Centralized exchanges are moving away from speculative narratives and toward tokens with demonstrated utility. An analysis of over 10,000 listings across the 10 major exchanges, Binance, Bybit, OKX, Bitget, Gate, MEXC, KuCoin, HTX, Kraken, and Crypto.com, shows blockchain infrastructure, DeFi, and tokenized real-world assets displacing meme and GameFi tokens at the top of exchange listing activity in the first half of 2026. The shift marks a break from the two prior cycles, in which listing pipelines were dominated by crypto-native, hype-driven categories.

In Q2 2026, exchanges shifted listings toward blockchain infrastructure (64 listings) and DeFi (46 listings)  tokens over speculative assets, reflecting a broader move toward projects with demonstrated utility. Tokenized assets, covering equities, commodities, and real-world assets, ranked third with 42 listings as exchanges sought exposure to TradFi instruments.

Source: CryptoRank API

Beneath that leaderboard, the speculative end of the market lost momentum. Meme and GameFi, the two categories that had defined the previous hype cycle, both saw their new listings fall quarter after quarter from their 2024-2025 peaks.

Taken together, the shift points to a more selective market, where exchanges leaning toward projects tied to real usage rather than the meme speculation that defined the previous cycle.

CEX Listing Category Share: State of 2025 vs H1 2026

The biggest shift in exchange listing activity was a switch towards Tokenized Assets, which became the most-listed category in H1 2026. In H1 2026, nearly every 5th listed token was a tokenized asset. By contrast, in 2025, less than 7% of listings were tokenized assets. 

Source: CryptoRank API

The growth was driven primarily by tokenized stocks. Most new listings came from a small number of issuers, including xStocks, bStocks, and Ondo’s tokenized markets. This represents a clear shift from the Meme tokens that dominated the previous cycle, with exchanges increasingly listing tokenized versions of traditional financial assets.

Meme Listings Return to Pre-Memecraze Levels

Memecoin listings have declined for six consecutive quarters. In Q4 2024 exchanges listed 196 memecoins, but in Q2 2026 there were only 41 new listings in this category.  which is a 79% decline from the peak. This is the lowest quarterly total since Q3 2023, before the memecoin craze began.

Source: CryptoRank API

GameFi Listings Down 84% Since the Q2 2024 Peak

GameFi was one of the leading listing narratives throughout 2023 and 2024. However,  listings in this category are down 84% from their peak 2 years ago, reaching just 15 new listings in Q2 2026. This suggests the lowest interest in GameFi tokens since Q3 2023, when only 10 tokens were listed across analyzed exchanges.

Source: CryptoRank API

Listings and category share point in the same direction: exchanges are rewarding categories with an external, real-world anchor over those that depend on internal crypto narrative cycles. Whether this reflects a lasting reallocation of exchange risk appetite or a temporary lull between speculative cycles will depend on whether tokenized assets can sustain the growth rate they showed in H1 2026 once the current wave of issuers, xStocks, bStocks, and Ondo among them, is joined by others.