- A whopping half a million new cryptocurrencies have been launched in the first quarter of 2024.
- Memecoins are largely responsible for the surge in new tokens, thanks to impressive gains among popular assets like Dogwifhat and Pepe.
- However, new project launches were on the rise before the March Memecoin Madness, suggesting that activity among developers is trending upward anyway.
If you Google “How many cryptocurrencies are there”, the first few results give answers of around 20-30,000. But according to a recent CoinGecko report, these estimates are miles off the mark. According to this article, there are approximately 2.5m cryptocurrencies in circulation as of April 2024 – a 570% increase from 2022. How many of these new coins are actively developed, legitimate projects is up for debate (and the answer is probably only a handful), but the data does show an increase in activity within the sector.
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Memecoins Rule the Roost as 2024 Starts Off Hot
CoinGecko’s report that over half a million coins have been minted in 2024 is on its own a stunning statistic. But delve further into the data, and it gets even more perplexing. At the current rate, we are slated to see over 2 million new crypto projects enter circulation by the end of the year.
If the trend continues, it means the number of coins will have doubled in just 12 months, or increased by 8x since January 2022. With 5,300 coins produced on a daily basis, there are several key takeaways we can make.
The biggest is that memecoin season is well and truly underway. The vast majority of coins were minted through March, when coins like Dogwifhat, BONK and Pepe saw gains of 100%+. A significant portion of new projects are likely memecoins with very little functionality or coding requirements, making them easy to spit out, market and then drop after an initial surge in price.
This may seem like a bit of a negative, as it bloats networks with relatively useless cryptocurrencies that can trap newcomers into poor investments. However, there are some positives we can identify, too.
- The influx of new coins suggests that it is becoming much easier to mint new coins. This does leave the industry open to more scam coins – but it also makes innovation from talented developers easier.
- The trend is also driven by improved scalability among key blockchain networks. A reduction in trading fees and settlement times has made minting new coins cheaper and more efficient.
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CoinGecko also pointed out that, while memecoins were a massive reason for the spike in activity, January and February also set record-highs for token launches – prior to memecoin season truly setting in.
This perhaps suggests that onchain speculative activity is on the rise regardless of broader rotations into memecoins.
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