A cryptocurrency that has lost its value. If a coin's website is down or there have been less than $1,000 worth of trades in the last three months, it is deemed defunct. More than a thousand coins have perished since the launch of Bitcoin in 2009.

With more and more crypto coins being invented, the competition on market is getting stronger, which caused that some coins became forgotten or not interesting for investors. Especially lately, when focus is more or less also on NFTs and cryptocurrencies that are somehow included in metaverse projects. It is estimated that around 35% of coins on the market are dead coins.

A coin is dead, if:

-        It is used for scamming

-        Has wallet issues

-        There is no official website or nodes

-        It is abandoned by developers

We know three types of dead coins, which got names from above mentioned reasons for becoming dead coin.

Joke dead coins have no concrete plan in place, and it will be launched for the sake of it. Notably, some crypto aficionados see potential and place initial bets on them. It is worth noting that during the ICO, UET (Useless Ethereum Token) raised over $300,000 (around £218,000). However, for every meme/joke coin that succeeds, nine others fail miserably. Joke coins account for roughly 3% of all dead coins.

Most known examples: ObamaCoin, CryptoMeth, MonaCoin, etc.

Abandoned dead coins for a variety of causes, including developer death, loss of traction, restricted funding, and removal from exchanges, is the most common sort of dead coin. Notably, in order to be listed on exchanges, each coin must meet specific criteria; if they are not reached, the coin will be deleted.

Most known examples: Lucky7Coin, Locus chain, Maecenas, etc.

Scam dead coins are linked to con artists. Runaway with money, pump and dump, and enormous pre-mine are just a some of the scams. It's usually best to stay away from coins in which the development team owns a substantial percentage.

Most known examples: LoopX, Loligo, Luckbox, etc.

It is almost impossible to spot a dead coin beforehand, so it is highly recommended that investor follows altcoin he invested in. For example, Doge coin was made purely for meme or joke reason, and it is still alive. Even more, it is one of the top traded cryptocurrencies on the market.

If you notice a dead coin, you can report it and some websites might give you an award for doing so.