Exchange Listing Performance - June 2025

Introduction

We believe that a token’s debut on secondary markets marks a critical inflection point in its lifecycle. This moment reveals real-world demand, market sentiment, and community engagement, while also reflecting broader market conditions. For most tokens, this is when organic trading volume peaks and the foundation for meaningful price discovery is laid.

Using exchange data and publicly accessible sources, we evaluate the relative performance and impact of each exchange. Our analysis centers on key indicators such as the number of qualified listings, performance outliers (both winners and losers), average all-time high (ATH) multiples, and other time-based return metrics. The goal is to offer a comprehensive view of how tokens perform across different platforms over time.

In recent months, we’ve expanded our dataset to cover 2,077 listings from January 2023 to June 2025. As of June 2025, the market environment remains uncertain, with participants still grappling with a lack of clear directional conviction.

Sharp Decline in Listing Activity in Mid-2025

From February 2025 onwards, the data reveals a significant slowdown in primary listing activity compared to the previous six months. While January 2025 still maintained high activity with 94 unique projects listed, the number sharply declined to 45 in February, and continued tapering off through March (59), April (37), May (48), and finally plunging to just 9 listings in June 2025—the lowest monthly figure since the dataset began in January 2023. This marks a stark reversal from the period between October and December 2024, which saw elevated activity with 70 to 102 listings per month, likely fueled by U.S. election-related speculative trading.

Exchange-wise, Gate remained the most active venue through early 2025, consistently posting the highest number of listings, including 77 in January and still maintaining 35–37 listings per month until May. However, even Gate saw a near-complete halt by June 2025, with only 1 primary listing. KuCoin and OKX, both of which expanded their listing activity aggressively in late 2024, also saw substantial pullbacks: KuCoin peaked with 35 listings in January, but dropped to 3 by June, while OKX declined from 5 in January to 2 in June. Binance, though never a high-frequency lister, maintained relatively steady activity in early 2025, but only listed 1 project in June, suggesting even top-tier platforms are becoming more selective.

Notably, Kraken—which had ramped up significantly in Q1 2025 with as many as 11 listings in March—also pulled back to just 3 in June. This broad decline across all platforms, paired with the drastic drop in overall unique projects listed, suggests that both exchanges and projects have turned cautious in response to increasing market uncertainty, lower risk appetite, or potentially weaker post-listing performance. The data clearly marks June 2025 as a local bottom in listing activity, contrasting sharply with the exuberance seen in late 2024.

Bybit Dominates in Listing Outcomes, Binance Underwhelms

Next, we analyze listing performance by exchange for the period from January to June 2025.

The data highlights stark differences in listing performance across exchanges. Bybit leads decisively, with a 67.2% win rate and the highest average ATH multiple of 11.72x, indicating strong initial demand and sustained momentum.

In contrast, Binance, despite its top-tier reputation, shows only a 29.2% win rate. While its listings achieve solid ATHs (6.03x on average), few sustain gains beyond the first 24 hours, suggesting that high visibility doesn’t always translate to lasting performance.

Kraken appears to underperform at first glance, with a win rate of just 2.9%, but this is partly due to its listings often being follow-ons—launched hours after other exchanges when most price discovery has already occurred. These delayed listings limit upside potential and skew performance metrics downward. When we exclude such follow-on listings and focus only on Kraken-led or simultaneous launches, the picture improves: the win rate rises to 7.7% across 13 listings, with a more representative ATH multiple of 2.56x, a 24H multiple of 1.24x, and a 7D multiple of 1.25x.

Gate, despite listing the most tokens (212), also shows a weak 13.7% win rate, reinforcing that volume does not equal quality.

KuCoin and OKX sit in the middle, with moderate win rates (33.3% and 42.9%) and decent multiples. Overall, the results underscore that exchange selection plays a critical role in determining listing success, with Bybit currently offering the strongest environment for new token launches.

ATH and 24H Multiples Over Time

Between June 2024 and June 2025, listing performance showed no clear overarching trend. For most months, ATH multiples ranged between 4–5x, while 24H multiples remained within the 2–3x range.

