Since the beginning of 2022, 951 cryptocurrencies have been deemed non-functional.
According to CoinGecko research, 951 types of cryptocurrencies have been de facto non-functional since the beginning of the year. The criteria for recognizing digital assets as such include the absence of a functioning project website, as well as the cessation of trading activity on such digital assets for at least two months.
In addition, digital assets were recognized as non-functional if there were court decisions to terminate projects.
The researchers observed that the bull cycle of the cryptocurrency market, which began in November 2020, resulted in more than 8,000 new types of digital assets in 2021. At the same time, a not inconsiderable number of projects experienced failure in the same year, 3,322, in 2021.
However, the number of ineffective projects in 2022 decreased threefold compared to 2021, even though the cryptocurrency market is in a bearish phase this year. All told, between November 2020 and now, nearly 40 percent of cryptocurrency projects in operation have left the digital asset market.
CoinGecko points out that such a big difference between 2022 and 2021 in the number of ineffective digital assets is due to the fact that a significant proportion of failed cryptocurrency projects in 2021 had to do with the emergence of digital assets – memes.
Most of these meme crypto-assets were created by unknown developers who often did not pay constant attention to the technical issues of how such digital assets function. Many such projects tried to replicate the success of Dogecoin (DOGE) and Shiba Inu (SHIB), but most of them failed. That said, the success of DOGE and SHIB does not mean they have a guaranteed the future in the long run.
Barring a spike in failed projects in 2021, an average of 947 cryptocurrencies left the cryptosphere each year between 2018 and 2022. That said, despite the bear market, the number of new cryptocurrency projects has been on the rise this year, bringing the number of different types of digital assets to more than 22,000 at the moment.