Why are there no new coins in the top 20?

[Lorenzo]

Looking at the top 10 coins according to Coinmarketcap, they are mostly older coins (coins younger than 1 year old are in blue):

1. Bitcoin (~6 years)
2. Ripple (~3 years)
3. Litecoin (~3 years)
4. Dogecoin (18 months)
5. BitShares (19 months if one counts Protoshares)
6. Stellar (12 months)
7. Dash (16 months)
8. Nxt (19 months)
9. Banxshares (8 months)
10. Peercoin (~3 years)

The coins which occupy the 11th to 20th positions on CMC are mostly older coins too:

11. MaidSafeCoin (14 months)
12. Namecoin (~4 years)
13. Bytecoin (~3 years)
14. Monero (14 months)
15. BlackCoin (16 months)
16. Counterparty (18 months)
17. Vertcoin (18 months)
18. YbCoin (~2 years)
19. MonaCoin (18 months)
20. SuperNET (10 months)

If you look at snapshots of CMC from June 2014 (example), you'll notice that roughly 1/2 of the coins in the top 10 and most of the coins in the next 10 were relatively new:

1. Bitcoin (~5 years)
2. Litecoin (~2 years)
3. Nxt (7 months)
4. Darkcoin (4 months)
5. Peercoin (~2 years)
6. Ripple (~2 years)
7. Dogecoin (6 months)
8. Namecoin (~3 years)
9. BlackCoin (4 months)
10. Mastercoin (12 months)

11. Bytecoin (~2 years)
12. Monero (2 months)
13. BitShares-PTS (7 months)
14. MaidSafeCoin (2 months)
15. Counterparty (6 months)
16. XC (2 months)
17. Quark (12 months)
18. Vertcoin (6 months)
19. Zetacoin (11 months)
20. Qora (4 months)

Is innovation slowing down? Are the days of investors making massive profits by mining or buying into a brand new altcoin early on and having it shoot up in value over? Seeing how so few new coins are able to make it into the top 20 these days and the whole scene is now dominated by older established players like NXT and Dash, is it even worth keeping up to date with new altcoin launches anymore?

[bathrobehero]

The importance of market cap is highly overestimated or sometimes even misunderstood.
Market cap alone really doesn't tell anything even remotely important about a coin.

I think liquidity and distribution are what people should start looking at first when trying to gauge a coin, but that's just my opinion.

[benthach]

people are butthurt of losing money with new coin. the trend need to stop as innovation have stop, all new coins now are nothing but copy scam coins. only creators(scammers) are making money right now. what altcoins really need right now is spreading to the mass mainstream, not scamming each other. altcoins really need fresh meat at this point.

[tyz]

I think it is because the most new coins are scams or not serious run projects. Of course there are exceptions like NEM or ShadowCash but they need to show their potential first before they hit the top 20 or 10.

By the way, SuperNET is not a coin, it is an asset similar to a stock.

[Lorenzo]

I think it is because the most new coins are scams or not serious run projects. Of course there are exceptions like NEM or ShadowCash but they need to show their potential first before they hit the top 20 or 10.

By the way, SuperNET is not a coin, it is an asset similar to a stock.

You're right. I'm not sure how I missed that.

It seems that the coin with the 20th largest market cap is BitcoinDark then which is a one year old coin.

NEM was launched fairly recently but the project is actually almost as old as NXT itself. I've noticed that many of the altcoins that currently occupy the top 20 were created in the months immediately after the November 2013 BTC bubble which saw a lot of money getting poured into altcoins as well. Once it became clear that the BTC price was continuing to fall and was taking altcoins along with it, I guess the flow of new coins sort of dried up. Also, people probably got weary of seeing a new coin getting pumped every week and then fading into obscurity.

[Nxtblg]

Why? Because of the altcoin bear market and consequent "new coin fatigue."

This pattern isn't unique to crypto; not by any means. When gold goes into a bear market, the senior producers get whapped; the juniors get clobbered; the exploration penny stocks get crushed. The smaller the company, the more its stock is damaged by a gold bear.

