A study has shown that the average lifespan of a cryptocurrency is just over a year

About 704 tokens that appeared in 2017 ceased to exist before they had even survived five years. This conclusion was reached by CoinKickoff researchers after studying the activity of 2,400 altcoins on the crypto market since 2013. According to the published data, 2018 was the «deadliest» year. Then 750 tokens disappeared.

From 2013 to the present day, only two assets have managed to stay in the top cryptocurrencies by market capitalization: bitcoin (BTC) and litecoin (LTC). In general, cryptocurrencies have an average lifespan of just over a year, CoinKickoff found. The main reason for failure is weak trading: only a few projects can maintain active trading volumes. Projects are also often shut down because they were originally conceived as fraudulent schemes to defraud investors, according to CoinKickoff.

According to the researchers, a little more than 90% of the tokens that appeared in 2014 have already closed. The only high-profile exception is the «meme altcoin» dogecoin (DOGE). New distribution models did not help tokens either. For example, according to GreySpark Partners, almost 50% of all ICO projects in 2017 collapsed due to unsuccessful attempts to grow to at least $ 1 per token.

However, after 2018, the percentage of «dying» tokens has sharply decreased. For example, if in 2018, about 13.9% of the tokens that appeared in the same year «died,» in 2019, this percentage dropped to 3%. The reason for such a sharp change in the mortality rate could be the increased regulation and listing requirements of crypto exchanges.

It is noteworthy that bitcoin has died as many as 463 times since its inception. For the first time, the leading cryptocurrency by market capitalization was buried only a year after its launch, on December 15, 2010. In total, bitcoin has died more than twenty times in 2022.