Cryptocurrency Inflation and New Tokens Added $15 Billion to the Market Last Year, Research Reveals

This year the cryptocurrency ecosystem has about $15 billion more than it did last year thanks to the inflation rate of the cryptocurrency ecosystem and thanks to the creation of new cryptocurrencies over the past 12 months.

According to blockchain research firm Diar, the ‘lions share’ of these $15 billion came from Bitcoin, Ethereum, and the Bitcoin Cash fork Bitcoin SV, which was created in November 15 of last year.

The release of new stablecoins last year, couple with the supply increases of these dollar-pegged cryptocurrencies also added $1.2 billion to the market, while supply increases of existing cryptocurrencies added $4.2 billion.

Last year, according to Diar, over 700 new cryptocurrencies were created. These reportedly had an average inflation rate of 35% for the year. These accounted for billions of dollars worth of new tokens that at the start of the bear market didn’t exist and that, so far, “remain to be no more than additional noise in an overcrowded decentralized promise-land.”

The firm’s report details that $5.2 billion worth of bitcoin were minted last year, but that these tokens have lost part of their value and are currently worth less than $3 billion. Per CryptoCompare data, bitcoin’s market cap is at about $62.68 billion, as one BTc is trading at $3,580.

Diar’s research noted that the total capitalization of cryptocurrencies is a “lofty measure for health outlook,” but pointed out that the market” still stand nearly ten times the value they did at the start of 2017.”

When all is said and done, new supply that came onto the blockchains during 2018 accounted for almost the whole market valuation that stood at the start of 2017 with no standout application success story as of yet apart from cryptocurrencies whose sole purpose is to transfer value.

In early 2017, before the cryptocurrency ecosystem’s market cap exploded, bitcoin was trading at about $1,000.