Practical Tokens and Meme Tokens: Analysis of Future Market Trends

From April 2024 to early January 2025, the market experienced multiple rounds of frenzy in the Meme sector. However, as the price of tokens related to a certain well-known figure plummeted, investors began to reassess the investment value of utility tokens.

Utility tokens typically serve as fees for protocols or blockchains and are important components of the business models of many projects. These projects may reflect their fundamentals by repurchasing or burning tokens. So, will changes in the market landscape bring higher returns for utility tokens?

Centralized exchange tokens perform more steadily

After the launch of a famous person's related Meme Token, the Meme sector experienced a brief boom, but just one month later, it began to cool down, and by February 1st, the returns had already started to decline. Subsequently, the price of Meme Tokens continued to fall. Other sectors such as public chains, DeFi, and infrastructure tokens also experienced similar trends.

In contrast, Bitcoin and centralized exchange tokens remained stable during this period, with the latter even experiencing a price increase.

In-Depth Analysis of Centralized Exchange Tokens

Further observations reveal that among the 8 centralized exchange tokens this year, 7 have outperformed Bitcoin, with 6 achieving positive returns. The token of a certain exchange showed a significant increase in the early stages, while the token of another exchange achieved the highest annual growth.

So, why do centralized exchange tokens perform more steadily?

Income Advantages of Centralized Exchange Tokens

One possible reason is that the revenue of centralized exchange tokens is higher (here, revenue refers to the amount of token burn or buyback). Over the past year, the average revenue to market cap ratio of centralized exchange tokens was 0.12, more than twice that of DeFi projects.

The Relationship Between Income and Returns

The token of a certain trading platform has performed the most stably, which is closely related to its income-to-market cap ratio from January 1 to March 18, 2025. However, not all tokens follow the same trend. For example, the token of a certain exchange performed excellently in 2024 but failed to sustain this advantage into 2025. It is worth noting that some exchanges did not disclose any information on token burns or buybacks last year.

Conclusion

During market downturns, the token prices in the centralized exchange sector may remain relatively stable due to revenue expectations. However, when analyzing specific exchanges, there are still many other factors that influence the changes in token prices.

Research Methodology

This analysis selected 57 tokens from the top 100 by market capitalization, including:

• Confirm the tokens with income or expense data
• Confirm there are no income tokens (such as Meme tokens)

Not including:

• Wrapped Token
• Cross-chain bridge Token
• Bitcoin
• Bitcoin hard fork coins