There are 21,888 cryptocurrencies as of November 30, 2022. The idea of anonymous cryptographic electronic money had long since been postulated. However, it was not until 2009 when decentralized crypto Bitcoin was first created.
Litecoin, Namecoin, and Peercoin followed in the later years and crypto started gaining traction. By the end of 2013, over 50 different cryptos existed. By the end of 2014, the figure had increased by nearly ten times to reach more than 500.
Today, there are more than 21,880 cryptocurrencies in circulation.
However, how did the financial landscape reach this point? And where is it going to?
Cryptocurrency Statistics
Today, there are 21,888 total cryptocurrencies with a total market capitalization of $863.19 billion. The trading volume of all cryptos in the last 24 hours is now $75.8 billion. Bitcoin has the highest current market capitalization of $328.46 billion more than double the value of the second-biggest crypto, Ethereum.
Several of the top 20 cryptos are directly pegged to USD value including Tether and Binance USD. Nearly 8% of the US population trades crypto. Based on the continents, Asia has more than 4X more crypto users than any other continent. 95% of the crypto holders and crypto-curious people are aware of Bitcoin.
Sources: CoinMarketCap, investing.com, Triple-a
How Many Cryptocurrencies Are There In 2022?
As of November 30, 2022, there are 21,888 cryptocurrencies existing. Nonetheless, not all cryptos are active or valuable. Eliminating the ‘dead’ cryptos leaves about 12,992 active cryptocurrencies. There are more than 300 million cryptocurrency users across the world. Also, nearly 18,000 businesses now accept some form of crypto as payment.
Growth Of Crypto Over Time
In less than ten years, cryptocurrency has exploded onto the scene and has grown at an ever-surging rate. There are some dramatic growths with snapshots of the decentralized finance (DeFi) landscape at some points in time.
Here is an overview of the total number of legit cryptos listed on CoinMarketCap from 2013 to today:
2013
In April 2013, there were just seven cryptos reported on CoinMarketCap. Bitcoin led the way with regard to market capitalization with around 20X the value of any other cryptocurrency. Here is a breakdown of how it looked ten years ago:
Rank | Currency | Abbr. | Price (2 d.p.)* | Market Cap |
1 | Bitcoin | BTC | $134.21 | $1.49 billion |
2 | Litecoin | LTC | $4.35 | $74.64 million |
3 | Peercoin | PPC | $0.39 | $7.25 million |
4 | Namecoin | NMC | $1.11 | $6.00 million |
5 | Terracoin | TRC | $0.65 | $1.50 million |
6 | Devcoin | DVC | $0.0003* | $1.42 million |
7 | Novacoin | NVC | $4.25 | $1.16 million |
2014
Fast-forward 18 months later to November 2014, and there were 513 cryptos in existence.
Bitcoin remained the dominant force, now with a market cap of about $5.13 billion. Just Litecoin ($122.63 million market cap) and Peercoin ($16.26 million market cap) managed to remain in the top 10 cryptos by market capitalization.
The rest of the original seven had made way for XRP ($346.22 million in market cap) and Dogecoin ($23.30 million in market cap).
At this stage, Bitcoin’s price had managed to more than double to reach $378.05. Nearly 76,000 merchants accepted Bitcoin globally.
2015
A year later, the crypto landscape had not changed so sharply. Nonetheless, there were 564 cryptos at the end of November 2015.
Bitcoin’s market capitalization increased to more than $5.5 billion, while November 2014’s second-biggest crypto by market cap, XRP, dropped to around $144.18 million.
Cumulatively, seven of November 2014’s biggest cryptos by market cap remained in the top 10 one year later. They were:
- Bitcoin – Nearly $406 million market cap increase
- Litecoin – Almost $37 million market cap increase
- XRP – About $202 million market cap decrease
- Bitshares – Around $39 million market cap drop
- Dogecoin – Approximately $10 million market cap plunge
- Peercoin – Nearly $6 million market cap decrease
- Dash – Almost $1 million market cap increase
The most conspicuous newcomer to the top ten club was Ethereum with a market capitalization of $65.98 million.
2016
By the end of this year, there were 663 cryptos in existence. Bitcoin’s price surged to a three-year high of nearly $900, gaining almost three times November 2015’s price. The best-performing cryptos by market cap increase for the year are:
- Bitcoin ($14.59 billion) – Market capitalization increase of around 2.5x
- Ethereum ($638 million) – Market capitalization growth of nearly 8x
- Ripple ($232 million) – Market capitalization surge of approximately 1.1x
- Litecoin ($212 million) – Market capitalization rise of roughly 1.5x
- Monero ($134 million) – Market cap upsurge of nearly 28x
- Ethereum Classic ($91 million) – Market cap growth of about 2x
- Dash ($71 million) – Market cap increment of approximately 4.5x
2017
By April 30, 2017, another 126 cryptos were being traded, bringing the total number of active coins in the market up to 789.
Ethereum’s market cap had exploded by over 1,000% within four months to reach above $7.2 billion. Also, XRP saw massive growth from $232 million to $1.96 billion. Despite all that healthy growth in the market, there were multiple factors that keep crypto from mass adoption.
