While few cryptocurrencies have been hugely successful, the overwhelming majority fail. "Dead coins” that were launched with great expectation and fanfare ultimately had minimal to zero success. These creators sensing impeding doom cashed out, leaving investors high and dry. Dead coins are projects that have been abandoned, turned out to be scams, have low liquidity or have insufficient funding, among many other reasons.

Many flushed out of all value continue to float around in the murky depths of crypto’s most depressing blockchains, devoid of all hope, abandoned for all eternity, running out of oxygen on the race to the moon.

There are websites such as Coinospy and Deadcoins that track deceased crypto projects floating in this dead space.

No Trading Volume

Every bona-fide project starts with high expectations and best intentions, believing fervently that they’ll find favor among cryptocurrency traders. However, some of them quickly fall victim to low trading volumes, due to limited listings on leading exchanges. Low trading volumes imply that the crypto asset lacks trader interest, and this leads swiftly in most cases to abandonment. It's estimated that six in ten coins with negligible volumes are no longer supported by their developers. Platforms tracking dead coins consider a cryptocurrency dead or abandoned if it has had a trading volume of less than $1,000 within three months.

Failure to attract funding or not having enough funds to support development may bring a project to the ground.

As many dead coins continue to keep up the illusion of good projects, investors are becoming more knowledgeable about crypto in selecting valuable currency in a sea of junk projects.