Market Narratives Through the Lens of CEX Listings

Centralized exchanges continue to account for over 88% of crypto trading volume and remain the primary hub for user activity. CEX listings analysis provides one of the clearest signals of emerging market narratives. This research explores how exchange priorities have evolved, which narratives have gained or lost momentum, and how listing behavior reflects broader shifts in the crypto market.

Methodology

This research is based on listing and delisting data from CryptoRank, covering 10,110 token listings and 4,005 delistings across 10 major centralized exchanges: Binance, Bybit, OKX, Bitget, Gate, MEXC, KuCoin, HTX, Kraken, and Crypto.com.

Categories. Each token is classified by its CryptoRank categorysector (DeFi, Meme, GameFi, AI, Tokenized Assets, RWA, Stablecoin, Blockchain, and others). Tokens without a defined category, along with wrapped and uncategorized assets, are grouped under "Others."

Data coverage. Listing data is well-populated across all 10 exchanges from late 2022 onward. Delisting data becomes reliable from 2024, when 8 of the 10 exchanges began reporting consistently.; 

Notes: MEXC, in particular, almost never reports its delistings, so it was effectively excluded from delisting-based analysis. 

Less Hype, More Utility: How 2026 Listings Shifted 

In Q2 2026, exchanges shifted listings toward blockchain infrastructure (64 listings) and DeFi (46 listings) tokens over speculative assets, reflecting a broader move toward projects with demonstrated utility. Tokenized assets, covering equities, commodities, and real-world assets, ranked third with 42 listings as exchanges sought exposure to TradFi instruments.

Source: CryptoRank API

Beneath that leaderboard, the speculative end of the market lost momentum. Meme and GameFi, the two categories that had defined the previous hype cycle, both saw their new listings fall quarter after quarter from their 2024-2025 peaks.

Taken together, the shift points to a more selective market, where exchanges leaning toward projects tied to real usage rather than the meme speculation that defined the previous cycle.

CEX Listing Category Share: State of 2025 vs H1 2026

The biggest shift in exchange listing activity was a switch towards Tokenized Assets, which became the most-listed category in H1 2026. In H1 2026, nearly every 5th listed token was a tokenized asset. By contrast, in 2025, less than 7% of listings were tokenized assets. 

Source: CryptoRank API

The growth was driven primarily by tokenized stocks. Most new listings came from a small number of issuers, including xStocks, bStocks, and Ondo's tokenized markets. This represents a clear shift from the Meme tokens that dominated the previous cycle, with exchanges increasingly listing tokenized versions of traditional financial assets.

Meme Listings Return to Pre-Memecraze Levels

Memecoin listings have declined for six consecutive quarters. In Q4 2024 exchanges listed 196 memecoins, but in Q2 2026 there were only 41 new listings in this category. Which is a 79% decline from the peak. This is the lowest quarterly total since Q3 2023, before the memecoin craze began.

Source: CryptoRank API

GameFi Listings Down 84% Since the Q2 2024 Peak

GameFi was one of the leading listing narratives throughout 2023 and 2024. However,  listings in this category are down 84% from their peak 2 years ago, reaching just 15 new listings in Q2 2026. This suggests the lowest interest in GameFi tokens since Q3 2023, when only 10 tokens were listed across analyzed exchanges.

Source: CryptoRank API

The CEX Delisting Landscape 

Quarterly delistings have increased sharply over the past two years. After rising from just 67 in Q1 2024 to a record 786 in Q2 2025, a spike driven largely by Gate's mass token removals, delisting activity has stabilized at around 400–500 tokens per quarter throughout 2026.

Source: CryptoRank API

Top CEXs by Delistings (H1 2026)

Gate dominates CEX delisting activity. The exchange removed 573 tokens in H1 2026, accounting for nearly 60% of all delistings across major CEXs. In Q2 2026 alone, Gate delisted 221 tokens—more than every other tracked exchange combined. By contrast, OKX did not delist a single token during the first half of 2026, although the exchange has also been relatively conservative in adding new listings.

Source: CryptoRank API

Gate's aggressive delisting activity began before the 2025 crypto market peak. The categories it cut most in 2026 were DeFi, GameFi and Meme — the hype sectors of the previous cycle

Previous Cycle Leaders Dominate Delistings

Source: CryptoRank API

Delistings concentrate in the categories that saw the most listings in the previous cycle. In H1 2026, DeFi was the most delisted category (207), followed by GameFi (141) and Meme (98). DeFi's position at the top partly reflects that it was also the most-listed category in 2025.

Most Delisted Token Categories in H1 2026

GameFi stands out among the leading delisting categories. While new GameFi listings have fallen to their lowest level since Q3 2023, the sector remains the second most-delisted category in H1 2026. Exchanges are not only listing fewer GameFi projects – they are also actively removing existing ones.

Source: CryptoRank API

The Shortest-Lived Tokens on Major CEXs

Some tokens lasted only a few weeks or even a single day before being delisted. The table below highlights the ten shortest-lived tokens across major CEXs, ranked by the number of days between listing and delisting. 

It's worth noting that this list is made up almost entirely of the more speculative corners of the market, memecoins, NFTs and GameFi tokens, which tend to launch on hype and fade quickly. Bitget accounts for half of the entries here, though this likely says more about how quickly a given exchange reacts than about the tokens themselves. In several cases the same token stayed listed much longer elsewhere, and was removed only months later on other exchanges, or even still trading today.

CEX Listings Fall to Their Lowest Level Since 2023

Across the entire period from Q1 2024 to Q2 2026, exchanges almost always listed more tokens than they removed. There are only two quarters where delistings exceeded new listings, Q2 2025 and Q2 2026.

Source: CryptoRank API

• In Q2 2025, delistings temporarily exceeded listings after Gate carried out a large-scale wave of token removals. 

• In Q2 2026 new listings fell for a second consecutive quarter to just 351, which is the lowest quarterly total since Q3 2023.

Which Categories Were Cut First After the 2025 Listing Boom 

2025 set a new record for token listings, with activity peaking in Q3 as Bitcoin reached a new all-time high. DeFi, Meme, and Blockchain were the most listed categories, reflecting the narratives that dominated the market at the peak of the cycle.

As of mid-2026, only 6.8% of those tokens have been delisted, although the outcome differs sharply across categories. NFT projects recorded the highest delisting rate, even though the category accounted for a relatively small number of listings in 2025. Among other categories with high listing volumes, GameFi and Meme tokens have experienced the highest delisting rates since the 2025 market peak.

The Bottom Line

CEX listings have entered a new phase. The boom that peaked in Q3 2025 has given way to a more selective market: fewer new tokens, less speculation, and an active cleanup of the previous cycle's names. But the more important shift is where new listings now come from. 

For two cycles, the listing pipeline was primarily fueled by crypto-focused tokens, such as memecoins, GameFi, and DeFi. In 2026, for the first time, the fastest-growing type of tokens became the tokenized versions of RWAs, issued by a handful of players. The question for the next cycle is whether the center of interest has permanently moved from crypto-first and speculative tokens towards tokenized assets.