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- š„ 58% of cryptocurrencies are dead. Here's why... š
š„ 58% of cryptocurrencies are dead. Here's why... š
PLUS: the #1 metric we're tracking... š
Todayās edition is brought to you by Harpie ā the leading crypto security tool that protects your wallet from theft with always-on threat detection and real-time fund recovery.
GM. This is the Milk Road. Crypto can be a hard nut to crack - let us crack it for you.
Hereās what we got for you today:
58% of cryptocurrencies are dead ā ļø
Bitcoin ETF trading volume crossed $10B in 3 days š¤
The number of crypto devs is down 24% š
Dencun completes its first test šŖ
58% OF CRYPTOCURRENCIES ARE DEAD ā ļø
CoinGecko just dropped a new report on cryptocurrencies.
Here are 4 WILD stats from it:
24,000 cryptocurrencies have been listed on CoinGecko since 2014.
Thatās an average of 7 new tokens, every single day.
Of those, ~58% have died.
More than half of the dead tokens launched during the 2021 bull run.
The big takeaway: thereās always a spike in token ādeathsā during bull runs.
Why? Itās getting easier and easier to launch a token. Which means itās also getting easier and easier to scam.
Thatās why the number of dead tokens (mostly rugpulls) jumped fromā¦
32 in 2016 ā 346 during the 2017 bull run. A 10x increase.
And then, jumped from 1,806 in 2020 ā 5,724 during the 2021 bull run. A 3x increase.
With another bull run coming up, we expect another spike in ādeadā tokens.
Watch out!
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Spot Bitcoin ETFs have been live for less than a week.
Letās take a peek at the numbers so far:
The total trading volume across all 11 spot Bitcoin ETFs crossed $10B.
Grayscale, Fidelity, and BlackRock make up 90% of trading volume.
Thereās been more than $1B+ in trading volume every single day since the ETFs launched.
Impressive. But there are still a lot of people who are calling the Bitcoin ETFs a ābust.ā
Why? Number no go up.
You see, some people were speculating the Bitcoin ETF approvals would make prices explode...
By now BTC should be at $1M and we should all have 3 mansions and 2 yachts.
Instead, BTC is down ~10% and I just called my mom to see if my room was still available. (You know, just in case.)
But thereās a bright spot: while crypto degens arenāt too impressed with the week 1 numbers, the ETF experts are.
Side note: ācombindedā sounds like something my 4-year-old nephew would say š

Letās be clear. 99% of the time, thereās no sugarcoating a stat like that.
The number of devs is down. That sucks. Period.
But turns out, with this stat, there is a little bit of sugar. So dammit⦠letās coat that sh*t up!
Yes, the total number of devs is down 24%, but according to Electric Capitalā¦
The number of āexperienced devsā (1+ years) grew by 16%.
The number of āestablished devsā (2+ years) hit a new all-time high and has grown 52% annualized over the past 5 years.
Turns out the majority of developers that left last year were ānewcomers.ā Theyāre like tourists - they only visit when the sunās shining and the weatherās nice.
At the end of the day - we donāt care about them, we care about the locals. The hometown heroes. The real ones.
The good news? The number of locals keeps growing each year.

We sat down with the Founder & CEO of Metallicus, Marshall Hayner, to discuss his journey and the current crypto landscape. Check out the full interview with Marshall here!*
Ethereumās Dencun upgrade was successfully deployed on the Goerli test network. Next up? Sepolia on January 31 and Holesky on February 7.
VanEck is shutting down its BTC futures fund. The fund (XBTF) intends to stop trading on Jan. 30.
Socket.Tech suffered an exploit that affected various web3 apps. The attack targeted the Bungee Exchange, a frontend to the Socket Protocol that bridges between Ethereum and 12 EVM chains, resulting in a loss of about $3.3M.
AltLayer is launching its native token on January 25. The token will be launched via Binance Launchpool following a farming period that begins on Jan. 19, with an airdrop to early supporters also planned upon listing.
Gemini gained regulatory approval in France. The crypto exchange will now be able to serve both retail and institutional crypto clients.
NFT wash trading volumes on Ethereum marketplaces hit their lowest level in over a year. 1.8% is the lowest level since May 1, 2022. For reference, thatās down from 36% in January 2023.
Yuga Labs is launching a free-to-play version of its game - Dookey Dash. Weird, thatās the same game I play after my first cup of coffee every day.
*This is sponsored content

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