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(Possibly a little off-topic, but along the lines of previous questions like "How many nodes are supporting Ethereum Classic?" and "How many pre-sale addresses are there?", perhaps... )

The question "Naming conventions for ERC-20 instancies" got me wondering:

How many Ethereum-based tokens are there, and how does this compare to the number of tokens on other platforms?

Clarifications:

  • Public, main (ETH) network only;
  • I'm not counting ETH as a token itself, though strictly you could argue it is;
  • ERC-20/ERC-223 or otherwise;
  • By "other platforms" I mean other, non-interoperable, blockchains;
  • I'm loosely defining "tokens" on other platforms, be they backed by smart contracts or otherwise. (...Which now has me questioning: "What is a token...?")
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  • Not that I have an answer any which way, but you might want to clarify what you mean "Ethereum-based tokens". E.g., depending on your definition, ether is an Ethereum-based token, ether on Ethereum Classic is an Ethereum-based token. So might be TheDAO tokens, ERC-20-compliant tokens created on the test-net, ether created on private blockchains that are from the source from an Ethereum client, and ether/tokens on clients forked from various Ethereum clients.
    – lungj
    Nov 28, 2017 at 20:31
  • Good point - will clarify :-) Nov 28, 2017 at 20:35

3 Answers 3

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From Etherscan it says:

There are a total of 17724 Erc20 Token Contracts

Which would be all the tokens that follow the Ethereum ERC20 Token Standard Interface. I counted all the tokens on CoinMarketCap that are built on Ethereum and there is 324 (Source).

You can also see with this chart the amount of assets built on each platform, taken from this article: How Ethereum became the platform of choice for ICO’d digital assets

enter image description here

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  • 1
    While Etherscan does throw that number, it includes tokens that are either non-existent or scams aimed at confusing people. Just a quick example, if you search Qtum to name one, you get 10 tokens. If you consider "real" tokens, the number must be around the hundreds. Nov 28, 2017 at 20:40
  • 1
    @pabloruiz55 It's true that the number is exaggerated because of all the non-existent tokens. Another way would be to find all the tokens built on Ethereum that are listed on CoinMarketCap. Added it.
    – I.B
    Nov 28, 2017 at 20:46
  • How do these contract tokens map to actual money? I see the monetary value in the first column, but tokens aren't actually backed by real currency, right? They're just created by the person creating the contract. Nov 28, 2017 at 21:22
  • @jordaniac89 You're right they're not backed by any real currency. Their value comes from the fact that people are willing to exchange, buy and sell them. Also the amount of coins in circulation affects the price. For example, Bitcoin has probably one of the lowest amount of coins in circulation. It all comes down to supply and demand.
    – I.B
    Nov 28, 2017 at 21:28
  • So the "value" is something that is calculated by the network (or Etherscan) and not by the developer or the contract itself, correct? Nov 28, 2017 at 21:36
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As per the discussion in one of the other answers, in lieu of a better way to weed out all those published contracts that are scams or have never been used, or for some other reason aren't worth considering, I've used CoinMarketCap as the arbiter of quality.

Take with numerous pinches of salt, but gives an idea of the ecosystem. (Which I think is what I was getting at when I asked my fuzzy question.)

Results:

Total token count:        409       
-----------------------------
Ethereum                  324
Waves                      26
Omni                       13
BitShares                  11
Nxt                         9
Counterparty                9
Burst                       7
Ethereum Classic            2
NEO                         2
Qtum                        2
Ubiq                        2
NEM                         1
NuBits                      1

Script (there's probably a better way to do this... ):

#!/usr/bin/env python

import urllib
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
import operator

page = urllib.urlopen("https://coinmarketcap.com/tokens/views/all/")
soup = BeautifulSoup(page.read())

token_dict = {}
token_count = 0

for token in soup.find_all('td', { 'class' : 'platform-name' }):
    token_count += 1
    if token.a.get_text() in token_dict:
        token_dict[token.a.get_text()] += 1
    else:
        token_dict[token.a.get_text()] = 1

# Sort the dictionary, which creates a list of sorted tuples.
sorted_dict = sorted(token_dict.items(),
                     key = operator.itemgetter(1),
                     reverse = True)

print("\n{0:25} {1:10}".format("Total token count:", str(token_count)))
print("-----------------------------")
for i in sorted_dict:
    print("{0:18} {1:10}".format(i[0], i[1]))
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    Those numbers show just how much Ethereum is dominating the market. I wonder if Ethereum will start losing percentages of the market with the arrival of all those new platforms.
    – I.B
    Nov 28, 2017 at 21:21
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As of November 28, 2017 there are about 17724 Tokens. Take a look at all the token here

On Ethereum classic its merely just 7 Tokens. Take a look at them here

IMHO, The number of tokens on Ethereum will always be the highest. Also, the rate at which tokens increase on ethereum is also the highest when compared to any other platform.

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