Dead altcoins that were a true gem

[Abiky]

I wouldn't say that they are dead because of poor marketing, maybe a new innovation technology has come along and make them obsolete. Just like in 2017 wherein there was a lot of altcoins that really took the center stage, but then they are now dead as they have been eaten by the latest technology.

And for sure there are a lot of crypto right now that looks good and has the hype, but I doubt that they can last that long in the market as this has been the cycle, hype then died down as new and latest one emerges.

True. But what's stopping developers from making their project stand among the rest of the crowd? Developers can continue to bring innovation in order to prevent their project from becoming obsolete. Crypto/Blockchain tech is open source after all.

I guess most of the old altcoins' development progress stalled due to lack of interest. Many of them are dead. But there's always the possibility of a "revival" in the future. If you're a "bagholder", I'd suggest you keep your coins just in case.

[avikz]

If they were gem, they wouldn't have become a dead coins. Back in days when ICOs used to be huge, a lot of coins were launched with a vision but the main problem was execution. While a lot of coins were raised millions of dollars from the investors, no one was able to build a business around it.

I remember one coin called Insureum. Their website is not available anymore but I remember they had some very interesting ideas. But execution was not done properly and they were failed shortly after the coins were distributed.

[d5000]

Good thread idea

From those that are completely dead now or at least delisted everywhere, one gem I remember was Qora. It had smart contracts earlier than Ethereum if I remember correctly, although Burst was a bit faster still. It also had one of the earliest atomic swap integrations.

Later a new "team" tried to create a snapshot-based coin (I think it was called Qortal) but with a large additional premine. It still exists but is also in the "low cap" category now.

Edit: Another one I want to mention is Ellaism. It is completely dead afaik, but it was an Ethereum clone without any premine. No big smart contract coin has adopted that model unfortunately.

I remember some proof of capacity coins like burst coin.

Burst was rebranded to Signum and is thus still a gem Of course activity is currently low but I don't rule out it could be revived.

There are other low cap coins with innovative mechanisms which were dumped into the "low cap" space eventually (but are not dead), one example is Slimcoin with its Proof-of-burn consensus, and another one is Grin with its innovative MimbleWimble-based privacy features. Peercoin (PPC), the first proof of stake coin, has also fallen quite low, even if most of the top 30 coins have adopted PoS now.

[sunsilk]

I remember some proof of capacity coins like burst coin.

Burst was rebranded to Signum and is thus still a gem Of course activity is currently low but I don't rule out it could be revived.

There are other low cap coins with innovative mechanisms which were dumped into the "low cap" space eventually (but are not dead), one example is Slimcoin with its Proof-of-burn consensus, and another one is Grin with its innovative MimbleWimble-based privacy features. Peercoin (PPC), the first proof of stake coin, has also fallen quite low, even if most of the top 30 coins have adopted PoS now.

Oooh, I didn't know that it was rebranded. It still has a $2.5M market cap, you're right where it is listed now are with unknown exchanges and the volume there aren't that much.

I remember grin for which it has been endorsed here in the forum too. That mimblewimble protocol together with another coin that's also a privacy coin, I forgot that one but it's like a twin to grin.

[Jegileman]

What I know about altcoins are that they are coins that have short term value and are bound to not last long in the market. Few of the altcoins may have lasted since their inception but the most majority of them don’t make it for years. It is how they are designed and we cannot have a different understanding to how we view them or make them stand a chance to be a profitable long term coins. Only those that survives the long time can be praised but the rest of them should only be in doubts and not relied on to be suitable for a long term profit motive.

[Wakate]

I didn't meet any of the above mentioned AltCoins here and haven't heard of before and because of this should be one main reason why adoptors should investigate of the volume of community users of any AltCoin before embracing it.
I'm just wondering what the condition of Investors who has held their lifetime portfolio in there would feel like at the diminishing and exile of the coins which they've whole heartedly invested upon and probably was holding for retirement project and then took them a woe surprise.

There are many of these coins in the market that would still die off because of the less adoption and weakened communities that had resulted in the price of these projects to drop to the lowest point. I have seen many true gems that never survived the market for a long period of time which I don't really know why they ended up in a big disappointment. Whatsoever the reason of the short in existence is left the devs that are in charge of the altcoins projects. There are so many projects we are seeing these days that is not going to survive the market and we should get prepared because a lots of people are going to lost their funds to rug pull.