2018
Almost a year later, the total number of cryptos had increased to over 200%. The successes that came with blockchain technology and the varied use of coins continued to lead to more market growth. By the end of this year, there were 2,073 cryptos with 12 of them having a market cap of more than $1 billion.
Here are the top five cryptos as they were, going into 2019:
Rank | Currency | Abbr. | Price (2 d.p.) | Market Cap |
1 | Bitcoin | BTC | $3,865.95 | $67.48 billion |
2 | XRP | XRP | $0.37 | $15.08 billion |
3 | Ethereum | ETH | $139.86 | $14.56 billion |
4 | Bitcoin Cash | BCH | $163.62 | $2.87 billion |
5 | EOS | EOS | $2.68 | $2.43 billion |
2019
By November of this year, there were nearly 3,000 cryptos in circulation at the time of publication. Nonetheless, some other sources were reporting figures near 6,000. The discrepancy was and is a result of differing review processes for a wide range of criteria.
For instance, test cryptos and joke cryptos are mostly quickly abandoned but may seem on some listings. To fight that, market caps and trade volume are mostly used as determining factors when calculating the real number of active cryptos.
During this year, Bitcoin’s market cap exceeded the $100 billion mark, ending at $134.57 billion. Despite that, the number of cryptos with a market cap surpassing $1 billion plunged to nine.
2020
The pandemic did little to stop the surge of cryptos hitting the market. By April, there were a reported 5,392 cryptos getting traded. Based on CoinMarketCap, the top 10 cryptos combined for a total market cap of nearly $200 billion. Bitcoin was responsible for more than $140 billion of that valuation.
Having seen a slight drop to nine in 2019, the total number of cryptos with a market cap of more than $1 billion stood at 28 by the end of 2020. Here are four cryptos that exceeded $10 billion in market capitalization:
- Bitcoin – $488.21 billion
- Ethereum – $77.83 billion
- Tether – $20.73 billion
- XRP – $12.85 billion
2022
Today, in November 2022, there are 21,888 cryptocurrencies in circulation. Nevertheless, most of these are inactive or entirely worthless. There are chances that the figure has changed since more coins and tokens are coming up every day.
The thousands of cryptos that exist today can be broken down into three segments:
- Bitcoin – the market leader and original crypto
- Altcoin – Alternatives to Bitcoin (not mostly similar)
- Tokens – Cryptos using pre-existing blockchains
The evolution of crypto has come a long way within a short time. To show this, here is a comparison of the first seven cryptos in 2013 compared to now:
Currency | 2013 Rank | 2022 Rank* | Market Cap Change | Price Change (2 d.p.)* |
Bitcoin | 1 | 1 | ↑ $395.32 billion | ↑ $20,645.13 |
Litecoin | 2 | 20 | ↑ $3.87 billion | ↑ $51.37 |
Namecoin | 3 | 639 | ↑ $10.91 million | ↑ $0.04 |
Peercoin | 4 | 799 | ↑ $0.73 million | ↑ $0.10 |
Terracoin | 5 | 1,737 | ↓ $1.06 million | ↑ $0.02 |
Devcoin | 6 | – | – | – |
Novacoin | 7 | 2,418 | ↓ $1.12 million | ↓ $4.23 |
All figures are accurate as of July 19, 2022.
Most cryptos have become household names over the last 10 years. The most notable one is Bitcoin which comfortably leads the way in terms of market capitalization. Ethereum has also taken the role of being the biggest altcoin although its market cap is around half that of bitcoin.
Buy Crypto NowBitcoin has the highest market cap currently at $389 billion which is more than double its closest rival Ethereum. Together, Bitcoin and Ethereum have a market cap of around 3X the size of the rest of the top 20 cryptos combined.
Notably, each of the top five cryptos has a market cap of more than $40 billion. In that context, just three of the top 20 cryptos have a per-token price exceeding $1,000 – Wrapped Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Bitcoin.
8 of the top 20 coins have a price above $5. Three of these in the top 20 are pegged to USD value directly. They include USD Coin, Tether, and Binance USD.
Sources: CoinMarketCap
How Many Crypto Exchanges Are There In The Market?
Generally, as the number of cryptos keeps increasing, so too has the number of crypto exchanges.
As of November 2022, there are 530 exchanges.
The top five decentralized exchanges currently include:
CMC Rank | Exchange | 24hr Trading Volume | Markets | Coins |
1 | Binance | $22.98 billion | 1,683 | 394 |
2 | FTX | $2.8 billion | 420 | 285 |
3 | Coinbase Exchange | $3 billion | 561 | 203 |
4 | Kraken | $0.98 billion | 598 | 195 |
5 | KuCoin | $1.68 billion | 1,347 | 722 |
The Takeaway
The number of cryptos changes at any given time depending on the number of coins coming into the market and those that exit due to different reasons and causes.
Cryptocurrency has already exploded into the general consciousness. While there have been lots of fluctuations affecting the market, it seems to be only going up eventually with Bitcoin still at the top of the group.