By an interesting coincidence, both exploration stocks and smaller altcoins are in the same funebrial boat. Have a look at this article from Brent Cook, a legendary geologist in the penny-stock field:

What was it like, Dad?

It was tough kid. We were just coming out of the most perfect spring. The fruit trees were all in blossom, streams filled with fish, deer abounded, and we were all feeling pretty right with the world—we owned it and were the chosen ones.

Then we headed out across the flats, believing the prophets that the next paradise, just over the horizon, was even better. But the horizon never came, the land turned to salt flats and dust; the temperature reached 110°, day after day after day. We burned and suffered. The roving bandits knew we were doomed and had no interest in what little we had left. Each promising oasis was a mirage and one by one we lost our way, numbed and staggering in all directions. We lost nearly everyone on that journey which began so optimistically—and naively.

It was brutal and devastating kid; I hope to never go through that again. But some of us did survive to carry on, and I’m here to tell you about it....

Yeah, right, I’ve heard that, but like, what about the 1997 to 2002 mining bust?

Well, that wasn't really much different kid. We had come off of a truly remarkable mineral discovery boom from 1992 to 1997. The diamond discoveries in the Northwest Territory were fabulous: Diamet went from $0.21 to $55. Aber Diamonds (now Dominion) had a 40% interest in the Diavik discovery and went from $0.50 to $50. In Labrador, another company looking for diamonds, Diamond Fields, stumbled across a nickel showing (Voisey’s Bay) that was eventually acquired by Inco for $164/per share. It had been a $5 stock.

You see the world had suddenly been opened to modern exploration and all we had to do was Go There: we could do no wrong. Huge area plays developed around these discoveries, and the juniors with land on trend or close by doubled and tripled in a matter of months-- regardless of the geology or prospectivity.

Corriente Gold traded up to $18 on a project in Peru that it never had to drill. Arequipa Resources, a copper explorer, put a bunch of holes and a tunnel into the Pierina gold prospect in Peru and went from $0.60 to a buyout price of $30 in nine months. Francisco Gold’s El Sauzal discovery in Mexico took the share price to $40. Queenstake went from $0.07 to $4.50, based on its Kilometer 88 projects in Venezuela.

What, you never heard of these companies? It figures.

I fondly recall my first trip to the Prospectors and Developers (PDAC) conference in March 1997: landing there after a field stint in Brazil (for which I was stiffed) with little more than a windbreaker and a couple of phone numbers. It was an amazing site to behold. Money was flowing everywhere and to everyone—even the strippers were getting rich on insider stock tips. I was literally stunned to see some geologist in khakis working a booth raise $2 million in a matter of minutes, based on a satellite color anomaly somewhere in Mongolia-- on a piece of ground I don't think he even controlled.

It was oysters and champagne at the Canoe Club, lavish parties thrown by all the brokerage firms; even the geologists were invited—engineers, not so much. Greed and speculation were rampant, risk unheard of, and failure? Virtually impossible.

It all seemed so irrational, yet real.

That was the year John Felderhof received the Prospector of the Year award for the 70 million going-to-200 million ounces Bre-X had found in Borneo. Bre-X went from $2.60 to $275 within a three-year period. It was obvious that nearly every one of us was a genius and sitting on millions in profits. We knew it as just going to get better.

Then things began to sour.....

https://www.explorationinsights.com/pebble.asp?relid=29900

----------

A much more experienced hand than me could use the above article as a template for the altcoin world! The boom-town patterns are that similar, with the exception that altcoin time is faster than exploration time.

[CarlesPuyol]

An year ago all the altcoin crypto-currency was brand new and the volume of the trades were much higher.
I guess its a dying world

[kassadin]

because there are no good coins created since long time, most users are making copy paste coins for quick profit
none of them make a good one with some innovation and new technology

[Amadues]

Nice analysis and correlation!
Probably it's true that there is not any type of innovation in the major of alt coins and nobody will invest more resources in a project that will lead to a fail.
Also, when the super coin hype are over, a lot of people stop to trust in the possibility to make some good with altcoin.

