Despite the boom in the number of cryptocurrencies available for trade, the vast majority of money is held in the top 2% of coins.

It wasn’t all that long ago that the only cryptocurrency anyone knew about was bitcoin. In fact, many still confuse bitcoin and all the altcoins as being one in the same. Yet, at the time of writing, there are 1523 cryptocurrencies tracked by CoinMarketCap, with hundreds of ICOs (initial coin offerings) seeking enough support to join that list over the coming months and years.

It’s near impossible to track them all. You can see the full list here if you want to give it a go, but even the most dedicated trader will struggle to know even half of those currently available. In the month of January alone, around 100 new cryptocurrency altcoins joined the fun, further diluting the market.

Although, did they?

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Despite the enthusiastic influx of altcoins over the last six months to a year, very few have managed to gain significant, consistent traction. We recently completed a volatility analysis, which revealed the 20 most volatile cryptocurrencies in the market, but we learned plenty more from that analysis. This includes a rather startling figure regarding the total market cap.

The total market cap refers to the total value of all the cryptocurrencies in the market. As you might suspect, it’s a big number. It’s $410,051,855,502 (as of 13 February 2018). However, further analysis shows that $368,199,603,982, or 90%, of that market cap is consumed by the top 30 cryptocurrencies. That’s just 2% of all the cryptocurrencies listed on CoinMarketCap. This leaves a whopping 1493 altcoins to scuffle over the last 10% of the market.

Because of the astronomical figures we’re talking here, that 10% isn’t chicken feed, but it does show just how tough it is to gain enough market momentum to crack into the public conscience. Even cryptocurrencies frequently in the news like 0x, Electroneum, Power Ledger and Verge haven’t cracked into that top 30. Let alone the top 10, where 80% of the total market cap lies.

It’s true that not all cryptocurrencies seek the same goals, and therefore not all will need the same market share in order to stay afloat and successfully evolve, but it remains food for thought. You can see the top 30 coins at the time of writing below.

Cryptocurrency Market Cap Bitcoin $143,254,537,172 Ethereum $80,955,721,575 Ripple $39,616,589,329 Bitcoin Cash $20,482,217,625 Cardano $9,412,019,220 Litecoin $8,526,734,536 NEO $7,089,745,000 Stellar $6,912,470,413 EOS $5,800,480,633 IOTA $4,869,764,851 NEM $4,809,536,999 Dash $4,634,231,101 Monero $3,638,704,695 Lisk $3,153,880,235 Ethereum Classic $2,931,729,673 TRON $2,808,407,742 Tether $2,221,641,609 Qtum $2,122,344,527 VeChain $1,909,475,622 Bitcoin Gold $1,827,954,534 ICON $1,511,811,331 Zcash $1,416,148,395 U.CASH $1,375,657,675 OmiseGO $1,256,745,863 Nano $1,212,971,169 Steem $1,006,950,309 Populous $986,653,171 Binance Coin $877,077,894 Bytecoin $819,157,502 Stratis $758,243,582