In the first quarter of 2026, amidst overall pressure on the crypto market and a more cautious risk appetite, high-quality early-stage assets presented one of the most attractive structural opportunities. Gate's spot trading platform launched 37 new assets in Q1, covering 77.1% of the new projects added by leading exchanges during the quarter. Of these, 27 were initial IPOs, accounting for 73% of Gate's new listings that quarter; another 14 were exclusive projects, representing 37.8%. In an environment of increased market volatility, Gate maintained a stable listing pace, a strong capacity to attract high-quality projects, and a consistent ability to generate positive returns.
I. Overall Overview: High coverage, high number of first releases, and a relatively high proportion of exclusive content collectively form the core of the business.
In terms of total sample size, in the first quarter of 2026, taking seven leading platforms, including Gate, as samples, the leading exchanges launched a total of 48 new projects. Among them, Gate launched 37 projects in this quarter, corresponding to a coverage rate of 77.1%. That is, in the new high-quality supply that the leading platforms competed for in Q1, Gate covered more than three-quarters of the projects.
For ordinary users, the importance of coverage is self-evident. It directly affects whether users can see a sufficiently complete range of core new market projects on the same platform. If a platform has low coverage, even if a few projects perform well, it can easily leave users with the impression that important projects are not fully covered. The 77.1% coverage rate indicates that, at least in Q1, Gate is closely following the mainstream new project supply system, and users can access most of the noteworthy new assets on the platform.
However, what truly determines Gate's competitiveness is not only its coverage, but also its coverage structure.
Of the 37 new assets listed on Gate in Q1, 27 were first-time listings (73%), and 14 were exclusive listings (37.8%). If calculated based on the overall sample of leading exchanges, Gate's first-time listing coverage reached 56.3%. In other words, of the 48 new listings on leading exchanges in Q1, more than half were first-time listings on Gate.
A high proportion of initial listings on Gate indicates its strong appeal at the crucial juncture when projects transition from primary to secondary markets. Project teams' willingness to choose Gate as their initial public offering venue essentially represents their recognition of Gate's user base, liquidity capacity, initial price discovery efficiency, and market dissemination capabilities. A platform's ability to consistently secure initial listings often signifies its relatively proactive position in the competition for project resources.
A significant proportion of exclusive projects demonstrates another layer of valuable capability. While initial launch projects showcase a platform's ability to participate in mainstream, high-quality supply, exclusive projects demonstrate the platform's independent judgment and differentiated acquisition capabilities. This is especially true in a weak market, where selecting exclusive projects is more challenging. Exclusivity means there isn't a sufficient number of external platforms simultaneously verifying the project; the platform must assume responsibility for its own judgment. If a project selection is flawed, the post-launch data will quickly reflect the problem. Conversely, if exclusive projects perform well after launch, it not only demonstrates the platform's resources but also its strong pre-launch project assessment capabilities.
From the overall overview, it can be seen that the core of Gate Q1 can be summarized by three characteristics.
(1) The coverage is wide enough, indicating that the platform is continuously involved in the new supply from the top players;
(2) A high proportion of first-time launches indicates that the platform has a strong capacity to take on high-quality projects at the starting point of entering the market;
(3) The proportion of exclusive projects is not low. The platform is not just following the market, but is trying to actively discover and pre-position differentiated targets.
These three factors combined form the starting point for Gate's spot listings in Q1. Only when coverage, first release, and exclusivity are all achieved simultaneously can the platform's listing system be considered complete.
II. Post-listing performance: Stable positive returns were observed across short-term and 7-day timeframes.
The success of a platform's token offerings cannot be judged solely by the number of projects it receives; the stability of those projects' performance after launch is also crucial. A key characteristic of Gate in Q1 was the consistent time-series performance of newly listed projects across multiple holding periods, with overall positive returns remaining relatively stable.
Figure 1: Percentage of Gate Coin's Price Increases Across Different Time Dimensions from 5 Minutes to 7 Days
In terms of the percentage of projects that saw gains, among the new projects launched in Q1, 58.3% saw gains within 5 minutes of opening, 54.1% maintained gains over 1 hour, 56.8% remained positive after 24 hours, 54.1% saw gains after 3 days, and 50.0% maintained gains after 7 days. It's clear from the data that the positive return coverage of projects launched on Gate remained relatively stable across multiple holding periods.
Many new projects experience a rapid surge during their launch phase, driven by early investors, short-term sentiment, and increased traffic. However, if the project itself lacks sufficient support or the platform's capital capacity is inadequate, this surge often quickly reverses, leading to a significant weakening of performance after 24 hours. Gate Q1's overall sample, however, does not exhibit this pattern. Whether looking at 5 minutes, 1 hour, 24 hours, or 3 days, the percentage of projects showing gains consistently remained above 50%, indicating that the projects launched on the platform did not generally experience a high-open-low-close pattern within the core price discovery window after listing.
