Token Issuance Failure Rates Hit Record Highs, 21Shares Researcher Says
Token issuance failure rates have reached record levels, according to 21Shares researcher Darius Moukhtarzade, who presented the findings at EthCC on March 31, 2026. The talk, titled “Why Token Launches Fail — and How to Get Them Right in 2026,” laid out a market where the vast majority of newly issued tokens fail to sustain any meaningful trading activity.
Moukhtarzade’s session at EthCC described an industry grappling with extreme oversupply. In official 21Shares research, he documented that the token universe has expanded from roughly 13,000 in 2017 to approximately 42 million today, with platforms like pump.fun at times enabling more than 10,000 new tokens per day.
The sheer volume of new issuance has diluted attention, capital, and liquidity across the market. That fragmentation is now showing up as record-level failure rates across multiple independent datasets.
Why Token Issuance Failure Rates Are Reaching Record Levels
Token issuance failure, in this context, refers to tokens that cease active trading after launch. It does not necessarily mean a technical fault in the token’s smart contract; rather, the token loses all meaningful market participation and effectively dies.
CoinGecko research updated on January 12, 2026 found that 53.2% of all cryptocurrencies listed on GeckoTerminal have failed. In 2025 alone, 11.6 million token failures were recorded, accounting for 86.3% of all failures between 2021 and 2025.
The pattern extends to on-chain data. Chainalysis reported that of the more than 2.06 million tokens launched in 2024, only about 873,957 reached a decentralized exchange. Just 1.7% of launched tokens were actively traded within the prior 30 days at the time of the report.
Of those 2024 launches, roughly 74,037 tokens, or 3.59%, matched suspected pump-and-dump patterns according to the same Chainalysis analysis. The data suggests that a significant share of new issuance is not just failing but may be designed to extract value from early buyers before abandonment.
Cointelegraph reported in May 2025 that nearly 7 million cryptocurrencies had been listed since 2021, with over 3.7 million having already stopped trading. In Q1 2025 alone, 1.8 million token failures were recorded.
What Moukhtarzade’s EthCC Remarks Suggest About Token Launch Conditions
EthCC, one of Europe’s largest Ethereum ETH +0.00% -focused conferences, provided the stage for Moukhtarzade to frame this not as a memecoin problem but as a structural design failure. His 20-minute talk at the Hepburn Stage focused on why most tokens underperform and what launch models could reverse the trend.
The core argument in his published 21Shares research centers on high fully diluted valuation, low circulating supply launches. These structures give early insiders large allocations while retail participants face immediate dilution as vesting schedules unlock. The result is a token that may briefly spike at launch but steadily bleeds value as supply enters the market.
This dynamic resembles concerns raised in discussions around tighter crypto derivatives rules in Dubai, where regulators are also responding to market structure issues that disadvantage retail participants.
Moukhtarzade’s research points to growing backlash against this model. Projects are increasingly experimenting with community-sale structures through platforms like Legion and Echo, which aim to distribute tokens more broadly at launch rather than concentrating holdings among venture capital investors and team insiders.
The structural shift parallels broader industry efforts to build more transparent infrastructure. Platforms like Trust Wallet’s new prediction markets integration with Myriad reflect a push toward giving users more direct access to on-chain tools rather than relying on intermediary gatekeepers.
What Record Issuance Failures Could Mean for the Crypto Market
For founders, the data signals that launching a token without differentiated utility, credible distribution, and sustainable liquidity plans is now almost certain to fail. The era where a token listing alone could generate lasting market interest appears to be over.
For investors, the failure rate data reinforces the need for sharper screening. When more than half of listed tokens eventually fail and fewer than 2% of launched tokens sustain active trading, due diligence on tokenomics, vesting schedules, and launch structure becomes essential rather than optional.
Exchanges and listing platforms face pressure as well. If the majority of tokens they list eventually become inactive, their curation standards come under scrutiny. The industry conversation at events like EthCC and the upcoming Blockchain Futurist Conference in Toronto increasingly centers on what responsible listing and launch standards should look like.
Moukhtarzade’s research also flags a regulatory dimension. He argues that clearer regulation, particularly the EU’s MiCA framework and improving SEC clarity around crypto assets and token-holder profit sharing, could support healthier community-sale launches. Regulatory certainty may allow projects to design token structures that include profit-sharing mechanisms currently avoided due to securities classification risk.
The record failure rates documented across CoinGecko, Chainalysis, and 21Shares research all point to the same conclusion: the market is producing far more tokens than it can absorb. Whether community-sale models and regulatory clarity can reverse the trend is the question Moukhtarzade posed at EthCC, and one the industry will be testing through the rest of 2026.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial or investment advice. Cryptocurrency and digital asset markets carry significant risk. Always do your own research before making decisions.