[o0‡0o]

Maidsavecoin is not a coin is the highest caped asset
Ripple is not a coin is a company, protocol .......

[Zer0Sum]

You made a completely arbitrary cutoff at "12 months" or whatever (why not 377 days from the last hobo homicide?)...
And you don't understand the difference between cryptocurrencies, crypto assets and payment networks...
Which makes your analysis sloppy and meaningless.

Also, using summer 2013 Alts for anything...
Is like using 19th century data points to analyze the 1950s stock market.

I really wish > 2% of people understood Stats 101...
But then that's what gives Zero Sum Game pros their massive advantage over amateurs.

[Minotaur26]

Looking at the top 10 coins according to Coinmarketcap, they are mostly older coins (coins younger than 1 year old are in blue):

1. Bitcoin (~6 years)
2. Ripple (~3 years)
3. Litecoin (~3 years)
4. Dogecoin (18 months)
5. BitShares (19 months if one counts Protoshares)
6. Stellar (12 months)
7. Dash (16 months)
8. Nxt (19 months)
9. Banxshares (8 months)
10. Peercoin (~3 years)

The coins which occupy the 11th to 20th positions on CMC are mostly older coins too:

-snip-

If you look at snapshots of CMC from June 2014 (example), you'll notice that roughly 1/2 of the coins in the top 10 and most of the coins in the next 10 were relatively new:


-snip-

Is innovation slowing down? Are the days of investors making massive profits by mining or buying into a brand new altcoin early on and having it shoot up in value over? Seeing how so few new coins are able to make it into the top 20 these days and the whole scene is now dominated by older established players like NXT and Dash, is it even worth keeping up to date with new altcoin launches anymore?

I think is because you are applying a very short time frame, if you think about the top 20 in general with some exceptions, the whole altcoin world is like an incubator for many ideas and some of these are the ideas that showed substance and actually gained traction.  You can't expect substantial innovations to sprout everyday, so I believe from within that list you are presenting, we will have some successful projects that still have a lot of upside potential.

It is also about timing, timing has been identified as the number one factor why start-ups succeed, also the team behind a project is important. Check out this short Ted Talk (6mins) on why start-ups succeed, I think we should apply a similar analysis to altcoins to identify true potential for success.
 
The factors they found were important for a project success were:

1. Timing

2. Team/Execution

3. Idea

4. Business Model

5. Funding


Bill Gross: The single biggest reason why startups succeed

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNpx7gpSqbY



There are some parallels with cryptocurrency, but I would say in altcoins funding is much more important, as when you are a company you can get funding by looking for investors, when you are a decentralized currency you don't have that option.  The reason why you are not seeing tons of new altcoins is because having a combination of those 5 factors in a way that creates value and specially that you can time correctly is rare.

I would look for altcoins that have the best combination of all those things and invest in that, I think you see the same projects in the top spots for two reasons. You have a first generation of altcoins like LTC and Doge that had the best possible timing with no added value.  And then you have a second generation of altcoins like NXT and Dash that actually bring value and innovation.

I believe that the projects that will be successful are those that can have the best combination of the factors described above. I also feel these projects will come from existing project with a certain seniority and not from brand new ones, mainly because the timing is not right for brand new projects, and because the current generation of altcoin projects still has a lot to bring to the table and potential upside, we are not done with this generation yet.  

[doc12]

Because there is no need for the xxxth shitty Bitcoin clonecoin with feature xxx.

IMO It's like a casting. The top 20 are choosen and will now fight for a certain market niche and accumulate all money from the rest.

[Scaccomatt0]

Because the 99,9% of new alt coins are:
 - copy/paste of other coins
 - no business plan
 - no innovation
 - no funding
 - single person who want to make fast profit


A new coin to become attractive and "power" must have:
 - a business model/plan
 - funding and dev passions
 - idea, idea, idea
 - possibly a team

[Lorenzo]

all new coins now are nothing but copy scam coins.

because there are no good coins created since long time, most users are making copy paste coins for quick profit

Because there is no need for the xxxth shitty Bitcoin clonecoin with feature xxx.

