According to a study conducted by Invest in Blockchain, over half of the top cryptocurrencies in the industry have no clear purpose or function. The study noted that out of the top 100 cryptocurrencies, only 40 appeared to provide any real value to the public.
Most Cryptocurrencies Add No Value to the Public
Invest in Blockchain analyzed the top 100 cryptocurrencies as to market capitalization. The researchers of the study said:
“We evaluated each project’s status, looked at its roadmap, checked its release history, and compared completed features to what the team promises to deliver in the future.”
Unfortunately, the majority of the cryptocurrencies failed to pass the mark.
Furthermore, many cryptocurrency companies claim that they have a working and active product available to the public. However, the mere existence of a product does not necessarily equate to an active and working product.
Even projects with working products can also have significant vulnerabilities in their platform. An example is the Verge network. The anonymous cryptocurrency platform recently forked its network after a hacker managed to exploit a technical vulnerability and stole over $1.7 million in tokens. Bancor also lost approximately $12.5 million in Ethereum tokens due to technical vulnerabilities.
However, when it came to the most popular cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash, and other top 5 cryptocurrencies, the researchers noted that they all had working products. Less popular tokens like Zcash and ZenCash were also seen as cryptocurrencies with a clear working product.
The Independent noted that the cryptocurrency study came during a bearish time for the cryptocurrency industry. Popular cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum and others are currently falling in value in the market from their all-time highs in December 2017.
Coincall Publishes List of “Shitcoins”
In March 2018, Coincall, a cryptocurrency portfolio tracker, also published a list of coins it deemed were “outright scammy crypto projects.” Coincall noted that the reason for the high number of scammy cryptocurrencies or “shitcoins” is the initial coin offering (ICO) movement and how it attracted the fraudsters and scammers who exploited the greed of retail investors.
Coincall added:
“[These] kind of projects contribute nothing to the ecosystem and deliver no value. In fact, in the long term, they give the whole crypto space and ICOs a bad reputation.”
The cryptocurrency portfolio tracker believes that the best way to move forward is to talk about the situation openly.
According to Coincall, examples of these “shitcoins” include Bitcoin Cash, BitConnect, Bitcoin Diamond, Centra, Davorcoin, Plexcoin, Regalcoin, Tether, and Veritaseum. Unlike Invest in Blockchain, Coincall listed Bitcoin Cash as a “shitcoin” despite its active working product and popularity in the marketplace.
The company also noted that in good faith, it would list a poop emoji next to a “shitcoin” on its cryptocurrency portfolio tracker platform. Its desire to inform the public is largely driven by the sheer increase and amount of “shitcoins” in the market since the total implied market capitalization as of March 2018 of the list of “shitcoins” hit $23.22 billion.
