The period from the end of 2017 to the beginning of 2018 became a "golden era" for many cryptocurrencies and ICO projects. The prices of many digital assets skyrocketed, and investors grabbed hold of any new token sold through the ICO. But the time of the crypto fever has passed, the veil has fallen asleep, and investors suddenly realized that they had invested their funds in useless garbage - shitcoins in the language of crypto holders.

The most interesting thing is that among them were not only initially meaningless tokens, but also the once popular cryptocurrencies, which were held in high esteem by avid crypto enthusiasts. However, something went wrong, and these coins gradually faded into oblivion, taking with them the money of naive investors who realized that they were fooled. In this article, we will talk about the top cryptocurrencies of the golden age of the blockchain, which are now forgotten by everyone.

#1. Dash (DASH) - down 92.98%

At the peak of its popularity, DASH was one of the three most popular anonymous cryptocurrencies. Its peculiarity is that when sending, transactions are mixed and form a single group, and then chaotically sent to addressees. By the way, the Dash coin was released back in 2014 and became one of the first cryptocurrencies that work on the Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus algorithm, which became popular among crypto investors in 2019 and is in demand to this day.

But even this did not help Dash gain the status of a legend and stand on a pedestal on a par with the famous cryptocurrencies Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH), which were also the first of their kind.

ATH cryptocurrency reached in December 2017 and traded at around $ 1,609. In three years, the Dash rate fell by almost 93% and now stands at $ 113, which is also a lot compared to most cryptocurrencies, but not with its own absolute maximum.
# 2. Lisk (LSK) - down 96.32%

At the end of 2017, the Lisk cryptocurrency was in almost every top. The LSK price peaked in February 2018, when it rose to $ 35.58. But then its rate began to fall rapidly, and now Lisk is trading at $ 1.31 - 96% lower than ATH. And the minimum after 2017 was recorded in December 2019, when the price of the LSK cryptocurrency fell to almost $ 0.5.

No, the developers have not abandoned the project and continue to work on it, despite the popularity that has eluded them. And not just popularity: the Lisk cryptocurrency was almost at the top of its glory and entered the twenty largest cryptocurrencies by capitalization, competing with such mastodons as Monero (XMR), TRON (TRX), NEM (XEM), Ethereum Classic (ETC) and Tether ( USDT). The last post on the developer blog is dated December 16, 2020. However, the creators of the project have not released significant updates over the past 2 years, unlike Ethereum (Eth 2.0) and Cardano (Shelley). Cryptocurrencies have not yet passed mass adoption, and the competition in this market is quite fierce.

# 3. Steem (STEEM) - 97.9% drop

Oh, this 2017: the year of accomplishment - the year of blockchain innovation. More than 90% are of no benefit to the crypto community and, at best, simply copy their fellows that have become popular. But this is not about Steem. An original idea coupled with a strong development team ... Seemed what could have gone wrong?

The Steem developers came up with a platform with their own cryptocurrency to encourage popular authors: copywriters received a reward in Steem tokens for each like to an article. In fact, this is Medium's cryptanalogue. Moreover, the stronger the voice of the person who liked, the more tokens the author receives. For just one article, popular authors could receive up to $ 500, or even up to $ 1000 in STEEM tokens.

And here's what's really strange: Steem technology bypasses many well-known blockchains, and taken together: there are no transaction fees, and the Steem network bandwidth is more than 2 times higher than that of Ethereum.

However, apart from media, tokens have not found use, therefore they have not gained popularity among crypto investors. In three years, the STEEM rate fell by almost 98% from $ 8.11 to $ 0.17, and even against the backdrop of the new DeFi boom in 2020, it only reached $ 0.24.
#4. Nano (NANO) - a drop of 99.42%

Nano cryptocurrency is the answer to the question of how to lose more than 99% of your investment. Some of you have probably never even heard of her. But investors who bought the Nano in late 2017 will never forget it. Just imagine your investment of $ 1000 slowly but steadily turning into $ 5.8 - the worst nightmare of a crypto investor. This can be the envy of even newbie traders who have made an unsuccessful deal on an exchange with a leverage of x100.

The best name for this cryptocurrency would be NAN, which means "Not-a-Number" in the language of IT specialists. Although, as ironic as it may sound, the name of the cryptocurrency accurately reflects its essence: $ 1.18 for a coin with emission of only 133 million is really a nano-rate. This is how much the coin now costs, but in January 2018 its rate reached $ 31.25, and the coin itself was ranked 20th in terms of capitalization - higher than Zcash (ZEC), Binance Coin (BNB) and Tether (USDT).

#5. Populous (PPT) - down 99.75%

What could be worse than a 99.42% drop? A drop of 99.75%. Such an incredible result was shown by the PPT cryptocurrency, which was previously actively traded by traders. But you probably know nothing about her. For a second, the Populous coin was traded on the Binance exchange and was a popular cryptocurrency with a capitalization of more than $ 2 billion. Even one of the top cryptocurrencies Tezos (XTZ) has a lower capitalization. And the PPT rate reached $ 70.83 in January 2018.

Due to the narrow focus of the project, the popularity of the Populous cryptocurrency gradually faded away. The idea behind the platform is to finance invoices. The goal of the project is to speed up the payment cycles faced by business customers. Although the project is still working, the information has not been updated since 2019 and, perhaps, the developers abandoned it, and the token was sent to "gather dust" along with the rest of the no-name tokens.

Сonclusions

What conclusions can be drawn? Crypto projects are volatile, and cryptocurrencies, which were at their peak during the ICO fever, metaphorically reached the bottom of the Mariana Trench in the crypto market. Only Bitcoin and a few other top altcoins such as Ethereum, Ripple (XRP), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), and Litecoin (LTC) are consistently the leaders in the cryptocurrency market.

You can buy some kind of shield coin and expect sky-high profits, while simultaneously watching how your capital "evaporates", or invest in really popular coins, which they will remain, perhaps forever.

Politics is a set of activities associated with the governance of a country or an area. It involves making decisions that apply to group of members. I would have realized that technology is an accessible field at a younger age. I really got interested in technology when I took a role on President Obama’s Technology, Innovation, and Government Reform transition team.