More than 800 virtual coins have become worthless

Of all the virtual currencies that have been put into circulation in recent years, more than 800 have already become completely worthless, according to an overview of the website Dead Coins. Numerous different coins fell prey to hackers or turned out to be the work of scammers, causing the value of these coins to drop to less than one cent. There were also many coins that didn't make it for another reason.

The most well-known virtual currency is the Bitcoin, but in addition to that, there are more than a thousand alternative coins in circulation. They are often touted in combination with a certain revenue model or because of unique functionality, but in practice it turns out that many coins do not stand out from the crowd. In some cases, the developers quit the project, while in others, there is not enough interest in the virtual currency.

Proliferation of virtual currencies

Despite the fact that so many virtual currencies have already become worthless, the market has not yet reached the point of saturation. Last year, $3.8 billion worth of new virtual coins were put into circulation, this year the counter is already at $11.9 billion, according to the website CoinSchedule. So there is still a lot of interest in investing in virtual currencies, although speculators have now become more aware of the risks.

According to the website Coinmarketcap There are currently more than 1,600 different virtual currencies that are actively traded, representing a combined market value of $267 billion. Of these, Bitcoin has a market share of 42.5% as the most well-known cryptocurrency. This virtual currency reached an all-time high of nearly $20,000 in December last year, but then sank to a price of $6,500 at the time of writing.

This development in the virtual currency market is reminiscent of the eve of the dotcom bubble, when many different internet companies went public to raise money from investors. Many of these companies did not survive the stock market crash, while some grew into large and powerful technology companies. A similar trend can be seen in virtual currencies, where investors are now starting to separate the wheat from the chaff.