26,000 blockchain projects launched in 2016, 92 percent are now dead

[Hydrogen]

Consulting heavyweight Deloitte claims that over 26,000 new blockchain-based projects were launched on GitHub in 2016. GitHub is a development platform that houses codes for more than 86,000 blockchain programs, including large projects such as Bitcoin.

In its report, titled Evolution of Blockchain Technology: Insights from the GitHub Platform, Deloitte claimed that the number of blockchain projects by both organizations and individual users at the development platform in 2016 is the biggest so far.

By comparison, there are less than 15,000 initiatives that were launched in 2015. Meanwhile, in the first half of 2017, there were almost 25,000 projects that were logged on the platform.

According to Deloitte, the majority of the projects, however, have become inactive in the long run and only eight percent are active so far.

The stark reality of open-source projects is that most are abandoned or do not achieve meaningful scale. Unfortunately, blockchain is not immune to this reality. Our analysis found that only eight percent of projects are active, which we define as being updated at least once in the last six months.

Based on the said report, the leading cryptocurrency Bitcoin has unsurprisingly posted the most number of activities, with 627 total contributors and almost 12,000 followers. Go Ethereum (Geth), meanwhile, has attracted 149 contributors, as well as 5,603 followers so far. Geth is a software client that is maintained by the nonprofit group Ethereum Foundation.

The report further claimed that organizations specializing in blockchain are “a positive differentiator” as 15 percent of the projects developed by them remain active.

Meanwhile, only seven percent of the initiatives launched by users are active. The report also showed that San Francisco has the most number of GitHub repository owners, followed by London and New York.

https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2017/11/09/deloitte-blockchain-26000-projects/

....

It appears blockchain projects have an extremely high failure rate. Here's a dotcom bust comparison the critics needed but didn't deserve! Of course, the high failure rate doesn't have to imply blockchain is overrated or has few legitimate roles in software. It could simply imply that the number of open source developers and small start up launches greatly exceed demand for the technology, creating a high number of spinoffs which are structured around short term gain and exploiting brand name recognition of bitcoin, rather than creating long term value.

[bigvito19]

92 percent was scams, as usual.

[cryptoblackhat]

I'm pretty sure the vast majority of regular startups (not blockchain-related) also fail within their first year: https://www.forbes.com/sites/neilpatel/2015/01/16/90-of-startups-will-fail-heres-what-you-need-to-know-about-the-10/

So this may simply be reflecting the fact that most blockchain projects are startups, and most startups fail.

[chukaday]

92 percent was scams, as usual.

I have participated in about 30 projects in cryptocurrencies I believe and if 27 of those were scams man I would be in for a death ride to put it mildly. Thank godness I have only encountered 1 or 2 scams along the way and as you do get scammed you learn about what to look out for and vow to never let it happen again. In any event the scammers will get what they deserve karma will make sure of this

[Viscera]

Yes we have more ICO's that are good and scam as well.. i suggest look at those whitepaper and roadmap check if it's legit and if the developer is very active as well. so goodluck guys!

[avikz]

The statistics is really sad. But I won't see it as project failures. It has happened due to the lack of proper regulations and compliance. Bitcoin or crypto related ICOs are not properly regulated by any central agency. So a lot of people who are good in website designing, started an ICO with the hope of earning money and then ran away with the money. We have so many examples present for that. We have a lot of ICOs in recent past, who never came back with the final product in the market. They just raised funds by giving us hope and then simply ran away with out money. So the problem is with regulations.

That is the reason why I support stricter regulations to be placed for ICOs. Otherwise the market will become another ponzi market where someone will create an website to raise funds by showing us some future products and then will run away with out money. ICOs need to be properly regulated by the government agencies. If this happens, I am sure the failure rate will come down to a bare minimum level. So the current failure rate is not due to the merit of a product, it's the lack of professional attitude and the mentality to scam people. 

[mOgliE]

Hmm...
Sorry to shatter your dreams and all but... No that's not true ^^
92% failure rate is pretty normal rate for anything not just for crypto.
Most companies and projects fail in the first two years. That's not specific to crypto. In fact I'm pretty amazed by the success rate! 8% of the projects succeed? That's awesome! It means we got 2000 more crypto projects than 2 years ago

[Partizanai]

Hmm...
Sorry to shatter your dreams and all but... No that's not true ^^
92% failure rate is pretty normal rate for anything not just for crypto.
Most companies and projects fail in the first two years. That's not specific to crypto. In fact I'm pretty amazed by the success rate! 8% of the projects succeed? That's awesome! It means we got 2000 more crypto projects than 2 years ago

Still 92% a little steep, think of all the funds which were wasted on dead projects

[RickIVcone]

If everyone willing to start a business would care about enterpreneur failure statistics, most of them wouldn't even try. That's because humans aren't fully rational and we are subjected to cognitive biases such as excessive optimism, overconfidence about ours skills and do on... Business failure is needed in a competition-based market

[arpon11]

I think this is a sign that bitcoin has make a high significant progress and those projects that has failed has the same capacities to succeed like bitcoin and the remaining altcoins including the 5% that succeed. I have been following and reading some of the coins white paper and most of them clam that there are opening a new projects to replace bitcoin but there fail even before 6 month. I just know that bitcoin has the capacity to remain the only decentralized cryptocurrency.

