Chainfeeds Summary:
The performance of newly listed tokens on South Korean exchanges in 2025 was almost structurally similar to that of Binance.
Article source:
https://x.com/FourPillarsFP/status/2031701913092407589
Article Author:
Four Pillars
Opinion:
Four Pillars: In 2025, the average loss for newly listed tokens on the three exchanges was around 70%. Upbit lost 69.5%; Bithumb lost 69.1%; and Binance lost 71.7%. In other words, regardless of which exchange you bought a new token on its first day of listing, on average, you ended up losing about 70%. Looking at the average alone doesn't reflect the true distribution of individual tokens, so we further analyzed the return ranges. On two exchanges, over 40% of the tokens were concentrated in the -75% to -90% range. 46% of Upbit's tokens were in this range, with 9 tokens (15%) falling by more than 90%. Bithumb's distribution was more dispersed: 8 tokens were profitable, while 33 tokens fell by more than 90%. This wider distribution is partly due to Bithumb's larger sample size (144 tokens), but it may also indicate that its listing strategy covers a wider range of project types. To observe whether listing time affects performance, we divided the data into the first half of the year (January-June) and the second half (July-December). The results show that tokens listed in the second half of the year performed better on both exchanges. This result is intuitive: tokens listed earlier have more time to decline. Given the overall bear market trend in the crypto market in 2025, the longer the holding period, the greater the cumulative loss. However, the magnitude of the difference is still noteworthy. For example, on Bithumb: tokens listed in the first half of the year saw a -77.3% decline, while those listed in the second half saw a -59.4% decline. The difference is approximately 18 percentage points, which is difficult to explain solely by the time factor. One possibility is that projects listed in the second half of the year had stronger fundamentals; another possibility is that market expectations had lowered after the first half of the year. In 2025, Upbit listed 59 KRW trading pairs, while Bithumb listed 144. Bithumb's number was more than twice that of Upbit and significantly more than Binance's 92. Upbit has long been known for its stricter listing standards, yet the performance of its portfolio was almost identical: Upbit -69.5%, Bithumb -69.1%. For further analysis, we compared tokens listed on both Upbit and Bithumb, as well as those listed only on Bithumb. A total of 50 tokens were listed on both exchanges. Theoretically, these projects should have higher industry recognition, but the results were remarkably similar: tokens listed on both exchanges had an average ROI of -69.4%, while those listed only on Bithumb had an average ROI of -68.9%. This finding illustrates two facts: listing on multiple leading exchanges does not guarantee price performance. The first-day price inflation resulting from a listing event is a structural phenomenon. Whether a project is backed by Upbit or quietly listed only on Bithumb, the losses suffered by first-day buyers were almost identical. Furthermore, among the 59 tokens listed on Upbit, only KITE (+232.8%) and BARD (+9.3%) ultimately achieved profitability.
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