In mid-2024, centralized exchanges (CEX) and decentralized exchanges (DEX) launched tens of thousands of tokens. This article collects data on over 3,000 tokens listed on CEX and DEX to assess their trading performance, prices, and subsequent developments after listing. This article is based on a piece by Animoca Brands Research and has been organized, translated, and authored by PANews.
(Background: Analyzing Exchange Security from the Bybit Hacker Incident: How Security and Compliance Lead to Healthy Platform Development?)
(Additional Context: Binance’s Listing of Contracts Becomes a “Death Trap”; Arete Capital Founder: Popular Project Collapses Have Become the Norm)
This report analyzes over 3,000 spot token listing events from 9 major centralized exchanges (CEX) and more than 120 decentralized exchanges (DEX) as of 2024. The aim is to evaluate the overall trend of token listings across platforms and assess the price and trading volume performance during these events.
**Key Findings**
Centralized exchanges adopt different strategies to determine listing priorities, focusing on various fully diluted valuation (FDV) levels. Exchanges with fewer listed tokens tend to prioritize tokens with larger listing FDVs (over $500 million), while exchanges with higher listing frequencies tend to favor tokens with FDVs below $30 million.
Listing activity is closely correlated with Bitcoin’s price trends, with increased activity during bull markets and decreased activity when Bitcoin’s price stagnates. While all FDV-sized tokens are affected by this trend, larger FDV tokens are more sensitive to changes in market sentiment.
Price performance is measured by the 7-day and 30-day changes relative to the closing price on the listing day, largely reflecting Bitcoin’s price trend. However, there are indeed differences between exchanges. A “smile curve” pattern has emerged: exchanges with the highest (e.g., Binance) and lowest (e.g., MEXC) average listing FDV recorded positive price changes, while mid-sized exchanges (e.g., Bybit, Bitget) experienced the largest declines.
In terms of trading volume, Binance leads in trading volume for newly listed tokens, followed by OKX and Upbit. Notably, Upbit’s trading volume in the first 24 hours is comparable to Binance, while OKX leads in trading volume for tokens within the $30 million to $100 million FDV range.
Tokens that debuted on DEX with an FDV value exceeding $30 million performed comparably to those that debuted on mid-sized CEX. The price performance of tokens launched on DEX (measured by changes from day 2 to day 7 and day 30) outperformed four out of five mid-sized CEX. The trading volume in the first 30 days was also similar to or higher than that of CEX such as Kucoin, Gate, and MEXC.
It is not uncommon for tokens that initially launched on DEX to later appear on mid-sized CEX, but it is rare for them to appear on large CEX. Among the DEX-launched tokens sampled in the second half of 2024, approximately 16% subsequently listed on CEX, with only 2% successfully listing on major exchanges like Binance, OKX, or Upbit.
**CEX Listing Performance**
**Overview**
The report recorded a total of 3,074 token listing events. Of these, 1,226 events (40%) were categorized as primary listings, occurring within the first two days after token release, while 1,848 events (60%) were categorized as secondary listings.
Most exchanges adopted a balanced approach, with nearly equal participation in primary and secondary listings.
In general, exchanges listing high FDV projects focused on fewer, larger listings, while exchanges listing smaller FDV projects had a higher number of listing events.
The two Korean exchanges, Upbit and Bithumb, primarily focused on secondary listings, which could mean that primary listings may not have been first listings. In the remainder of this article, exchanges will be sorted by their average listing FDV, with those having higher listing FDV referred to as “large exchanges” and the others as “mid-sized exchanges.”
**Monthly Summary of Listing Events**
There were more listing events during bull markets (February to March and August to December), while the number of listing events decreased during market downturns.
April stood out as a strong month, as listing events continued to rise despite a reversal in BTC prices. This impact was not apparent in December, when BTC once again stagnated after two months of increases.
In terms of the number of listing events, top exchanges were less affected by the bear market, as evidenced by the continuous expansion of their share of listing events during these periods.
**Summary of Listing Events by FDV**
Large exchanges concentrated most of their listing efforts on the FDV category above $500 million, with the top four exchanges accounting for 25% of listing activities in this tier.
Nonetheless, mid-sized exchanges still contributed significantly to listing activities in the above $500 million category, likely because projects from large exchanges often list simultaneously on mid-sized exchanges, but the reverse is not common.
