A little flashback to twelve years ago; the crypto space was just an over one (1) billion dollars worth sector with only fourteen (14) cryptocurrencies listed on one of the earliest cryptocurrency tracking service, Coinmarketcap.
It’s been just eight years from this time and everything looks very different. Over twenty thousand cryptocurrency projects are listed on Crypto asset tracking platforms. The total market capitalization is well over nine hundred billion dollars at the time of this writing. Do the math, that’s an average of over three thousand new cryptocurrency projects created every year. Of the fourteen earliest cryptocurrencies occupying the charts, only Bitcoin and Litecoin have managed to maintain a significant position in the market ranking with the other projects as good as dead.
coinmarketcap, 2013 Source
A majority of these new cryptocurrency projects emerged after the event of 2017, and a little while before that. To date, the number of new cryptocurrency projects has been overwhelming, one could hardly keep track of them, only a few of these new projects are currently listed on popular cryptocurrency trackers, in the real sense, there are over thirty thousand cryptocurrency projects currently, this number is even poised to get much bigger with time.
The crypto space grows with each new project that emerges, and with each new concept, the scope of blockchain and cryptocurrency applications also increases, this is evidenced in the rapid growth experienced since 2013 as cryptocurrencies have become one of the notable economic disruptions of the past five years.
New exciting projects emerging regularly in blockchain and cryptocurrency intensify the struggle for supremacy or at least for recognition, what it takes to get noticed in the industry gets even bigger and as well costlier. The fact that Craig Wright still spends much of his time trying to defend being the anonymous ‘bitcoin creator’ depicts the struggles of staying relevant in the industry. New projects will have to show some huge sign of seriousness and put in a whole lot of effort to get noticed in the industry and become relevant, existing projects also face the struggle of keeping their position and possibly soaring higher. This creates a competitive scenario and an environment favorable for natural selection theories.
The impact of this proliferation on the cryptocurrency industry is a result of these projects struggling for survival, the different survival strategies introduced by these new and existing projects are the architect of the current reputation and state of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology.
But one question still lurks, how has the crypto space fared with the flooding of new projects? The comment section is open for discussion! Let’s talk! Share your views in the comment section and join the discussion. I’ll go first…
From a personal point of view, the crypto space has become a hot zone for innovations and new concepts, the organization presents a free space for new projects to grow and existing ones to expand. To a large extent, this has been a positive return to the industry and the crypto sphere has presented the perfect environment.
Monero and Zcash were one of the earliest cryptocurrencies to offer privacy options; as of 2017, the crypto space was already housing over fifty (50) privacy-oriented cryptocurrencies each adding some unique features to stand out, and sourcing different solutions to cryptocurrency privacy, numerous privacy coins have emerged since this time and the struggle for supremacy intensifies even more. This sort of competition is well pronounced in the crypto space with each concept having a couple of cryptocurrency projects utilizing it and hoping to find solutions to the same problem.
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Artificial intelligence, social web, data science, Internet of things to mention a few have several cryptocurrencies applying their principles to blockchain technology in a bid to offer solutions to real-life issues using blockchain technology. This proliferation motivates these different projects to work even harder as this is the only way they will survive the competition they face.
But it’s not always green, despite the positive effects of this proliferation, there still exists some effects that don’t go down well. The crypto space has witnessed countless scams of various forms. Inclusive are scams from cryptocurrency project teams. Scams in the industry have boomed more with new projects joining the industry.
Project team scams range from exit scams to manipulations by teams in a bid to work their way up the charts. Competition is perfect and positive when the competitors seek dominance via the right means. Such competition is bound to revolutionize the industry, which we have seen in the crypto space too. In contrast, unhealthy competition kills the reputation of the industry.
Investors are scared away by the correlation of cryptocurrency with scams, especially scams by project teams, such as fake market statistics, insider trading, infeasible proposals, and shiny marketing of fake projects. These manipulations have seen several ‘low-quality’ projects steer up the charts and dominate while amazing projects wallow in negligence.
Down the charts live many great projects that are unable to play the ‘cryptocurrency game’ and are hence unable to push their web presence. They fail to thrive while inferior projects take their deserved place. With more projects coming in and the competition getting even hotter, these unhealthy moves are bound to escalate. For investors, separating the sheep from the wolves becomes another problem, inferior projects with good marketing and poor technology seem to appeal more. At the end of the day, we can only hope that technology wins.
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