- Since Forbes attacked XRP, ADA, ICP, BCH, and XLM as zombie tokens with “little utility other than for speculative crypto trading,” investors have been split on whether to hold them.
- Over the past months, most of the 20 ‘zombie’ tokens have declined by more than 20%, with some losing a third of their value, like Cardano’s ADA and Stacks’ STX.
It’s been a month since Forbes published a scathing article describing 20 blockchain networks whose market cap is at least a billion dollars but have little utility as zombie blockchains. Since then, most of these tokens have lost over 20% of their value as investors remain split on whether to dump this group of tokens.
Among the notable networks, Forbes listed were XRP, Cardano, Litecoin, Internet Computer, Bitcoin Cash, Kaspa, Stacks, Monero, Flow, Tezos and EOS. The authors claimed that these networks have shot up on the charts and are worth billions purely because of hype and that they have little development or growth, as Crypto News Flash reported.
“Don’t expect any of the cash-rich, do-nothing blockchains to shut down anytime soon. They are busy spending their money on long-shot projects….Buyer beware. The lunatics are running the crypto asylum,” the article stated.
Some crypto industry leaders whose projects were attacked responded promptly, discrediting the article and its authors. Charles Hoskinson brushed the article aside, claiming that the zombie moniker was given to these projects because they “got all the brains.”
Emir Yavuz, an executive at Stellar-based DeFi protocol Ultra Stellar, stated, “Honestly, it’s disappointing to see a “research” piece like this from Forbes about Stellar without conducting proper research and engaging with the community.”
Zombie Blockchains—Should Investors Hold or Dump?
The Forbes article got a lot of things wrong. For instance, discrediting a project like XRP, Cardano and Stellar as having no utility is disingenuous. While they can’t match Ethereum’s ecosystem (but then again, who can?), these projects have thriving ecosystems building DeFi, DEXes, NFTs and more. Flow is another network that was bundled with the zombies despite ranking sixth in the entire industry for NFT sales with a $1.5 billion volume.
However, the article highlights one of the critical issues with blockchains—a lack of mainstream utility and adoption. To the non-crypto audience, Stellar is just a token to bet on. Its DeFi ecosystem doesn’t appeal as much to those outside crypto.
Additionally, the control of an entire ecosystem’s finances and a concentration of decision-making power by a few entities make decentralization seem like an illusion to the mainstream audience. Matt Hougan, the Bitwise CIO, best summed it up, stating:
It’s like early-stage venture capital funds or companies that raise too much money and don’t know how to adequately deploy it. There’s no way to return the treasury to the investors.
Deciding whether to dump these “zombie” tokens remains a tough call for investors. Most have lost at least a fifth of their value in the past month. Filecoin has been the biggest loser in that period, shedding 39.2% of its value. Stacks lost 35%, MultiberseX was down 33.2%, Cardano shed 30%, and Tezos lost 29.4%.
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