Mid-sized exchanges like Bybit, KuCoin, Bitget, and Gate had a more balanced number of listings across the four FDV levels, with a slightly larger share in the $30 million to $500 million range. MEXC adopted a different strategy, focusing on tokens with FDV ≤ $30 million, which accounted for 70% of listing activities in this category.
**Monthly Listing Events by FDV Level**
Tokens with FDV above $500 million are most sensitive to changes in market sentiment, with listing events rapidly increasing during the rebound from February to March, exceeding expectations in April, and remaining in a contraction state until the rebound from September to December.
Tokens with FDV ≤ $30 million closely tracked overall listing momentum during bull markets but occupied a larger share of listing events during periods such as June to September.
**Price Performance of Listings**
The price performance across exchanges forms a “smile curve,” where tokens at both ends outperform those in the middle.
Tokens listed on Binance and MEXC at both ends showed positive price changes after 30 days, while the average price of tokens listed on Bybit and Bitget dropped by approximately 10%.
The 7-day price performance exhibited a similar pattern, with Binance listings rising by about 3%, MEXC listings remaining flat, and greater declines in mid-sized exchanges.
The median price change is typically lower than the average, indicating that a small fraction of token listing events accounts for a majority of the share.
**Price Performance by FDV Level**
The patterns of price changes for the 7-day and 30-day periods differ by FDV level.
Tokens with FDV ≤ $30 million dropped in price after 7 days but showed a strong rebound by day 30, exhibiting the largest contrast among the four levels. Tokens in the $30 million to $100 million and >$500 million FDV ranges experienced moderate declines after 7 days, on average maintaining similar levels within 30 days.
Tokens in the $100 million to $500 million FDV range dropped by 2% in the first 7 days, but the decline expanded to over 11% by day 30, indicating an overall downward trend after the first week.
**Monthly Summary of Price Performance of Listings**
From a temporal perspective, price performance is primarily driven by market conditions. During BTC bull markets, the performance of tokens listed tends to be neutral or positive. Conversely, during BTC bear markets, the performance of listed tokens is negative.
**Monthly Price Performance of Listings Across Exchanges**
In February, October, and November, most exchanges maintained positive price changes, coinciding with significant rises in BTC prices.
January and May deviated from the overall BTC price trend: despite BTC being on the verge of a rebound, the prices of tokens listed in January experienced declines.Poor performance; despite being in a slow bear market in May, tokens launched in May performed well.
Although the market was in a neutral state, the token prices launched in December performed poorly.
Token price performance summarized by exchange based on FDV levels
Compared to large exchanges like OKX and Bybit, small FDV tokens had better price performance on medium exchanges such as KuCoin, Gate, and MEXC.
Medium FDV tokens (valued between $30 million and $500 million) performed better in listing activities on large exchanges than on medium exchanges. Large FDV tokens (valued over $500 million) showed relatively consistent performance across various exchanges, with minor price fluctuations from Day 7 to Day 30.
Monthly price performance of tokens categorized by FDV levels
Small FDV tokens exhibited strong price performance, outperforming medium FDV tokens (valued between $30 million and $500 million) in 30-day price change rates in most months, regardless of market conditions being bullish or bearish.
Medium FDV tokens experienced strong 7-day price increases in October and November but still lagged behind other categories at 30 days. Large FDV tokens displayed stronger consistency over several months, with positive price performance in half of the months for both 7-day and 30-day periods.
Exchange trading volume
Binance leads in trading volume for newly listed tokens, followed by Upbit and OKX. Upbit’s trading volume in the first 24 hours was strong, nearly matching Binance, but its 30-day trading volume fell back to levels similar to OKX.
Among medium exchanges, Bybit showed strong trading volume in both the first 24 hours and throughout the 30 days.
Monthly trading volume summary
The initial trading volume largely followed bear/bull market cycles, with larger trading volumes for initial listings during the periods from February to March and September to December.
In April, one month after the first wave of price increases, listing activities exceeded expectations, but trading volumes were below the 30-day average. This indicates that excessive token listings during relatively calm market periods may dilute the trading volume of newly listed tokens.
Trading volume categorized by FDV levels
Trading volume generally follows the levels of token FDV, with the maximum FDV level seeing trading volumes 60 times that of the minimum FDV level within the first 24 hours and 25 times within the first 30 days.
Monthly trading volume summary by exchange
In most months, Binance maintained a leading position in trading volume for newly listed tokens. Upbit’s newly listed tokens exhibited high uncertainty in initial trading volumes.
While it led in 30-day trading volume in February, July, and December, there were also several months where the trading volumes of newly listed tokens were very low.
