Utility Tokens vs. Meme Tokens: An Analysis of Future Market Trends

Recently, with the launch of some emerging platforms, the cryptocurrency market has experienced multiple rounds of Meme Token frenzy, lasting from April 2024 to early 2025. However, after a significant price drop of a well-known Token, investors began to reassess the investment value of utility Tokens.

Utility tokens are typically used as transaction fees within a protocol or blockchain ecosystem. Many projects also reflect their fundamentals by repurchasing or burning tokens. So, in the context of changing market conditions, can utility tokens bring higher returns?

Centralized exchange tokens perform more stably

After the rise of the Meme Token craze, the related field quickly heated up, but just a month later, it began to cool down, and by February 1, the returns had already reversed. Subsequently, the prices of Meme Tokens continued to decline. Other areas such as public chains, DeFi, and infrastructure tokens also experienced similar trends.

However, during this period, Bitcoin and centralized exchange (CEX) tokens remained relatively stable, with CEX tokens even experiencing a price increase.

CEX Token Performance Analysis

In-depth observation reveals: Among the 8 major CEX tokens this year, 7 have outperformed Bitcoin, with 6 achieving positive price returns. One trading platform showed significant increases in the early stages, while the token of another exchange achieved the highest annual growth.

So, why do CEX tokens perform more stably?

CEX Token Revenue Analysis

One possible reason is that the income from CEX Tokens is higher (where income refers to the amount of token destruction or buyback). In the past year, the average income-to-market-cap ratio for CEX Tokens has been 0.12, which is more than twice that of the DeFi space.

Relationship Between CEX Token Income and Returns

As mentioned earlier, among these CEX tokens, the token of a certain exchange showed the most stable performance, reflecting significant price returns related to its revenue-to-market-cap ratio from January 1 to March 18, 2025, compared to last year's figures. However, this does not mean that every token will follow the same trend. For example, the token of another exchange is located in the lower right corner because it had high returns in 2024, but this return cannot be sustained into 2025.

It is worth noting that some exchanges did not record any announcements of token burns or buybacks last year.

Summary

During market downturns, prices in the CEX sector may remain robust due to expectations for revenue. However, when examining various exchanges, many other factors are still driving changes in Token prices.

Research Methodology

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

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

Excludes:

• Wrapped Token
• Bridge Token
• Bitcoin
• Bitcoin Hard Fork