Utility Tokens vs Meme Tokens: Investment Prospects in a Changing Market

Recently, the cryptocurrency market has experienced a series of fluctuations. From April 2024 to early January 2025, the Meme Token sector has surged multiple times. However, with the significant drop in the price of a certain well-known Token, investors have begun to reassess the investment value of utility Tokens.

Utility tokens typically serve as functional currency within a protocol or blockchain ecosystem. Many projects adopt token buyback or burn mechanisms to reflect their fundamental conditions. In the current market environment, whether utility tokens can deliver higher returns has become the focus of investors.

Centralized Exchange Token Performance is Steady

After the launch of a Meme Token related to a well-known figure, the Meme sector quickly heated up in a short period of time, but just a month later, it began to cool down, and by February 1, the returns had reversed.

In the subsequent market adjustment, the price of Meme tokens continued to decline. Other sectors such as public chains, DeFi, and infrastructure-related tokens also experienced similar trends.

However, during this period, Bitcoin and centralized exchange (CEX) tokens remained relatively stable, with CEX tokens even recording positive price increases.

CEX Token Performance Analysis

In-depth observation of the performance of the 8 main CEX Tokens this year, among which 7 outperformed Bitcoin and 6 achieved positive returns.

The token of a certain emerging exchange showed significant growth in the early stages, while the token of another well-known exchange set the highest annual growth rate.

So, what factors make CEX tokens perform more stably?

Advantages of CEX Token Income

One possible explanation is that CEX tokens generally have higher income (here, income refers to the amount of token burn or buyback).

In the past year, the average income to market cap ratio of CEX Tokens reached 0.12, more than double that of DeFi Tokens.

Relationship Between CEX Token Income and Returns

Taking the token of a well-known exchange as an example, it performed steadily from January 1 to March 18, 2025, which aligns with its high revenue-to-market capitalization ratio from last year. However, not all tokens follow the same pattern. For instance, the token of a certain exchange achieved high returns in 2024 but failed to maintain this momentum into 2025.

It is worth noting that some exchanges, such as a certain European exchange, a certain established exchange, a certain well-known exchange, and a certain emerging exchange, did not disclose any Token burn or buyback records last year.

Summary

During market downturns, the prices of tokens in the CEX sector may remain relatively resilient due to expectations of future revenue. However, when evaluating individual exchanges, there are still many factors that influence the fluctuations 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 that there are no income tokens (such as Meme tokens)

Not including:

• Wrapped Token
• Cross-Chain Bridge Token
• Bitcoin
• Bitcoin Hard Fork Token