Trading volume by exchange categorized by FDV levels
Binance recorded the highest trading volume for listings, primarily concentrated in the FDV category of $100 million to $500 million.
Conversely, OKX showed significant trading volume for mid-level FDV tokens (ranging from $30 million to $100 million).
Among medium exchanges, Bybit displayed relatively stable trading volumes across all FDV levels, while other medium exchanges generally concentrated trading volumes in mid-level FDV tokens.
DEX vs CEX
Tokens listed on DEX are generally viewed as a complement to those listed on CEX. The liquidity pools on DEX are often established concurrently with the initial CEX listings, allowing users to trade flexibly on-chain or through CEX. On the other hand, listings that occur solely on DEX are typically associated with a more decentralized approach, primarily utilized by long-tail tokens with limited mainstream appeal.
However, an increasing number of projects are recently opting for DEX as their exclusive initial listing platform, delaying or forgoing CEX listings for a period. To assess the viability and impact of this strategy, this paper analyzes relevant data and metrics to compare DEX and CEX.
To ensure an objective comparison, tokens listed on DEX are defined as those that maintain exclusive liquidity on decentralized exchanges for at least 30 days. For CEX listings, the focus is on primary listing events, representing tokens introduced to centralized exchanges as their main trading venues. To avoid skewing results due to long-tail tokens, the analysis is limited to tokens with FDV between $30 million and $500 million to ensure balance between the two groups of tokens.
When measuring price performance, the percentage change in price from Day 2 to Day 7 and from Day 2 to Day 30 is used, rather than the period from listing to Day 7 or Day 30. This adjustment considers the different price discovery mechanisms between CEX and DEX on the day of listing; otherwise, direct comparisons would be ineffective. For trading volume, a consistent approach is maintained, using the trading volume from the first 24 hours and 30 days as key indicators.
Summary of listing events: DEX vs CEX
The analysis sampled 415 major listing events that occurred in the second half of 2024, focusing on tokens with fully diluted valuations (FDV) between $30 million and $500 million. Among these, 114 were categorized as priority DEX listings, meaning the tokens were listed exclusively on DEX in the first month.
In August, DEX listings proved to be more sensitive to market momentum, showing a rebound in activity after a slump in the fourth quarter. In the third quarter, priority DEX listings accounted for less than 20% of new tokens, but by November and December, this proportion surged to over 30%.
Most of the CEX listings analyzed were concentrated in medium exchanges. In contrast, Binance and OKX had only a few listing events.
Price changes at the time of first listing on DEX vs CEX
Among medium CEX exchanges, the performance from Day 2 to Day 7 was mixed. By Day 30, all listed tokens, except those on MEXC, experienced negative price changes.
In contrast, tokens first listed on DEX exhibited positive growth by Day 7, with a slight decline by Day 30, outperforming most tokens listed on medium CEX exchanges.
OKX led in price performance among large CEX, with tokens listed showing an increase of about 14% from Day 2 to Day 7, maintaining this level after 30 days. However, due to limited data, caution should be exercised in interpreting the performance of Binance and OKX.
Average trading volume at first listing on DEX vs CEX
The trading volume on DEX is comparable to that of medium CEX exchanges like KuCoin, Gate, and MEXC, while OKX and Binance exhibit higher average trading volumes than other exchanges.
The trading volume concentration within the first 24 hours on DEX and CEX shows a similar pattern, indicating a consistent market focus on trends.
This trading volume performance, along with the price performance 30 days post-listing, suggests that first DEX listings can have an impact on token performance comparable to that of medium CEX.
Token listing tier analysis
The 415 sampled listing events covered a total of 238 tokens. Among these, 126 tokens were initially listed solely on DEX, while the remaining tokens were listed on medium or large centralized exchanges. It is important to note that DEX-listed tokens included in the analysis are limited to those indexed on CoinMarketCap.
Of the tokens initially listed on DEX, approximately 16% later obtained listings on CEX, primarily in the mid-level CEX category. However, only 2% of tokens that debuted on DEX subsequently gained support on top CEXs such as Binance, Upbit, or OKX. For tokens that initially debuted on mid-level CEXs, about 3% eventually made their way to high FDV CEXs, comparable to the likelihood of tokens that debuted on DEX.
These findings indicate that while priority DEX tokens have a significant opportunity to list on CEX, they are most likely to land on medium exchanges. Regardless of whether tokens start from DEX or mid-level CEX, the likelihood of mid FDV tokens entering top CEX remains low.