[bitgolden]

Waves? I can't really talk about what or how and what not, but Waves was a big one and it was loved by many and now it's gone, or at least looks gone. Wave used to be as high as 62 dollars, just three years ago on the last bulll run, now it's barely above 1 dollars. That's 62x difference, if it was that was high, then we would have a lot higher ranking for it, but it failed and now it's nowhere to be found.

Obviously there must be some other stuff that was much worse, I am sure people figured out how to make even better decisions but Wave definitely seems like one. It didn't really get any higher and we didn't get anything better as a result from WAVE, too many people lost way too much money from it when it crashed hard.

[Aying]

If they are dead them they were not true gem!

[Huppercase]

I'd start off by mentioning Memorycoin (MMC), Spreadcoin (SPR), and Franko (FRK). These were "hidden gems" back in the day. MMC had its own voting system on the Blockchain, while Spreadcoin had an innovative approach to mining (where pool centralization was discouraged). And last but not least, we have Franko which had the innovative "Proof of Task" consensus mechanism (a crypto coin created by Christopher Franko, the founder of Expanse).

At the time of this writing, these coins' blockchain networks are completely dead. No nodes or miners supporting it (AFAIK), and no crypto exchanges trading them. That is to say, there's nothing stopping someone from "re-launching" these coins with their source code.

What's your pick?

If you are not bringing money to anyone in crypto space, you will be quickly forgotten like you never existed. I have so many coins that are not longer in their prime again, many people has shadow them, some of them that I bookmark to see their performance in the future all dead and almost zero volume, there is nothing good about this coins and the exchanges has delisted them because the lack of commitment from the teams as well, they are not showing interest.

Do I blame the team, may be or may be not. Alot of new ideas are born in this space almost everyday and if you don't have a thick skin, you will be quickly forgotten and some of this tech and things they want to do are not longer what people want to invest into but some teams are very smart in codedly rebranding their project to what is trending at that particular time, I know many projects that has done this and they were able to come out of this successfully.

[Abiky]

Good thread idea

From those that are completely dead now or at least delisted everywhere, one gem I remember was Qora. It had smart contracts earlier than Ethereum if I remember correctly, although Burst was a bit faster still. It also had one of the earliest atomic swap integrations.

Later a new "team" tried to create a snapshot-based coin (I think it was called Qortal) but with a large additional premine. It still exists but is also in the "low cap" category now.

Edit: Another one I want to mention is Ellaism. It is completely dead afaik, but it was an Ethereum clone without any premine. No big smart contract coin has adopted that model unfortunately.

Thanks for sharing, really interesting insights!

Qora definitely had some groundbreaking ideas for its time, especially with the early implementation of smart contracts and atomic swaps. It feels like one of those projects that was far ahead of its time but didn’t have the traction or community support to realize its full potential. Burst always intrigued me too, especially with its proof of capacity consensus — innovative, but sadly overlooked in the mainstream.

As for Qortal, I remember hearing about it when the new "team" stepped in. It feels like a common story we see in crypto: A promising project gets revived but not without controversy (like the premine issue you mentioned). I’m curious — do you think Qora or Qortal ever had a real chance to grow into something major, or were they just destined to remain niche?

Ellaism is another interesting mention. It’s rare to see an Ethereum clone with no premine, but you're right — that model hasn't really gained traction with the bigger smart contract coins. It’s a shame because it could help with decentralization concerns. Do you think projects like Ellaism being "no premine" just lacked funding or visibility to compete with the giants?

[Hispo]

Some which come to my mind are coins which imitated what Litecoin had to offer but did not offer further innovation beyond faster transactions. One example it is digibyte, which is a multi mining algorithm coin which offers block times down to 1 minute. I don't know it continues to be developed or not, but it would seems to me it has been abandoned by investors.
It continues to be offered in exchanges, though so there is a minimum of liquidity in the market.

I could have mentioned many coins and ecosystems which tried to ride the wave of play-to-earn and are not longer in existence after the bubble burst with the fall from glory of Axie Infinity, the latter continues to go on, that is true, but it would not be a shadow of what used to be and attract the same number of players and investors which there were.