In particular, the 24-hour and 3-day timeframes are of greater practical reference value. This is because users who actually participate in new coin trading are not all extremely short-term traders; many are more inclined to intraday, overnight, or short-term holding. For these users, the 56.8% of projects that rose within 24 hours and the 54.1% that rose within 3 days represent data that more closely reflects real-world participation. This indicates that the positive return opportunities for newly listed projects on Gate.io are not limited to the initial opening price but have a certain degree of continuity within the core holding window after listing.
Looking further at the average increase of rising projects provides a clearer understanding of yield elasticity. In Q1, the average increases of rising projects over 5 minutes, 1 hour, 24 hours, 3 days, and 7 days were 238.0%, 275.7%, 326.3%, 311.6%, and 270.1%, respectively. This indicates that once Gate's high-quality new coins establish a positive feedback loop in the early stages, their price release potential remains considerable. Particularly noteworthy are the average increases over the 24-hour and 3-day windows, both maintaining around 300%. This suggests that the wealth effect of high-quality projects has not disappeared in a weak market, but rather is more concentrated in a select group of high-quality assets after careful screening.
Figure 2: Average increase of Gate rising items across various time dimensions (5m–7d)
Of course, looking at the average increase alone doesn't tell the whole story. The average is easily influenced by extremely high-leverage projects, thus masking the typical performance of most projects. Therefore, the median is particularly important here.
The median gains for newly listed projects in Q1 were: +3.2% in 5 minutes, +2.4% in 1 hour, +9.3% in 24 hours, +10.0% in 3 days, and +0.01% in 7 days. Even disregarding the impact of extremely high-return projects, judging solely from the performance of typical projects in the sample, Gate's new coins still showed a relatively clear positive return in the 24-hour and 3-day periods. This means that the overall performance of Gate's spot listings this quarter was not solely due to a few cases inflating the average, but rather because most projects had a certain foundation for positive returns within the core observation window after listing.
Figure 3: Median growth rate of newly launched projects on Gate across various time periods (5m–7d)
For ordinary users, what truly determines their participation experience is not whether there are one or two "miracle coins" with exaggerated price increases, but rather whether the overall quality of new coins on the platform is consistent enough and whether it has a certain degree of repeatability. Looking at the median data, Gate Q1, at least in the 24-hour to 3-day period, provided a relatively clear answer: the platform's spot listings exhibit strong consistency and a certain positive expectation.
Meanwhile, the near-unchanged 7-day median also illustrates another fact: the advantage of new coins lies primarily in the early price discovery phase after listing, rather than indefinitely. After 7 days, the market enters a more pronounced differentiation and elimination phase, with differences between projects widening rapidly. Therefore, for users, not all new coins should be held long-term; rather, the first 24 hours to 3 days after listing offer a clearer and more stable density of profit opportunities.
III. Starting Lineup and Non-Starting Lineup: A Two-Pronged Approach
When discussing a trading platform's listing capabilities, many people instinctively focus solely on the initial listings. While initial listings are important, a platform with a truly mature listing system has an advantage beyond just initial listings; it demonstrates its ability to develop clear profit models for different types of projects. This is particularly evident in Gate.io's Q1 data.
3.1 First-launch projects: Dominated by quantity, with stronger return elasticity
In Q1, Gate.cn launched 27 projects, accounting for 73% of all new listings. These initial listings formed the core of Gate.cn's Q1 listing system, meaning that in most cases, they directly participated in the initial stage of a project's entry into the secondary market.
In terms of performance, the most prominent feature of initial launch projects is their high price elasticity. Data shows that nearly 46% of initial launch projects continued to rise 7 days after launch; the average increase of these projects on the first day, 3 days, and 7 days reached 502.8%, 440.7%, and 364.3%, respectively. This means that the core advantage of Gate's initial launch projects is not just being the first to launch, but rather the market synergy formed from the Gate launch, which often unleashes stronger price elasticity.
Figure 4: Average returns of Gate.com projects with price increases across different holding periods (1 day, 3 days, 7 days)
The distribution of extreme returns further validates this high elasticity. In Q1, 7.4% of the initial listings saw gains exceeding 500% or even 1,000% within 24 hours. This demonstrates that the initial listing section on Gate.io serves as a gateway to high-risk, high-reward opportunities. While not every project will necessarily experience a significant price surge, the price response is often more pronounced when the platform's selected initial listings resonate with market enthusiasm, narrative strength, and traffic expansion.