Because the 99,9% of new alt coins are:
 - copy/paste of other coins

Copy-paste coins certainly aren't a new development though. The animal coin and country coin crazes of 2014 saw Litecoin-derived scrypt clones reach enormous market caps just because their devs slapped on a new name and logo to their coin.

I would look for altcoins that have the best combination of all those things and invest in that, I think you see the same projects in the top spots for two reasons. You have a first generation of altcoins like LTC and Doge that had the best possible timing with no added value.  And then you have a second generation of altcoins like NXT and Dash that actually bring value and innovation.

I would say that when Litecoin was launched, it did bring added value. However, it was also launched a very long time ago when the altcoin scene looked very different compared to today. Litecoin was able to merge the technical innovation of Tenebrix's scrypt algorithm with the fairness of Fairbrix's distribution while avoiding the latter's inherent bugginess by having the code based directly on Bitcoin. Litecoin allowed CPU miners to mine when Bitcoin mining was dominated by GPUs and then the same for GPU miners when Bitcoin mining shifted to ASICs.

Dogecoin's contribution to the crypto community was probably its innovative marketing rather than any sort of technical innovation.

[ifightformerkel]

Nice work with the List.
I think what you think
"Is innovation slowing down? Are the days of investors making massive profits by mining or buying into a brand new altcoin early on and having it shoot up in value over?"
Yes, there is no more innovation.
The price will go high when the bitcoin price will go rise. Then it will be interessting, because some cheap coins can massive rise.

[TaunSew]

AFAIK I read Banxshare will be demoted to the asset page on coinmarketcap.

Otherwise it is true the top 20 consists of years old coins, coins which otherwise have been regurgitating pump money from 2013.  I think the only exception on that list is probably Bitshares, which came out post-MtGox (post-bubble) and its' predecessor PTS wasn't worth much either.

[Nxtblg]

Nice work with the List.
I think what you think
"Is innovation slowing down? Are the days of investors making massive profits by mining or buying into a brand new altcoin early on and having it shoot up in value over?"
Yes, there is no more innovation.
The price will go high when the bitcoin price will go rise. Then it will be interessting, because some cheap coins can massive rise.

Innovation slowing down is a blessing, I think. There are lots of times when innovation gets ahead of market acceptance, particularly during times of bubbles or near the end of long periods of seemingly permanent prosperity.

Case in point: near the end of the roaring-bubble 1920s, there were primitive televisions - and even primitive TV broadcasts.

[Lorenzo]

AFAIK I read Banxshare will be demoted to the asset page on coinmarketcap.

Otherwise it is true the top 20 consists of years old coins, coins which otherwise have been regurgitating pump money from 2013.  I think the only exception on that list is probably Bitshares, which came out post-MtGox (post-bubble) and its' predecessor PTS wasn't worth much either.

It used to be that Coinmarketcap had assets listed with alongside coins but then once the number of assets exploded, they took them off the main page and kept them on a separate page. Recently, they changed it again so that assets are listed alongside coins using the default view.

I don't really know a lot about BanxShares but if it has its own currency and blockchain and doesn't depend on another platform then I can see why it would be counted as a coin. I know there have been coins in the past like Sharecoin which were also designed to be backed by profit-generating businesses. Opal is another much more recent example:

In addition to its unique set of features, Opal announced today a revolutionary system of dividends simply for holding the coin.

Opal today announced a system of revenue generating sites, the first one being bitsofnews.net, that will have all revenue generated go back to Opal users through dividend payments. This serves as both an incentive for users to hold Opal, as well as holding them in their local wallets and cold storage.

Opal believes that this will help create incentives for users to try out the coin, and will also encourage long term holding, because in addition to staking intrest, there will be a steady flow of revenue generating sites.

