The circus of the 37 million cryptocurrencies: Innovation or total chaos?

When Bitcoin was born in 2009, no one imagined we would be drowning in this tsunami of digital coins. What started as a revolutionary promise - money without government control and total privacy - has turned into a multi-headed monster that we can't even count correctly.

And they really try to count them! According to the latest data, by October 2025 there are already more than 37 million unique cryptocurrencies, and we are on our way to 100 million. Yes, you read that right: MILLIONS! Meanwhile, tracking sites like CoinMarketCap barely register about 10,000, falling short by... 36,990,000 coins? What a disaster of accounting!

This uncontrolled explosion has an explanation as simple as it is dangerous: any idiot with basic programming knowledge can create their own cryptocurrency. Thanks to platforms like Ethereum, you no longer even need to build your own blockchain. Result? An avalanche of useless tokens that promise to revolutionize the world but are absolutely worthless.

The worst part is that everyone swears they have the next Bitcoin in their hands. "My token is faster!" "Mine has more privacy!" "This one can be used to buy ice cream in the metaverse!" Creativity knows no bounds, but real utility does.

Among all this digital trash, we find Bitcoin and its shameless clones like Bitcoin Cash, the flashy altcoins like Ethereum and Solana, supposedly "safe" stablecoins, and the height of stupidity: meme coins like Dogecoin or Shiba Inu, literally created as jokes that ended up being worth billions.

I have seen people mortgage their houses to invest in "PepeElSapo Coin" while the creators of these coins run away with the money in the dead of night. Meanwhile, the exchanges line their pockets by charging fees to list any project regardless of its viability.

Out of all these tens of millions of coins, how many are actually useful? Probably less than ten. The rest are failed experiments, blatant scams, or dying projects marching towards their extinction.

The sad truth is that this wild proliferation does not represent real innovation but rather a speculative frenzy where everyone wants to get rich quickly without adding value. Meanwhile, regulators watch from afar, waiting for the perfect moment to descend upon the entire sector and remind us that real money still has owners in suits and ties.

How many cryptocurrencies will survive in five years? Surely a minimal fraction. The rest will be just lines of abandoned code in digital memory, reminders of the time when we thought any token could change the world.