However, a short-lived bull run occurred between September 2024 and January 2025, marked by a sharp increase in listings—from 54 in September to a peak of 139 in January. This surge was accompanied by a general rise in ATH multiples. Notably, this period coincided with an 80%+ increase in BTC price. Yet, BTC dominance held steady at around 58%, indicating that the market rally was broad-based, benefiting both Bitcoin and the wider altcoin space rather than being driven by a single asset class.

Decoupling of Listing Performance from BTC Gains

Between June 2024 and June 2025, the trickle-down effect from short-term BTC price increases to altcoin listing performance appeared to weaken. In contrast to the same period the previous year, when rising BTC 7-day rolling performance was generally accompanied by higher ATH and 24H multiples, this cycle showed a more muted response. While ATH and 24H multiples did rise as BTC’s 7D rolling performance climbed from -20% to 0% (peaking at an ATH multiple of 5.3x when BTC performance was in the -5% to 0% range), both metrics declined as BTC’s momentum continued upward from 0% to above 20%. This suggests that listing performance has become less sensitive to sustained BTC rallies, as recent market behavior indicates a preference among investors to double down on BTC rather than rotate into altcoins during periods of strong BTC momentum.

Binance Alpha Listings: High Exposure, Short-Lived Momentum

Binance Alpha is Binance’s premier launch platform aimed at spotlighting high-quality, early-stage crypto projects. For teams looking to gain instant credibility, deep liquidity, and global exposure, Binance Alpha offers a highly compelling route to market. Listing on the platform provides immediate access to Binance’s vast user base, robust trading infrastructure, and marketing reach, which can significantly boost a project’s visibility and trading volume from day one. This often results in strong initial price discovery and momentum, attracting both retail and institutional interest.

However, these benefits come with meaningful trade-offs. A key feature of Binance Alpha listings is the large-scale airdrop distribution to Binance users, which, while effective in generating hype and participation, often introduces substantial short-term sell pressure. Many recipients of these airdrops have no long-term commitment to the project and may immediately offload tokens to capture quick profits. This dynamic can extract significant value from the project’s circulating supply, dampening post-listing performance and price sustainability. Additionally, the sheer scale of attention can skew early price action and create a disconnect between speculative demand and long-term fundamentals. 

To analyze the performance of Binance Alpha primary listings, we compiled data on all projects launched on the platform between April and June 2025. During this period, a total of 65 projects were listed through Binance Alpha.

While the average all-time high (ATH) multiple of 2.17x indicates some short-term upside post-listing, the rapid decline to 0.94x by day 7 and 0.71x by day 30 suggests that most tokens failed to maintain momentum, often falling below their listing price within a month. This pattern supports a key criticism of Binance Alpha: the large-scale airdrops generate early hype and liquidity but introduce significant sell pressure that can quickly extract value from the project’s circulating supply.

The volume trends further reinforce this view. The initial 24-hour volume of $557,050 reflects concentrated early activity, likely from airdrop recipients and speculative traders. Interestingly, volume increases to over $1 million by day 7, which may be partially attributed to Binance Alpha’s “trade-to-earn” incentive program, where users accumulate Alpha Points based on trading activity. However, by day 30, volume drops sharply to just $253,187, indicating waning interest and liquidity once incentives fade and the initial hype dissipates. 

This underscores the challenge for projects launching on Binance Alpha: while the platform delivers strong early exposure, sustaining meaningful engagement and price stability remains a major hurdle.

Concluding Thoughts

Our analysis of over 2,000 listings from January 2023 to June 2025 highlights the importance of exchange selection and market context in determining post-listing performance. Bybit stands out with the highest ATH multiples and win rate, while Binance, despite its reputation, delivers more mixed results. Kraken and Gate underperform, showing that volume and brand alone do not guarantee success.

The sharp decline in listings from February to June 2025 reflects rising caution amid market uncertainty, with fewer projects launching and reduced investor appetite. Additionally, the weakening correlation between BTC rallies and altcoin listing performance suggests a shift in capital allocation—investors are increasingly choosing to stay concentrated in BTC during uptrends.

Platforms like Binance Alpha offer strong early exposure but face challenges in sustaining momentum, as airdrops and incentive-driven trading often lead to rapid value extraction. As the market matures, both projects and exchanges will need to prioritize long-term alignment over short-term hype.