The logic behind this is not complicated. Initially launched projects are in the earliest stage of public trading; price discovery is not yet fully complete, market understanding of the projects is still rapidly forming, and funds are more likely to concentrate in a short period. For platforms, whoever can acquire high-quality projects at this stage has a greater chance of providing users with early access to high-odds, high-profile trading opportunities. For users, initial launch projects offer the possibility of earlier involvement and higher return potential, but also mean higher volatility and faster differentiation.
3.2 Non-initial public offering projects: fewer in number, but with stable trends.
Compared to its initial offerings, Gate had 10 non-initial offerings in Q1, a significantly smaller number. However, these non-initial offerings demonstrated a more stable median return.
Figure 5: Percentage of Gains and Median Gains of Non-First-Time Items on Gate.cn across Different Time Dimensions (5m–7d)
Data shows that for non-initial public offering (IPO) projects, the percentages of those showing gains within 5 minutes, 30 minutes, 24 hours, 3 days, and 7 days were 80%, 90%, 90%, 80%, and 60%, respectively; the corresponding median gains were +26.7%, +33.3%, +72.9%, +46.6%, and +3.2%. Furthermore, 40% of non-initial public offering projects saw gains exceeding 100% within 24 hours.
Data shows that while non-first-release projects on Gate.cn don't have as much direct pricing power as first-release projects in the initial stages, their higher success rate in terms of price increases is actually due to the platform's screening mechanism. This is because non-first-release projects have usually undergone initial market validation. When introducing them, the platform can conduct a secondary screening based on more comprehensive factors such as price performance, community buzz, narrative diffusion, and market acceptance, thus making them more likely to outperform first-release projects in terms of certainty.
Overall, Gate's listing structure doesn't solely rely on initial IPOs to demonstrate its advantages. Instead, it forms two complementary paths: initial IPOs offer greater flexibility and a stronger wealth effect, while non-initial IPOs provide a more stable median return. The former leans towards "aggressiveness," while the latter leans towards "stability," together constituting the platform's adaptability to different user preferences. From the platform's perspective, this dual-track structure is more mature than simply relying on initial IPOs. It demonstrates that Gate doesn't mechanically pursue as many initial IPOs as possible, but rather, in addition to initial IPOs, it can also provide users with continuous and effective opportunities by strategically introducing and re-selecting non-initial IPO projects.
IV. Exclusive Projects: The section that best demonstrates Gate's proactive judgment capabilities
Launching projects demonstrates a platform's ability to participate in mainstream high-quality supply, while exclusive projects reflect a platform's more proactive screening capabilities, resource acquisition capabilities, and pre-emptive judgment capabilities. Exclusive projects directly reflect a platform's project aesthetics, risk control capabilities, and execution efficiency.
In Q1, Gate.io exclusively listed 14 projects, accounting for 37.8% of all new listings. This proportion itself demonstrates that Gate.io was not merely passively participating in the mainstream listing cycle this quarter, but rather possessed a significantly differentiated pool of projects of its own. More importantly, these exclusive projects performed well after listing, demonstrating strong competitiveness in several key periods.
Figure 6: Percentage of increases and median growth rate of Gate Exclusive projects across different time periods (24h–7d)
In terms of success rate, the exclusive projects achieved a success rate of 64.3% within 24 hours, 71.4% within 72 hours, and 57.1% within 7 days. The 72-hour window showed the most outstanding performance. This means that during the second and third days after listing, Gate's exclusive projects did not weaken rapidly as the initial hype subsided; instead, they demonstrated a clearer market capital support and upward trend.
Looking at the median returns, exclusive projects achieved +42.4%, +37.8%, and +12.1% in 24 hours, 72 hours, and 7 days, respectively. This indicates that exclusive projects not only had a higher proportion of gains, but also a significantly higher median return than the overall sample. This means that the strong performance of exclusive projects is not due to a few extreme cases, but rather that most projects can provide good quality returns during the core window.
Looking at the distribution of extreme returns further, the characteristics of exclusive projects become even clearer. From 30 minutes after launch to 30 days later, over 20% of exclusive projects consistently saw gains exceeding 100%. During the 3rd to 7th day period, projects with gains exceeding 100% accounted for a staggering 35.7%, significantly higher than the 15.4% for all initial offerings. Even extending the timeframe to 30 days, 12.5% of exclusive projects still achieved gains of 500% or even 1,000%.
These data collectively illustrate that Gate's exclusive projects do not only gain some popularity at the time of opening due to scarcity, but also consistently achieve price discovery and receive buying support over multiple time windows after listing, with a strong probability of developing a more significant profit curve.
