Gate.io Lists Swarms Early, Market Cap Soars 1300%

In 2025, centralized exchanges are facing a new set of challenges and risks in listing new tokens. New narratives and types of ecosystems, such as GameFi and SocialFi, have emerged, and speculative meme coins have risen to prominence as platforms like Solana’s Pump.fun have made launching new tokens easier and more democratic than ever before.

Traders and investors are eager to access new cryptocurrencies as soon as possible, which is advantageous for peer-to-peer decentralized exchanges (DEXs). However, centralized exchanges face inherent limitations in capturing new narratives due to the need to provide adequate liquidity and security for clients for every token they list. They are also legally expected to conform to strict Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Know-Your-Customer (KYC) rules.

Listing new tokens typically requires a dedicated token listing team to conduct thorough due diligence before scheduling a listing while also meeting regulatory requirements. Gate.io, a prominent crypto exchange, has outlined its approach to prioritizing speed and safety in new token listings. The exchange emphasizes the importance of conducting technical analysis into the token’s smart contract code and evaluating potential vulnerabilities or attack vectors.

Gate.io’s team looks at two fundamental indicators: privileged functions and minting risks. Privileged functions are contract functions that give administrators excessive control, enabling extractive practices like arbitrary minting or trading suspension. The team also assesses if there are caps on token minting in place to protect users from unnecessarily high token inflation. Another aspect of due diligence is evaluating the distribution of a project’s token holders to assess the token’s degree of decentralization and evaluate the potential market influence of single addresses.

By carefully avoiding listed tokens with an excessive amount of top-10 ownership or developer control, Gate.io aims to help users avoid the risk of price manipulation or concentrated selling and dumps. The exchange also provides users with tools to help them do their own research, including information on vital metrics such as Telegram group size, X follower counts, and capital inflows.

These approaches aim to mitigate the risks of token listings while enabling users to reap the rewards of getting in early. While the first wave of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum took months or even years to reach multimillion-dollar market caps, many newly launched coins undergo a significant chunk of their pricing lifecycle before ever reaching many centralized exchanges.

Gate.io researchers pointed to the example of Swarms (SWARMS), a cryptocurrency used to power an AI-agent ecosystem, which launched on December 17, 2024 with a market cap of below $1 million. By the time Swarms became available on some of the best-known crypto exchanges, its value had multiplied several hundredfold. Swarms’ market capitalization had already hit $130 million by the time it was listed on Huobi on January 6, soaring to approximately $285.4 million by the time it listed on Kraken on February 2.

Some centralized exchanges did manage to incorporate Swarms into their listings far earlier, though; Gate.io listed the token on December 20, 2024, after first testing it on its Pilot Trading platform, at a launch market cap of approximately $20.78 million. This demonstrates Gate.io’s ability to quickly and safely list new tokens, providing users with early access to potentially high-growth cryptocurrencies.