Can cryptocurrency disappear?

Can cryptocurrency disappear?

In the beginning in 2009 there was Bitcoin, only one cryptocurrency, as of today in 2019 there are over 2000 and 1735 created cryptocurrencies no longer exist (according to deadcoins.com ). Given the facts, yes - cryptocurrencies can disappear, but not physically, because they do not physically exist. Their record on the blockchain remains and will be visible until the entire network is turned off, e.g. Bitcoin can only die when no one will mine, buy, sell, transfer or use the network anymore. Cryptocurrencies do not disappear, they just die or are forgotten and become worthless or banned. This means that you can still own a dead cryptocurrency, but you cannot sell it. Therefore, it is very important to carefully research the project in which you want to invest your money and, importantly, keep track of the progress of this project.

Dead cryptocurrencies

Cryptocurrency is considered bankrupt/dead when there is no longer a demand for it, or its sale is prohibited for some reason. There are several reasons for the collapse of cryptocurrencies:

• Bankruptcy of the project - it is estimated that almost 1,000 altcoins have collapsed or are worthless due to the bankruptcy of the company running the project. The biggest selection started in early 2018, when the price of Bitcoin and market capitalization began to fall sharply, after peaks in 2017. Investors literally started to flee the market with their money, and this resulted in great losses in the capital left for the development of projects, the founders had no money to continue maintaining companies, employees, equipment, etc.
  
  Some cryptocurrencies never really "lived" - they belonged to projects that were controlled by people too careless or too ignorant to work effectively on their projects. Money was wasted and projects so badly managed that nothing came of it. This, in turn, causes investors to pull back quickly.
  
  " Some projects tend to have very ambitious and visionary team members, but in many cases they don't necessarily have the experience and skills required to deliver on their promises ," said Jonha Richman, PR Advisor at Blockchain Firms
  

• Fraud - other Cryptocurrencies disappear or perish for even more nefarious reasons. Scams have unfortunately become a common phenomenon in the cryptocurrency realm - companies that forge platforms and cryptocurrencies to attract investors, only to shut down their websites and disappear once they have managed to raise a few million dollars in capital.
  
  Given the number of scams in the world of cryptocurrencies, this is the second biggest reason for the failure of projects - if you can say that something collapsed before it was even created. There are over 600 proven frauds and extortions in the crypto world, and if they have not been proven or even tried to prove, there are probably twice as many.
  
  A huge wave of so-called scams came with ICO (Initial Coin Offering - raising capital by startups using cryptocurrencies.). ICO became a tool to extort money from early investors, even before work on the project began. It was enough to disguise yourself well, create "some" team, come up with "some" goal, write "some" white paper (a white paper - a report containing an analysis of a given product, service, technology or program) and naive investors bought invented cryptocurrencies in the hope of huge profits, often without even receiving these cryptocurrencies. I wrote "some" on purpose because it was often seen from a distance that it was a scam. There are even companies that offer white paper writing for a small fee.
  
  Since the law does not keep up with technological progress, loopholes are inevitable in this case. This is the case with ICOs in most countries, with the exception of China and South Korea, where they are completely banned. Some countries, such as the US and UK, are increasing regulatory oversight of ICOs as they regulate stocks and bonds. Of the 902 cryptocurrencies created in 2017, 142 failed to raise any funds and 276 collapsed right after the fundraising. Another 113 ICOs fall into the "partially failed" category, either because the startup in question has stopped communicating on social media, or the community has shrunk to the point where it has virtually no chance of success.
  
  
• Hacks - Hackers don't sleep, the better security programmers make, the better hackers become. Hacking in cryptocurrencies is not new, and it is quite a serious problem. Hacking alone in most cases leads to the theft of a significant amount of cryptocurrency, often worth a lot of money, but there is also a case where hackers can hijack a network.
  
  The most famous attack is the 51% attack, but it can mainly take place in projects based on proof-of-work (PoW) consensus, which consists in mining cryptocurrencies with specialized computer hardware. This attack is characterized by the fact that hackers hijack most of the computing power of all miners. Having sufficient computing power, we can manage the network at our discretion. We are able to send cryptocurrencies to a given address on the main chain, while also sending them to another address on the forked blockchain, which we secretly mine thanks to the enormous power we have.
  
  The second of the popular hacks is the hacker finding a gap in the source code of a given project, if such a gap is found, you can, for example, print fake tokens on the original blockchain. This is a kind of test for the creators of the project, after hacking in this way, some cryptocurrencies fall, and others react to the hack as soon as possible by modifying the source code and removing the vulnerability, carry out the necessary wsap token and exclude fake tokens from circulation.
  
  
• Parodies - have you heard of such cryptocurrencies as Jesus Coin, Trump Coin or Theresa May Coin? Yes! There are such cryptocurrencies and the name itself should light a red lamp. There are almost 100 such known parody-coins. They are always created on a platform like Etherum or NEO, they will never have their own network. There is no serious team, goal, mission or plan behind these coins. They are just inventions of bored people in front of the computer - this also shows how easy it is to create your own cryptocurrency. However, you should remember not to buy such coins under any circumstances.
• Financial pyramid - Wikipedia explains the financial pyramid as a financial structure in which the profit of a particular participant is directly dependent on the contributions of later participants, standing somewhat lower in this structure. This structure is also called a "Ponzi scheme" after the creator of the first pyramid scheme in history, Charles Ponzi. It is very difficult to detect a financial pyramid at the early stage of project development, often the creators gain huge trust of the community promising huge profits.
  
  Professionally prepared websites, well-developed marketing, large reach in social media and promised profits of up to several hundred percent tempt inexperienced investors to put their capital, and after achieving their goals, which are often millions of dollars, pyramid creators close the business with investors' money.

Where are my cryptocurrencies?

What is happening with these dead cryptocurrencies? The ones that actually existed first go to the crypto cemetery - deadcoins.com .

The list of fallen Cryptocurrencies has over 1,700 places and is constantly growing - as the crypto world evolves, more and more projects die. While it is true that more and more are being created as well, reducing the hype around crypto markets is slowing down the growth of real cryptocurrencies, the demographics of the crypto market are starting to resemble those of a country with an aging population.