Over 2,500 New Crypto Assets Were Created in H1 2021

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  • CoinMarketCap has listed over 2,500 new cryptocurrencies in the first half of this year.
  • The company has received more than 10,700 applications for new token listing.
  • Other prominent crypto data aggregators have also added more than 2,000 new cryptocurrencies.

CoinMarketCap, one of the most trusted and accurate sources for information regarding crypto assets, has listed over 2,500 new cryptocurrencies in the first half of this year. With these new tokens added, the company now lists more than 10,800 digital assets.

In comparison, during the initial coin offering (ICO) peak in 2018, CoinMarketCap listed just over 2,000 coins. Aaron Khoo, head of cryptocurrencies listing at CoinMarketCap, commented on the exceptional growth in the number of new digital assets saying:

[This year] saw a Cambrian explosion of new crypto assets largely as a consequence of several tailwinds.

Another prominent blockchain and crypto data aggregator, CoinGecko, listed over 3,000 new cryptocurrencies to its database in 2021. Coinpaprika, a Poland-based crypto data collector, added more than 2,000 new digital tokens this year so far.

Business development manager at Coinpaprika, Wojciech Maciejewski, said there are more coin listing applications than they can handle. “We don’t have enough people to go through all the applications,” he said.

What Would Happen to New Cryptocurrencies?

While 2021 has been exceptional for the crypto ecosystem in terms of growth and mainstream adoption, representatives from the aforementioned crypto data aggregators claim only a portion of the new cryptocurrencies might survive.

Principal product manager at CoinGecko, Sze Jin Teh, asserted that he believes the surge in the number of new digital assets is similar to the 2018 ICO frenzy. “We have no data to back that but the expectation is that [the new assets] are more or less similar to the 2017 ICO round where only a handful managed to stick around after the initial craze,” he said.

However, Jin added that the number of new digital tokens being created this time is much more compared to 2017 and 2018. The new cryptocurrencies are mainly created across the Ethereum blockchain. Coins created on Polygon and Binance Smart Chain have also seen a surge in 2021.

Maciejewski asserted that the number of new token listing proposals Coinpaprika is receiving is up by a factor of 7x compared to 2018. “There are more and more new ideas, but also more scams that we have to inform our users of,” he said.

However, the actual number of new tokens being created is way more than this. “The coins listed on CoinMarketCap represent a thin sliver (~20% approval rate) of the total number of new coin applications,” Khoo said.

Khoo further added that CoinMarketCap has received more than 10,700 applications for new token listing in the first half of the year.

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