From Leaderboard Battles to Discovering 100x Tokens: How MEXC Rising Star Is Reshaping the Discovery of On-Chain Assets

In the fast-paced crypto market, who wouldn't want to be the first to catch the next 100x token? MEXC's newly launched DEX+ Rising Star event is quietly reshaping how early-stage on-chain assets are discovered. Traditional "vote-to-list" mechanisms tend to be marketing-driven: project teams often attract and manipulate votes through airdrops or vote-buying tactics, which poorly reflect true market potential. In contrast, Rising Star adopts an innovative "trade-to-list" model, using real trading volume as the core driver for project selection.

Users can quickly filter high-potential tokens through trading volume and evaluate early opportunities based on performance and leaderboard rankings, all before a project hits the main exchange. This reduces information costs. On the other side, projects gain exposure and gain momentum by tapping into CEX ecosystem traffic to earn "wild card entries" for listing. Meanwhile, exchanges empower projects with genuine market interest, moving away from merely serving as exit ramps.

This article will break down how MEXC's Rising Star creates a win-win situation for both investors and project teams, empowering both project launches and investor returns.

1. Why Rising Star Becomes the Roadmap for Early Discovery

In the current market environment, the surge in the number of tokens combined with insufficient liquidity has significantly increased the difficulty for everyday investors to participate. According to data from Dune, the number of crypto tokens skyrocketed from 3.4 million at the end of 2021 to 44 million by May 2025: a more than 12-fold increase. In the first four months of this year alone, 7.67 million new tokens were created. Meanwhile, data from DeFiLlama shows that DeFi's total value locked (TVL) has dropped from $168.5 billion at the end of 2022 to $113.7 billion today, a decline of 48%. On the one hand, low liquidity weakens the momentum behind individual token price increases. On the other hand, discovering high-potential tokens among tens of millions feels like searching for a needle in a haystack: users must invest substantial time and effort in analysis, making the cost of filtering extremely high.

Source: Dune

Through the Rising Star feature, users can discover projects with high market attention, active communities, and strong liquidity: gaining early access to high-potential tokens. Trading volume directly contributes to a project's leaderboard score, essentially serving as a vote backed by real funds that fairly reflects genuine market demand. If the project a user supports rises in the rankings, it may be listed in MEXC's Main Zone, signaling potential value growth (depending on market conditions).

Additionally, MEXC's Rising Star offers a prize pool worth thousands of USDT. Users share the rewards based on their trading volume contributions. This allows users to support promising projects while also earning extra returns.

2. How Rising Star Redefines Lightweight Token Listing Through Traffic and Credibility

For project teams, starting from scratch is becoming increasingly difficult. New projects face a major challenge in today's fragmented crypto market. Without initial exposure, they struggle to generate trading volume. Poor volume leads to weak performance data, which pushes them further into obscurity.

Rising Star offers a more structured solution to this challenge. Leveraging MEXC's vast user base and strong community influence, it acts as a traffic amplifier for early-stage on-chain projects: user trading activity directly impacts project leaderboard rankings, offering exposure to projects even in their early cold-start phase. Moreover, MEXC's brand as a well-established exchange adds a layer of trust and credibility for these emerging projects.

In addition, traditional CEX listing processes are often lengthy and come with high entry barriers. MEXC's Rising Star streamlines the listing pathway. Projects can bypass complex application procedures and costly fees simply by encouraging community members to trade, accumulating leaderboard points to earn listing eligibility and access to quality CEX liquidity. This listing model is efficient, transparent, and low-cost, reducing the operational burden on projects while offering early-stage teams a fair shot at market visibility.

3. How MEXC's Rising Star Converts Trading into Value Voting

Rising Star Project Selection Criteria

MEXC's Rising Star selects listing candidates based on the following three criteria:

1. Top 3 on the Leaderboard

Points are calculated based on trading volume. New users earn 30 points per 100 USDT traded. Existing users earn 4 points. A single user can earn up to 1,000 points. This encourages new user participation while limiting the influence of any single user, ensuring the rankings reflect true market sentiment.

1. $150,000 Minimum Daily Trading Volume

Projects must maintain a daily average trading volume of at least $150,000 USDT. This showcases strong community engagement and market demand, providing a more authentic and intuitive metric than traditional vote-to-list models.

1. $300,000 Minimum Market Cap

A market cap threshold of $300,000 is set, 4 to 30 times higher than many other Launchpad events (e.g., pump.fun at $69,000, LetsBonk at $15,000, Believe at $10,000). This filters out overhyped tokens while leaving room for real gems to scale toward the million-dollar mark.

To prevent wash trading, MEXC enforces strict rules: market makers and project teams are prohibited from earning points, and accounts with suspicious behavior or multiple identities are disqualified. This ensures fairness and that rankings reflect genuine user support.

Source: MEXC DEX+ Rising Star

Advantages of Rising Star's Trade-to-List Model

Compared to traditional vote-to-list mechanisms (which rely on holding platform tokens to vote), MEXC's Rising Star adopts a trade-to-list model using trading volume as the core metric, with additional requirements for minimum daily trading volume and market capitalization. This significantly enhances both fairness and efficiency.

