A look at the data behind the largest ERC-20 tokens

Besides a handful of projects that actively utilize ERC-20 tokens, the prominence of the technical standard used to issue tokens on Ethereum has taken a hit. The Block has looked at the top 20 ERC-20 tokens, which currently have about 61% of the total ERC-20 market capitalization.

A lot of ERC-20 tokens were issued in the midst of the ICO fundraising mania. In mid-2017, just before ICOs really started taking off, there were less than 6,000 smart contracts on Ethereum. Today, there are about 195,600 different ERC-20 tokens, according to Etherscan. But the vast majority are completely illiquid; only about 544 have a market capitalization of above $1 million.