The number of ‘dead’ cryptocurrencies falls 300% in 2022 compared to 2021, despite the collapse of cryptocurrencies.
Currently, there are over 10,000 cryptocurrencies available on the market for investors to put money into. However, most of these will not survive the bear market and will be gone by the time the next bull market revs up its engines.
Cryptocurrencies, while still a niche and emerging sector of asset class, have a market value of around $1 trillion. Their values fluctuate wildly, given the volatility within this sector.
Three main questions are examined, regarding how many cryptocurrencies exist, why there are so many, and how many of these cryptocurrencies survive the hard times.
Existing Cryptocurrencies
As of December 19, 2022, there are around 22,070 cryptocurrencies listed on CoinMarketCap. This number increases by the day. For example, there were around 16,372 cryptocurrencies at the beginning of the year, which is an increase of around 35% as we approach the end of the year.
Nevertheless, one question remains: why are there so many cryptocurrencies?
This is mainly due to all the different purposes and problems that these projects try to address. For example, Bitcoin solves the problem of providing a decentralized peer-to-peer money transfer.
The value of BTC, for now, is mainly speculative. Because of this, many have tried to play the market to make a quick buck. But a few things are working in Bitcoin’s favor in 2022, including spikes in inflation around the world, as well as billions of dollars worth of investments coming into the market from institutional entities.
Bitcoin is currently trading just shy of the $17,000 mark and has a market capitalization of $322 billion. However, this same success does not translate to every other cryptocurrency on the market.
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Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency, experienced an incredible bull run in 2021. That year, it had a trading volume of around $5 trillion and the price of ETH increased by more than 300%. Ethereum has expanded its use case into the NFT, metaverse, and Web 3.0 sectors.
ETH is currently trading at $1,192 with a market capitalization of around $144 billion.
Survival of the Fittest
The rise of cryptocurrencies over the years has been nothing short of astronomical. The bull markets have spawned several projects alongside native tokens and coins.
Statista data shows that in the first quarter of 2022, the number of cryptocurrencies listed on the market (9,929) increased by around 250%, compared to the end of 2019 (2,817). However, the number fell back to 9,310 in November 2022.
In conclusion, the data gives more weight to the advice of ‘DYOR’ or ‘Do your own research’. While it may seem pretty obvious, many investors still don’t think about the risks involved in putting money into a cryptocurrency.
By Audy Castaneda
