According to an estimate done by Coinopsy, a website which keeps an updated catalogue of virtual currencies which are no longer in existence. About 264 altcoins didn’t scale through the bearish market of 2018. Majority of the projects that didn’t survive 2018 were created in 2017.



264 Altcoins Died in 2018



264 virtual currencies which used to active at the beginning of 2018 have now ceased to exist according to Coinopsy’s catalogue of dead coins.



On the website, a dead coin is defined as a token or coin that has been deserted, swindled, a dead website, no nodes, wallet issues, low volume or developers have abandoned the project, and no social updates.



Philosopher Stones and Scorecoin are part of the projects which collapsed in 2018. However, this is not the first these two will be marked as dead. Both projects were established in 2013 but collapsed the following year and resurrected in 2017 due to the bull market which occurred at that time.



Dead Coins Categories



Dead coins are divided into 4 groups by Coinopsy based on whether it comprises of a joke, scam, an ICO, or an abandoned project. 144 virtual currencies of the 264 that collapsed in 2018 consisted of ICOs that were created in the previous year, therefore, emphasising the dangers associated with investing in ICOs.



Furthermore, most of the ICOs on the list are either those that failed completely or are made up of frauds. For example, Dimoncoin which was a project that had several visible flaws in its whitepaper enabled the owner to syphon vast amount of investors money from the project.



Also, the second largest group of virtual currencies that collapsed in 2018 were those that were neglected by their developers and they consist of 27% of the casualties. An overall of 73 altcoins was abandoned last year which included Masternode Community Coin, India Coin, and Rare Pepe Party.



In addition, 20% of virtual currencies that failed last year were suspected of comprising frauds with 55 projects accused of fraudulent activities.