While not entirely active, these virtually defunct tokens are still multiplying.
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You’ve likely heard of Bitcoin and Ether as digital tokens, but there’s actually tens of thousands of cryptocurrencies you probably haven’t heard of. In fact over 12,000 of those coins are virtually defunct. Not that they’re ‘dead’ per say, but they’re also not considered ‘alive’ or active.
They’re called ‘zombie’ coins: tokens that have stopped trading activity lately and are simply dormant.
These zombified coins are not a new phenomenon, but the substantial increase in their volume (from the hundreds in 2019 to 12,100 at recent count) has been eye-opening as another symptom of chilly market conditions.
Bloomberg reporter Olga Kharif joins Bloomberg senior markets editor Mike Regan to wade through what happens when a market has so many inactive currencies, and what it says about the crypto industry’s overall health.
Follow us on Twitter @crypto, and subscribe to the Bloomberg Crypto Newsletter at https://bloom.bg/cryptonewsletter
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