V. Case Review
Based on the Q1 cases, Gate's project selection generally revolves around three paths: one is projects with high attention across the entire network, which Gate launches or prioritizes in the early stages, and are subsequently followed and validated by other platforms; another is projects that Gate exclusively launches and continues to perform well, demonstrating the platform's independent screening capabilities; and the third is narrative projects with strong community dissemination and topic spread capabilities, demonstrating the platform's sensitivity to emotionally driven tracks.
5.1 Solana Mobile (SKR): Taking the lead in high-profile projects.
Solana Mobile belongs to the Depin sector, and its ATH (Average Daily Price) rose by 2,459% after TGE (Tencent's Open Market Access Registry), with a 30-day increase of 715%. As a combination of Solana's official hardware phone and Web3 application, Solana Mobile possesses inherent brand endorsement, community foundation, and dissemination advantages. Gate launched simultaneously with two other CEXs, and even launched a day before B*** Alpha to seize market share, demonstrating that Gate maintained its rapid response capability to high-profile new projects globally in Q1.
The initial integration with SKR demonstrates that Gate can gain early access to high-traffic, high-profile, and high-expectation projects, allowing users to participate in transactions before the projects are more widely covered. This capability reflects Gate's competitive position among mainstream high-quality projects.
5.2 CodexField (CODEX): A representative of high returns among exclusive projects
CodexField belongs to the content creation category and is one of Gate's most representative exclusive projects in Q1. Its ATH (Average Hit Rate) increased by 4,900%, and as of March 25, it still maintained an increase of 2,566%. Meanwhile, B***, B***, and B*** have not yet been launched.
If exclusive projects best demonstrate a platform's proactive screening capabilities, then CodexField is a prime example of Gate's prowess in this regard. Prior to its launch, the project had already secured investment from Gate Labs, and Gate also provided it with early access to secondary market pricing, ultimately generating a powerful wealth effect.
For projects that are not yet widely covered but have strong growth potential and market imagination, Gate has the ability to make advance arrangements and leverage its platform's liquidity and user base to truly transform these projects into verifiable market results.
5.3 Lobster: A Sample of Pre-layout in AI + Meme Narrative
The combination of AI and memes was a highly popular but also highly polarized area in Q1. Many projects generated buzz, but lacked sustainability; many projects had viral potential, but didn't necessarily translate into transactions. Lobster, an AI + Meme project, was launched by Gate.com, with ATH rising 286% and 7-day gains reaching 164%; B*** Alpha followed suit the next day after seeing Gate.com's trend. This case perfectly illustrates Gate.com's ability to proactively develop highly viral narratives and its early price discovery capabilities.
Looking at these cases as a whole, it's clear that Gate's spot listings in Q1 weren't driven by a single type of project, but rather by a combination of diverse sectors, styles, and narratives. The platform can accommodate high-profile mainstream projects as well as discover unique growth-oriented projects; it can cover both technology-driven and product-driven projects, and also identify community-culture- and emotion-driven assets. This diversity itself is a significant indicator of the maturity of Gate's listing system.
VI. Conclusion
In summary, Gate's spot listing performance in the first quarter of 2026 can be summarized in one sentence: In a period of overall market pressure, decreased opportunity density, and increased project differentiation, Gate still maintained a relatively high-quality supply of new projects and a convincing post-listing performance.
In a market phase where achieving good results is not easy, Gate's overall sample maintained a high percentage of gains across multiple time windows, with positive 24-hour and 3-day median returns. New coin performance showed considerable breadth, with initial public offerings (IPOs) providing greater return flexibility, non-IPO projects offering higher success rates, and exclusive projects demonstrating greater scarcity and stronger mid-term performance. The platform's coin listing capability is not a single-point breakthrough, but rather a manifestation of a systematic capability.
For users, Gate offers a more comprehensive and clearly defined system for participating in early-stage projects. Users who prefer high-risk, high-reward opportunities can look for higher odds in initial offerings; those who prefer a more conservative approach can focus on the high win rates of non-initial offerings; and those who want to access differentiated assets before broad mainstream market coverage can focus on Gate's exclusive project section. For project teams, the Q1 data also demonstrates that Gate possesses strong initial transaction handling capabilities, liquidity management capabilities, and price discovery capabilities.
From a longer-term perspective, the ultimate competition among exchanges in terms of spot listing capabilities boils down to their ability to consistently acquire, screen, and deliver high-quality projects across different market phases. Gate's Q1 data clearly demonstrates this: even in a weak market, Gate was still able to accurately list, reliably screen, and deliver results.
Disclaimer
Investing in the cryptocurrency market involves high risks. Users are advised to conduct independent research and fully understand the nature of any assets and products they intend to purchase before making any investment decisions. Gate assumes no responsibility for any loss or damage arising from such investment decisions.
