By The Numbers: How Many Altcoins Died In The Past 10 Years, Report Shows

CoinGecko’s most recent report details the failure rate of cryptocurrencies in the last 10 years. Exhibiting the increasing number of “dead” altcoins over the years as projects deactivate, rebrand, lose trading activity, or are revealed to be scams.

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The first half of the ten-year period that CoinGecko studied showed 1,546 dead cryptocurrencies, 11.01%% of the total amount.

2014 saw the death of 37 cryptocurrencies, 2015 had a lower number with only 27, and 2016 closed this period with 32 dead coins. The 2014-2016 period saw the death of 96 cryptocurrencies in three years, accounting for less than 1% of the total of altcoins that have died over the last decade, as seen in the chart below.

During the 2017-2018 Bull run, Almost 1,500 of the launched projects have since shut down, as CoinGecko explained:

In comparison, 1,450 projects launched during the 2017 – 2018 bull run have since shut down. This is on the back of over 3,000 cryptocurrencies listed, resulting in a similar failure rate of ~70%.

The report shows that over 88% of the failed cryptocurrencies come from the second half of the period analyzed. Just 2019 increased 2018 year’s number by 50, reaching 1,150 failed cryptocurrencies and closely matching the total number of dead coins of the previous half.

However, most dead cryptocurrencies came from the 2020-2021 bull run. “Over 11,000 cryptocurrencies were listed on CoinGecko during the previous bull run, with ~70% having shut down since,” they detailed. 7,530 cryptocurrencies from launched projects during 2020-2021 have failed, accounting for 53,6% of all dead coins alone.

2021 is when cryptocurrencies suffered the most, with 5,724 dead coins—resulting in the worst year for projects launched, with over 70% of the cryptocurrencies listed having died as of January 2024.

The report attributes the high number of failures over 2020-2021 to the “ease of deploying tokens and the rise in popularity of meme coins.” They noted that many memecoin projects launch without a product, and most are “abandoned over a short period of time.”

In 2022, the number of failed projects declined from the previous year, with 3,520 dying. A 60% rate out of the total listed cryptocurrencies.

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Ultimately, the number of failed projects declined further in 2023, as only 289 cryptocurrencies, out of the over 4,000 listed on CoinGecko, died. This represents a failure rate of