TLDR
- More than 84% of tokens launched in 2025 are trading below their initial price with median losses of 70%.
- Projects with initial valuations (FDV) exceeding $1 billion recorded a 0% success rate.
- The derivative DEX sector, driven by Hyperliquid, was the only category with extraordinary gains.
Retail investors have found the cryptocurrency market to be hostile ground in 2025. This is confirmed by the most recent Memento Research report, indicating that out of 118 launches analyzed, the vast majority of new assets failed to reward their early buyers.
The data is overwhelming: only 18 tokens in the sample remain in the green; the rest have suffered massive capital erosion. The study’s main conclusion is that token launch performance in 2025 was inversely related to the projects’ initial valuation.
The Billion-Dollar Valuation Trap
The results of Memento’s research reveal that proposals with the most hype and enormous fully diluted valuations (FDV) performed the worst. While an equal-weighted basket of tokens fell by 33%, the FDV-weighted basket plummeted by 61%, proving that large-scale launches were the biggest value destroyers.
A clear example is Plasma, a Layer 1 blockchain that reached an FDV of $17 billion before collapsing to $1.2 billion.
The data suggests that success lay in moderation. Projects that debuted with an FDV between $25 million and $200 million showed the best token launch performance in 2025, with 40% of them still in the green.
In contrast, among the 28 projects that launched with a valuation exceeding $1 billion, none have managed to maintain gains, recording a median drop of 81%.
Regarding sectors, decentralized exchange (DEX) platforms for perpetual contracts led the market with 200% increases, thanks to the momentum of Hyperliquid. Conversely, the decentralized science (DeSci) and stablecoin sectors were the hardest hit, with average losses of 93% and 70%, respectively.
In summary, token launch performance in 2025 functioned as a valuation “reset,” where excessive initial ambition was severely punished by the market