[moneystery]

there will be quite a lot of names if we mention the name of altcoin that was once considered a 'gem' but is now dead. but that is the fate of most altcoins that have no real value to their users. users only be attracted to it at first, maybe because of their promises, but as time goes by, either because the developers do not keep their promises or investors do not find any future in the token, these tokens will be abandoned and will die.

even when someone tries to take this token back and try to revive it, it will not change any conditions, because from the beginning the problem was that the token had no value and only relied on market hype.

[o48o]

Name one (or more) altcoin(s) that used to be a gem back then. I mean, altcoins that are now "dead" or no longer being developed/maintained by the community.

I'd start off by mentioning Memorycoin (MMC), Spreadcoin (SPR), and Franko (FRK). These were "hidden gems" back in the day. MMC had its own voting system on the Blockchain, while Spreadcoin had an innovative approach to mining (where pool centralization was discouraged). And last but not least, we have Franko which had the innovative "Proof of Task" consensus mechanism (a crypto coin created by Christopher Franko, the founder of Expanse).

At the time of this writing, these coins' blockchain networks are completely dead. No nodes or miners supporting it (AFAIK), and no crypto exchanges trading them. That is to say, there's nothing stopping someone from "re-launching" these coins with their source code.

What's your pick?

Back in time, when all you needed to pump an altcoin was a promise of roadmap, or a whitepaper, or new logo, i encountered a coin called Veltor. It pretty much dried soon after the launch, but i chatted with the dev, and offered to make new logo for them. This got me to direct communication with the dev, and i made a logo i am still proud of.

I knew what kind of announcement was coming soon after i got involved, because i was working with the graphics. So i knew the price was going to rise, so i DCA:d to the exact bottom of the coin, and when it took off, it really took off. I slowly started to sell, and in hindsight, if i wouldn't be a newbie, i would have sold all and never looked back. But i didn't really know how much something could rise.

Later it turned out that i was mislead as well, and we shouldn't really trust anyone in the internet. And that majority of devs don't work without pay with these altcoins as a hobby. They just rather cash out and leave, because why not. Trick is to leave just early enough, before the dev.

[d5000]

I’m curious — do you think Qora or Qortal ever had a real chance to grow into something major, or were they just destined to remain niche?

I don't remember it that well. Qora had definitely some hype, but was fastly overshadowed by Ethereum which got the same functions half a year later but with a smart contract language way easier to learn. I think it was the lack of such a language which hold Qora back.

As for Qortal, what I remember is that the transition took quite long, and that could have also harmed its success.

Do you think projects like Ellaism being "no premine" just lacked funding or visibility to compete with the giants?

There was a time in 2014-16 where "no premine / no instamine" was seen as a sign of quality. However, Ellaism appeared a bit later, in late 2017. It was the ICOs' heyday, and the altcoin crowd had changed. Premines were seen as legit after the success of Ethereum and earlier projects like Nxt, and altcoins became more similar to businesses.

I think in the last years, things have changed again, people are now distrusting the premine model more again after the wave of ICO scams of 2018 and the Terra/Luna scandal in 2022. So if Ellaism was still alive today, it could perhaps gain traction again. But reviving that coin seems a difficult task: the code seems to be helplessly outdated and I also think there is zero network activity (and also the blockchain was quite large if I remember correctly). It would probably make more sense to clone a current Ethereum implementation, perhaps basing the distribution on an Ellaism snapshot if still available.

[crwth]

We need clarification on what you mean by the term gem because it could have different meanings for different people. Do you mean that if the project or the coin reaches a specific price or becomes higher in the current moment in a particular timeframe or reaches multitudes of price multipliers?

If that is the case, I think all the meme coins are gems that have reached a certain peak in popularity and pricing, so I think a better and inappropriate reading would be the best way to know and discuss this. It

[Zanab247]

There is no how people will not lose money on those dead altcoins in the past, because people will think that those altcoins will rise higher to create opportunity for those that invested to earn massive profits from them, than to discover that the coins has leave market. There are some coins like that in the community right now that will soon play people to lose their money by rising and falling to make people believe that those coins will keep making their investors to smile in profit making.

Before ETH and BNB will join the dead altcoins in the future, I have achieved what I want from those coins, and I have minimized the amount of money I am using to invest on them because a time will come when those coins will no longer profitable.