[jaysabi]

Hmm...
Sorry to shatter your dreams and all but... No that's not true ^^
92% failure rate is pretty normal rate for anything not just for crypto.
Most companies and projects fail in the first two years. That's not specific to crypto. In fact I'm pretty amazed by the success rate! 8% of the projects succeed? That's awesome! It means we got 2000 more crypto projects than 2 years ago

Still 92% a little steep, think of all the funds which were wasted on dead projects

That's just how capital markets work. There's a high failure rate because ideas are rather cheap and easy and anyone can come up with one, but ideas the market values are another thing entirely. Once you have an idea the market values, you can still go bust because you as an operator are not efficient or particularly good at operating. The few percent of ideas that make it to market successfully are ideas that the market values and can operate efficiently. This is also where wealth concentration comes from, as it is only the few people who can clear these hurdles that become rich of their efforts.

[EcoChavCrypto]

Yes we have more ICO's that are good and scam as well.. i suggest look at those whitepaper and roadmap check if it's legit and if the developer is very active as well. so goodluck guys!

That is not the only way to see if a project is not going to be destroyed in some months/weeks, reading the whitepaper, just like the newbies are always saying are not the only way to not get scammed.

If you could bring Luis Borges back to life, and ask him to write a proper and convincing whitepaper for your company, you will see that you are only convincing the newbies just because you have a well-organized-written whitepaper.

But most people need to know that the WP is not everything.

[phreakk]

~snip~
It appears blockchain projects have an extremely high failure rate. Here's a dotcom bust comparison the critics needed but didn't deserve! Of course, the high failure rate doesn't have to imply blockchain is overrated or has few legitimate roles in software. It could simply imply that the number of open source developers and small start up launches greatly exceed demand for the technology, creating a high number of spinoffs which are structured around short term gain and exploiting brand name recognition of bitcoin, rather than creating long term value.

It's obvious that this extremely high failure rate is due to everyone who's capable of launching blockchain projects trying to get their share of the profits.

This causes scams, incomplete and pointless blockchain projects. It shows that cryptocurrencies are in a bubble, especially Bitcoin: People invest in it purely to make profit, not for its usage as an anonymous, decentralized online currency.
Though this is an awesome opportunity for the Crypto-Critics to call it a mass-scale bubble once again and this time with "evidence" too, it's not at all a good comparison to the Dotcom garbage two decades ago.

Sadly, both Bitcoin fans & Bitcoin critics are too ignorant of the facts to deliver a good judgement.

92 percent was scams, as usual.

More. Some scams haven't been revealed yet.

[Nubitcoinerr]

I wonder what % of that is because of abandonment and what % is due to being a scam.

[uray]

This is not a very surprising news as it is expected when there is a new technology,there are many tokens and ICO coming out and i would like to know what percentage of the ICO was a scam and what percentage of them fulfilled what they started out and whether they have completed the project or they have left the projects.

[kier010]

when launching a project their is a 50:50 chance to failure or success. depending on how good the project is without investor or community supporting it their is a chance to failure. more icos's main purpose now are for profit and don't have a clear purpose of their project leading to failure.

[BartS]

92 percent was scams, as usual.

It is unlikely that every single project was a scam, many of them probably were but there is a big chance that many were the projects of people that thought they could create something meaningful only to realize later that things are a lot harder and that they did not had the talent, the skill, the money and the time to pull such a project, also the failure rate is going to be even higher since only a year has passed so it is possible we get closer to 95% or even 99%.

[miyaka26]

92 percent was scams, as usual.

Nope, some of them are pretty legit ICO's and projects that stand for a good purpose the only problem that they've faced is project failure, not reaching the target cap for their projects or coins it's really sad and let down for these projects for not reaching the success added by the time of development and the efforts made. But the obvious scam is a scam holding a large percentage of these projects.

I wonder what % of that is because of abandonment and what % is due to being a scam.

you can add failed legit projects for that computation, yeah I've encountered a lot of abandonment not just for projects but for the released coins.

[cybersofts]

Hmm...
Sorry to shatter your dreams and all but... No that's not true ^^
92% failure rate is pretty normal rate for anything not just for crypto.
Most companies and projects fail in the first two years. That's not specific to crypto. In fact I'm pretty amazed by the success rate! 8% of the projects succeed? That's awesome! It means we got 2000 more crypto projects than 2 years ago

Still 92% a little steep, think of all the funds which were wasted on dead projects

Better luck next time for the startups that failed. Sometimes, it hard to see something when it is far until you are close.