The myth is just small-pond arithmetic. In the early days, a few million dollars could push a coin up 100-fold. Today, the entire crypto market is worth about $2.6 trillion, of which $1.6 trillion is Bitcoin (Henley & Partners, as of 2026/8/31). The larger the market cap, the more new money it takes to double it—making the idea of the “next Bitcoin” increasingly difficult as a matter of arithmetic.
There are more people, but the profit pool hasn’t grown.
There are approximately 742 million crypto holders worldwide, but the same report says the market is shrinking.
The number of projects on GeckoTerminal rose from about 428,000 in 2021 to nearly 20.2 million in 2025. Of those, 53.2% are dead, and more than 11.5 million failed in 2025 alone (CoinGecko).
Of the 74.5 million tokens tracked by Dune, only about 500 have a market cap above $10 million.
U.S. spot BTC ETFs have seen cumulative net inflows of about $57.6 billion, but outflows of $2.4 billion and $4.51 billion in May and June this year, respectively, show that fund flows are unstable.
Once risk brought belief into focus, it was replaced by “boring metrics.”
In May 2022, the Luna/UST collapse wiped out an estimated $40 billion in market value. Using realized losses in wallets, Chainalysis estimates that the Terra event caused about $20.5 billion in losses, Celsius and 3AC about $33 billion, and the FTX bankruptcy about $9 billion. (Note: “market value wiped out” and “realized losses” are measured differently; label them separately when posting.) After these events, the market began focusing on revenue, users, and compliance instead of stories.
Counterpoint:
This pullback has been milder: BTC is about 38% below its October 2025 peak, while declines after the peaks of the past several cycles all exceeded 75%. This could indicate a more mature market—or that the bottom is not in yet.
Ark Invest predicts that the total crypto market cap could reach $28 trillion by 2030. If that happens, the profit pool would expand by about 10 times.
There is considerable variation in how total token counts are measured (from 37 million to 120 million), and “53% are dead” only covers tokens with a trading history.
Conclusion: The fading of crypto myths isn’t a failure of the industry; it’s a shift in pricing power from belief to cash flow and real demand. Strategically, rather than looking for the next myth, look for profit pools that can be quantified.
Sources: Henley & Partners, CoinGecko, Dune, SoSoValue, Chainalysis, and Ark Invest. Please update ETF and price data on the day of publication. This is personal analysis, not investment advice.
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