A web3 clean out
As of March 2022 there were over 18k cryptocurrencies according to Investopedia (https://www.investopedia.com/tech/most-important-cryptocurrencies-other-than-bitcoin/) as well as per our own checking of sites like CoinGecko. Given the collapse in crypto markets and the debacle over Terra/Luna and its stablecoin, it’s no surprise that when you go back to CoinGecko now, we can see we’ve fallen back to just over 13.5k, a 25% drop.
Whilst tokens don’t ever die (the smart contracts stay on the blockchain forever), their activity may be enough that CoinGecko doesn’t list them anymore and they have rules around listings (just like a traditional financial market exchange — https://www.coingecko.com/en/methodology). It’s still a problem.
So, is it all over? Is this the end? Hardly. It’s the necessary thing that needs to happen to clean out a lot of the mess in the world of web3 and it’s something the system will be better off with in future. Given that we see there being 3 types of projects out there, this is something of a cleansing and will improve the quality of what’s left behind. We talk about them as projects because they’re akin to startups and it’s easier to talk about them that way than to confuse the web3 uninitiated with terms like protocols, token, currencies (which the media latches on so much).
The 3 types of projects we see are as follows
- Those built to grow on popularity alone and do so with some sort of story, meme or popular endorsement
- Those which have been built off popularity and have grown so much that they have enough resources to provide some sort of utilty back to users (but they don’t start that way)
- Those which are built to have utility features from the start
The 1st is difficult to grow and its likely that the majority of the 25% drop off comes from them. The 2nd is more like the Bored Ape projects and others which gain followers from the message they bring and then add utility features in later. The 3rd sounds like it has stronger legs to stand on but is also no guarantee because within that are projects which are doing only web3 native things (and will be limited unless more people come into web3) and those which are trying to bridge real world transactions and assets with digital and web3 native tools.
The point is, there is no guarantee to any of this. But, we don’t get angry at startups failing (for the most part) and we serve vitriol towards the mediums of communications like folks who get angry at NFTs owners. NFTs are just the medium much like PDFs are also a medium. NFTs have additional features and whilst the world sees the artworks here as polarising (you either love or hate the concept), the point is that this tech has so much more to it than just being pointers or digital receipts of ownership. The fact they’re programmable opens up a whole new world of possiblities and given the nature of our projects at NotCentralised, we’ll be at the coal-face digging these things up for you.
Stay tuned!
