3 weeks ago
The fig of tradable crypto tokens has gone parabolic since 2022, with CoinMarketCap present tracking astir 18.9 cardinal integer assets, compared to a small implicit 20,000 successful 2022.
In January of that year, astir 20,000 assets were listed crossed large trackers. By mid-2025, that beingness swelled to an estimated 18.9 million, an astonishing 945x summation successful conscionable 3 and a fractional years.
The surge isn’t evenly distributed, arsenic 3 high-throughput networks are liable for astir 90% of the caller supply: Solana, Base, and BNB, driven by debased fees, turnkey launchpads, and a civilization of accelerated experimentation.
The 3 kings
Solana is the epicenter. Over the past twelvemonth alone, the concatenation saw connected the bid of 18 cardinal caller tokens minted arsenic memecoin factories and no-code issuers lowered the obstruction to instauration to pennies.
Pump.fun has produced astir 11.4 cardinal SPL tokens by precocious July 2025, according to the Dune dashboard by idiosyncratic oladee, which tracks the app’s on-chain mints. That’s up from astir 8.7 cardinal successful March 2025, adding astir 2.7 cardinal successful 4 months, up by 31%.
The number exceeds the combined caller token number connected Base, BSC, Tron, Polygon, Optimism, Arbitrum, and Ethereum during the aforesaid period.
The effect is simply a torrent of micro-cap assets, astir launched for fun, virality, oregon speculation, and galore ne'er progressing beyond a fewer wallets and a shallow liquidity pool.
Base has emerged arsenic the fastest follower. In hardly a year, developers and creators deployed much than 8.4 cardinal fungible tokens connected the network.
Creator coin tooling tied to Zora ignited a accelerated mint rhythm connected Coinbase’s L2. A Dune dashboard by idiosyncratic Sealaunch reported implicit 1.5 cardinal creator coins minted successful 2025, arsenic the exemplary spread, with overmuch of this enactment centered connected Base pursuing its integration into the Base App.
In precocious July, Base concisely outpaced Solana by regular token number arsenic “content coins” turned societal posts into micro-tokens astatine scale.
Binance Smart Chain (BSC), which pioneered the cheap-token roar successful 2021, continues to importantly lend to caller token launches.
BscScan’s token tracker lists astir 4.7 cardinal BEP-20 token contracts connected BNB Chain, the ecosystem that BSC is portion of. This highlights its relation arsenic a mass-mint venue for fungible assets.
While its stock of caller issuance has faded comparative to Solana and Base, BSC remains a go-to venue for fast, low-cost launches.
Liquidity per token shrinks
The drawback to this Cambrian detonation is liquidity. Capital simply hasn’t kept gait with supply. Average stablecoin liquidity per token has collapsed from astir $1.8 cardinal successful 2021 to astir $5,500 successful aboriginal 2025.
In applicable terms, astir of the 18.9 cardinal tokens are illiquid, thinly traded, and highly susceptible to manipulation. Prices tin rocket oregon crater connected a fewer 100 dollars of flow, and rug-pulls stay a hazard wherever low-effort issuance thrives.
That imbalance is reshaping marketplace structure. Despite the proliferation of assets, worth continues to ore successful a fewer 100 names, with Bitcoin’s and Ethereum’s dominance climbing arsenic superior consolidates into proven networks portion the agelong process languishes.
For teams, the sheer beingness of a token nary longer confers value. Protocols indispensable beryllium durable request by showing users, fees, currency flows, oregon compelling inferior to pull liquidity successful a saturated field.
Networks look their ain trade-offs. High throughput and debased fees empower permissionless creativity but besides invitation spam and churn.
The station Crypto tokens detonate from 20k successful 2022 to 18.9M pursuing launchpad frenzy connected Solana, Base, BSC appeared archetypal connected CryptoSlate.
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