Link: http://bitsofnews.net/exclusive-opal-announces-revolutionary-dividends-program/

As for BitShares, its history dates all the way back to June 2013 and their founder was a Bitcoin early adopter who even had conversations with Satoshi back in 2010 (link) but BTS itself wasn't launched until July 2014.

PTS and AGS were both launched during the late 2013 bubble though. PTS reached 5th place on CMC and had a $25 million market cap in late 2014:

http://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitshares-pts/

Nice work with the List.
I think what you think
"Is innovation slowing down? Are the days of investors making massive profits by mining or buying into a brand new altcoin early on and having it shoot up in value over?"
Yes, there is no more innovation.
The price will go high when the bitcoin price will go rise. Then it will be interessting, because some cheap coins can massive rise.

Innovation slowing down is a blessing, I think. There are lots of times when innovation gets ahead of market acceptance, particularly during times of bubbles or near the end of long periods of seemingly permanent prosperity.

Case in point: near the end of the roaring-bubble 1920s, there were primitive televisions - and even primitive TV broadcasts.

Innovation getting ahead of market acceptance can later turn out to be a good thing however - especially after the dust has settled but the underlying technology has been proven to be good. Fred Wilson - a venture capitalist, had this to say about the aftermath of the dot-com bubble:

"A friend of mine has a great line. He says 'Nothing important has ever been built without irrational exuberance'. Meaning that you need some of this mania to cause investors to open up their pocketbooks and finance the building of the railroads or the automobile or aerospace industry or whatever. And in this case, much of the capital invested was lost, but also much of it was invested in a very high throughput backbone for the Internet, and lots of software that works, and databases and server structure. All that stuff has allowed what we have today, which has changed all our lives...that's what all this speculative mania built".

Perhaps in a decade or two from now, the coins and platforms that were created during the November 2013 bubble hype will grow to become major players in the future crypto economy.

[freakying99]

Looking at the top 10 coins according to Coinmarketcap, they are mostly older coins (coins younger than 1 year old are in blue):

1. Bitcoin (~6 years)
2. Ripple (~3 years)
3. Litecoin (~3 years)
4. Dogecoin (18 months)
5. BitShares (19 months if one counts Protoshares)
6. Stellar (12 months)
7. Dash (16 months)
8. Nxt (19 months)
9. Banxshares (8 months)
10. Peercoin (~3 years)

The coins which occupy the 11th to 20th positions on CMC are mostly older coins too:

11. MaidSafeCoin (14 months)
12. Namecoin (~4 years)
13. Bytecoin (~3 years)
14. Monero (14 months)
15. BlackCoin (16 months)
16. Counterparty (18 months)
17. Vertcoin (18 months)
18. YbCoin (~2 years)
19. MonaCoin (18 months)
20. SuperNET (10 months)

If you look at snapshots of CMC from June 2014 (example), you'll notice that roughly 1/2 of the coins in the top 10 and most of the coins in the next 10 were relatively new:

1. Bitcoin (~5 years)
2. Litecoin (~2 years)
3. Nxt (7 months)
4. Darkcoin (4 months)
5. Peercoin (~2 years)
6. Ripple (~2 years)
7. Dogecoin (6 months)
8. Namecoin (~3 years)
9. BlackCoin (4 months)
10. Mastercoin (12 months)

11. Bytecoin (~2 years)
12. Monero (2 months)
13. BitShares-PTS (7 months)
14. MaidSafeCoin (2 months)
15. Counterparty (6 months)
16. XC (2 months)
17. Quark (12 months)
18. Vertcoin (6 months)
19. Zetacoin (11 months)
20. Qora (4 months)

Is innovation slowing down? Are the days of investors making massive profits by mining or buying into a brand new altcoin early on and having it shoot up in value over? Seeing how so few new coins are able to make it into the top 20 these days and the whole scene is now dominated by older established players like NXT and Dash, is it even worth keeping up to date with new altcoin launches anymore?

Thanks for compiling this list, to answer your questions I'd say that money is just about to start flowing back into alts. More pumps will come, more pumps will happen and the pumps will be bigger and bigger.
I already see it forming out there. You just need to know where to look.