as launchpads and a major crash flooded the market
Crypto market turbulence in 2025 drove a record wave of memecoin failures. CoinGecko’s GeckoTerminal recorded about 11.6 million tokens ceasing active trading during the year, with 7.7 million failing in Q4 alone. The October 10 market crash — which triggered roughly $19 billion of liquidations — was a major catalyst. New token issuance exploded: GeckoTerminal listings rose from ~3 million at end-2024 to about 20 million by end-2025. Low-barrier launch platforms such as pump.fun on Solana lowered costs for creating memecoins and flooded markets with low-quality, speculative tokens. Despite heavy attrition, aggregate memecoin market cap and volumes showed short-term strength — market cap rose from $38bn (Dec 29) to $47.7bn (Jan 5) before easing to about $43.7bn, and trading volume briefly jumped roughly 300% — underscoring episodic speculative flow even amid high failure rates. For traders, the takeaways are clear: memecoin issuance and survivability risks have surged, increasing counterparty, rug-pull and illiquidity risks for newly launched tokens; volatility creates speculative short-term opportunities but demands stricter due diligence, deeper liquidity checks and position-sizing to manage downside risk.
Bearish
The news points to a net negative price impact for memecoins overall. A record number of token failures (11.6M) and a concentrated Q4 collapse increase perceived and real tail risks: higher rates of rug pulls, delistings and illiquidity. Rapid token supply growth from ~3M to ~20M dilutes attention and liquidity across a much larger base of low-quality tokens, reducing average token survivability and buyer confidence. The October 10 leveraged-liquidation event amplified volatility and likely accelerated delistings, raising short-term selling pressure and risk premia. While headline market-cap and volume spikes show episodic speculative inflows (which can temporarily lift prices), these are transient and concentrated in a shrinking set of liquid tokens. For traders: expect elevated volatility and asymmetric downside risk in newly launched memecoins — short-term trading opportunities exist but carry elevated execution and counterparty risk; longer term, the oversupply and higher failure rate are bearish for the broader memecoin cohort as capital reallocates toward fewer, more liquid projects.