The initial coin offering crypto buzz hit all-time high popularity in 2017 when there were 875 projects, a significant jump from 29 in the previous year. 2018 picked up on the trend, introducing a further 1,253 projects. To date, there have been a staggering 5,683 ICO projects with 2,318 of them being cryptocurrencies. Of the total projects, 4,932 are based on the Ethereum platform.
However, only a few of these projects have lived up to expectations or the bear potential to pull through. A significant number have faded out and are now considered dead. Deadcoins, a platform that chronicles crypto projects that have ceased or have negligible operations, puts the number of dead crypto at 1,867 as of Jan. 16, 2020. Coinopsy, a similar platform, puts the number at 1,416. Similarly, CoinMarketCap, which provides daily crypto trading volumes, lists over 1,000 coins with volumes below $1,000. Thus, the number of dead cryptocurrencies is evidently in the range of 1,000+.