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According to recent analysis from Galaxy Research, 72 of the top 100 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization are currently trading at least 50% below their all-time highs as of early November 2025.
This reflects ongoing market pressures, including the aftermath of the 2021 bull cycle hype, failed projects, and token dilution from unlocks. Large-cap standouts: A small group of leaders like Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Binance Coin (BNB), and LEO Token are within 30% of their peaks, showing relative resilience.
Mid- and small-cap struggles: Assets such as Filecoin (FIL), The Graph (GRT), Tezos (XTZ), and Polkadot (DOT) remain 80–95% below ATHs, highlighting challenges in sectors like gaming, AI agents, and overvalued memecoins.
Of nearly 7 million tokens launched since 2021, about 3.7 million have failed, with 1.8 million collapsing in Q1 2025 alone—largely due to easy-launch platforms like pump.fun flooding the market with low-quality projects.
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This distribution underscores why a full “altseason” rally has been elusive this cycle: too many tokens competing for attention and liquidity. Investors may want to focus on established names or those with strong fundamentals amid the volatility.
The cryptocurrency ecosystem has seen explosive growth, but it’s equally littered with failures. As of November 2025, out of nearly 7 million tokens launched since 2021, approximately 3.7 million (over 52%) have “died”—meaning they’ve ceased trading, been delisted, or become inactive due to low liquidity, scams, or abandonment.
This year alone has been brutal, with 1.8 million projects failing in the first quarter, the highest single-year rate on record. Platforms like pump.fun, which democratized token launches in 2024, fueled a meme coin frenzy but also amplified low-effort projects prone to collapse.
Failures aren’t new—over 14,000 “dead coins” have been tracked since 2014—but recent data shows a maturing market where survival rates are improving slightly (e.g., under 10% failure in 2023 vs. 70% in 2021).
Yet, in the last two months of mid-2025, 10.5% of active projects vanished due to shutdowns, rug pulls, and illiquidity. Pump.fun boom created 1M+ meme coins; most lacked utility.
Highest quarterly failures; market volatility post-inauguration. 99% of dead coins had low trading volume on pump.fun. Crypto projects flop for a mix of internal and external factors.
Lack of Utility or Real-World Adoption (42%): Many tokens launch with hype but no sustainable use case. Meme coins, for instance, rely on speculation and fade quickly—over 50% of 2024’s launches were memes that collapsed.
Scams and Rug Pulls (29%): Founders abandon projects after draining liquidity. In 2025, rug pulls accounted for a surge, with 92% of blockchain projects dying within a year due to bad actors.
Celebrity-endorsed coins (e.g., those tied to Trump family ventures) have been called out as 90%+ down, labeled scams. Bear markets expose weak fundamentals. Even VC-backed projects fail at 75% rates, often running out of cash or misreading demand.
Post-2025 inauguration volatility hit altcoins hard. Projects like Telegram’s TON halted due to SEC scrutiny. Inactive development (e.g., unupdated websites or socials) signals doom—99% of failures show this.
Oversaturation: With 37M+ unique tokens by September 2025 heading to 100M by year-end, competition is fierce. Only ~415 are listed on major exchanges like Binance.
Algorithmic stablecoin depegged in 2022 crash due to over-leverage; no real backing. $40B+ wiped out; largest single failure. Relic; new version (LUNA 2.0) trades at <1% of ATH, considered dead by most trackers.
Ponzi scheme promising 1% daily returns; collapsed amid fraud allegations. $3B+ investor losses; founders faced charges. Fully defunct; a cautionary tale for “guaranteed returns.”
Tied to collapsed exchange; liquidity crisis exposed mismanagement. $8B+ in user funds lost; Sam Bankman-Fried convicted. Token worthless; exchange bankruptcy ongoing. Scalability-focused but sank due to market indifference and poor adoption. Market cap <5% of peak; ongoing value erosion. Still trading but “failed” by performance metrics; down 95%+ from ATH.
Generic Pump.fun Memecoins (e.g., thousands unnamed). Low-effort launches; no utility beyond virality. 1.4M+ failures in 2024 alone. Bulk delisted; examples like “Peanut the Squirrel” up 4,800% then -57%.
Other mentions include QuadrigaCX exchange failure with $190M locked in cold wallet after CEO’s death and countless 2021 ICOs like BTCST. These failures highlight crypto’s “survival of the fittest” dynamic—good for weeding out junk but brutal for retail investors.
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