[Abiky]

Some which come to my mind are coins which imitated what Litecoin had to offer but did not offer further innovation beyond faster transactions. One example it is digibyte, which is a multi mining algorithm coin which offers block times down to 1 minute. I don't know it continues to be developed or not, but it would seems to me it has been abandoned by investors.
It continues to be offered in exchanges, though so there is a minimum of liquidity in the market.

I could have mentioned many coins and ecosystems which tried to ride the wave of play-to-earn and are not longer in existence after the bubble burst with the fall from glory of Axie Infinity, the latter continues to go on, that is true, but it would not be a shadow of what used to be and attract the same number of players and investors which there were.

You bring up some valid points regarding coins and ecosystems that failed to deliver sustained value or innovation. Digibyte, as you mentioned, attempted differentiation with multi-mining algorithms and faster block times, but its visibility and adoption seem to have faded over time. The same can be said for many play-to-earn projects that surged during the Axie Infinity boom but collapsed when the hype died down. Axie itself, while still operational, has struggled to regain its former momentum—a cautionary example of how fleeting success can be without long-term value or adaptability. Thanks for sharing your perspective!

[dunfida]

There is no how people will not lose money on those dead altcoins in the past, because people will think that those altcoins will rise higher to create opportunity for those that invested to earn massive profits from them, than to discover that the coins has leave market. There are some coins like that in the community right now that will soon play people to lose their money by rising and falling to make people believe that those coins will keep making their investors to smile in profit making.

Before ETH and BNB will join the dead altcoins in the future, I have achieved what I want from those coins, and I have minimized the amount of money I am using to invest on them because a time will come when those coins will no longer profitable.

Dead coins are considered into those coins/tokens on which being delisted by exchangers and having that almost dying volume and totally been that leaved out by its investors.
If we do speak about low caps or to those coins that its price that goes down into the floor then there will be still those people who do love to invest with these kind of coins because they've been believing that it will really be that making out some pumps and made out that bigger profits and thats why they do find up these gems specially if it will really be having its recovery. The thing on here is that you do really know about into the risks involved when it comes on putting up some bucks with these almost dead altcoins.
I do see that this is much more better in comparing with dealing up with meme coins.

When making up investment decisions then it will really be that up to you on which one you will really be that choosing up and we do know that each person will really be having that different approach when it comes to choosing on their preferred investment. We do know that each one of us does have that kind of choices because of several factors and this is why decisions will really be that affected out and ending up on different choices and options.

[peter0425]

Unfortunately, I don't have such coins to name, but what I can say is that nowadays, such projects are even harder to find.
They all fade away too quickly or don't hold long enough to realize their potential, all the while most search for profit only, not for utility / cool concepts to push for to gain more motivated users to keep the chain active.

Coins that had good purpose, good community are still thriving now. Maybe they had periods of not being noticed as much but they have not died. Ethereum is one that comes to mind and these coins no matter how old holds their weight because they have a good foundation. These coins have made such an impact in the crypto industry that they will not be completely forgotten.

[tygeade]

I wouldn't say that they are dead because of poor marketing, maybe a new innovation technology has come along and make them obsolete. Just like in 2017 wherein there was a lot of altcoins that really took the center stage, but then they are now dead as they have been eaten by the latest technology.

And for sure there are a lot of crypto right now that looks good and has the hype, but I doubt that they can last that long in the market as this has been the cycle, hype then died down as new and latest one emerges.

True. But what's stopping developers from making their project stand among the rest of the crowd? Developers can continue to bring innovation in order to prevent their project from becoming obsolete. Crypto/Blockchain tech is open source after all.

I guess most of the old altcoins' development progress stalled due to lack of interest. Many of them are dead. But there's always the possibility of a "revival" in the future. If you're a "bagholder", I'd suggest you keep your coins just in case.

One of the most common reasons for a project to slowly die is because if it already made people money, those investors will take out their money and leave the project to die. So that means most projects eventually go away slowly, only the ones that people believe they could still make a profit from ends up staying. This means even if you build the most perfect project, if there is no improvement left for the future, then it is not going to be good at all.

There are way too many projects which looks like it has no future, most people look at them and see nothing in a year or two, and that's why they just sell. There isn't really anything wrong with that, we can't have thousands of amazing projects anyway, the money is limited, and usually gathered at the top names.