Advantages of Rising Star's Trade-to-List Model:

1. Trading volume and market cap thresholds ensure selected projects have a degree of maturity, with active communities and sufficient trading depth, reducing liquidity risk.

1. Greater objectivity: Trading equals voting, with transparent data. Combined with anti-manipulation measures, this reduces vote rigging and better reflects real market potential.

1. Platform-level due diligence filters out speculative projects, improving reliability and ensuring listing quality.

In today's market environment, which is marked by a surge in tokens and fragmented liquidity, the MEXC Rising Star trade-to-list model establishes a mutually beneficial path for both projects and users, driven by real trading activity. But does it truly generate returns? Let's take a look at the following case studies.

4. Dual Engines for User Gains: Rewards for Participation + Spotting High-Potential Tokens

MEXC's Rising Star is not only a window into emerging market trends but also a dual-reward opportunity for users: 1. Users earn platform rewards from participating. 2. Significant returns generated from identifying and holding pre-pump assets.

Ongoing Incentive Upgrade: Generous USDT Prize Pools Become the New Norm with Rising Star

After several successful rounds, the Rising Star event mechanism has become increasingly refined. In its most recent iteration, Season 5 (May 15–22, 2025), a special 2,000 USDT prize pool was added exclusively for newcomers. Eligible users—such as those who complete their first deposit of ≥100 USDT and make their first DEX+ trade during the event—can share in this bonus reward. Looking ahead, such generous USDT incentive pools are expected to become a regular feature in future Rising Star events, consistently delivering returns for participants. This move significantly lowers the entry barrier for beginners: even with limited funds, users can still earn rewards through active trading, making everyone a winner while delivering on-chain incentives.

It's foreseeable that as the incentive mechanism becomes normalized and the rules are further refined, the competitive ecosystem of Rising Star will become increasingly robust: generous and ongoing rewards will continuously attract new users, while clear standards ensure the quality of top-ranked projects. In such an environment, the leaderboard will grow more valuable, offering everyday investors an efficient window into on-chain market trends and a prime opportunity to capture early value. For project teams, it presents a fair competitive arena: those with real strength have a genuine shot at breaking through to a broader audience.

Data Proves the Star-Making Potential of Rising Star

Source: MEXC DEX+ Official X Account

• LETSBONK: A standout performer from Season 4 of Rising Star, LETSBONK was listed on the MEXC Spot market on May 8, 2025. Following its listing, the token surged to a historical high of 614.46% above its opening price: an astonishing return of nearly 6x!

• ICECREAM: As one of the winners in Season 3, ICECREAM was also approved for listing on MEXC. It recorded a peak price increase of 177.88% after going live.

(The above are just two representative examples. In reality, each season of Rising Star features multiple winning projects that go on to list on MEXC and deliver solid performance, such as FARTGIRL from Season 2 and Buckazoids from Season 3. Users who entered early in these projects often enjoyed substantial gains after their listings.)

Based on the price performance of listed projects, as of May 11, the average increase from opening to closing price was 34.29%, while the average increase from opening price to all-time high reached an impressive 158.86%. This clearly demonstrates that Rising Star offers ordinary users the chance to seek outsized returns—potential 100x tokens—with relatively small capital. It enables early identification of fundamentally solid projects before they receive widespread market attention. In essence, selecting assets based on on-chain trading rankings is about spotting the next breakout among emerging projects. For keen observers, the value is self-evident.

5. Building a CEX-DEX Ecosystem: Dual Engines of Cold Start and Liquidity Expansion

From a strategic perspective, Rising Star is a key component of MEXC's vision to create an inclusive ecosystem between CEX and DEX. Traditionally, centralized and decentralized exchanges operate in silos: DEXs serve as the birthplace of early-stage projects, while CEXs provide mature markets and deeper liquidity. MEXC bridges this gap by integrating both, enabling a full-cycle incubation and trading loop that amplifies results beyond the sum of its parts.

Specifically, MEXC DEX+ acts as the entry point for early-stage incubation and cold starts. The Rising Star mechanism helps projects gather preliminary trading data and user feedback. MEXC then seamlessly transitions strong performers to its main CEX, offering them access to broader liquidity and leveraged tools. This dual-stage model—DEX cold start followed by CEX amplification—boosts project listing efficiency and shortens the feedback loop for going mainstream. Over time, MEXC may establish a powerful closed-loop ecosystem where DEX+ continuously sources early gems, CEX scales them with capital and exposure, and successful projects in turn attract more users eager to discover the next breakout on the MEXC platform.

6. Conclusion: Redefining the On-Chain Asset Discovery Paradigm

Since its inception as a trading incentive program, Rising Star has evolved into a new paradigm for discovering promising on-chain assets. It democratizes early-stage discovery for everyday investors while solving the cold start challenge for quality new projects. Through this dual-engine approach, MEXC truly unlocks bilateral value: users become key beneficiaries by supporting projects early, while project teams accelerate their growth with community backing.

Looking ahead, with Rising Star as a catalyst, many more 100x tokens may be unearthed by insightful communities before they explode in popularity. More importantly, the opportunity to discover Alpha on-chain is no longer the privilege of a select few, it's becoming a strategy that anyone can participate in.