Quoted depth within one percent of mid price has fallen sharply across smaller token pairs on major venues, based on order book snapshots collected by this newsroom over the past quarter.
Three market-making firms said the economics no longer justify the risk: listing fees and token loans that once subsidised quoting have shrunk, while hedging venues for these assets remain shallow.
The effect is visible in execution quality. Median slippage on a fixed notional order has roughly doubled for tokens outside the largest fifty by capitalisation.
Exchanges have responded with fee rebates and by consolidating pairs into fewer quote currencies, which concentrates what liquidity remains rather than creating more of it.
For issuers, the practical consequence is that treasury sales now move prices far more than they did a year ago, a point several foundations have acknowledged in recent governance posts.
