The number of altcoins in the cryptocurrency market available for purchase has reached new (ludicrous) heights. According to coinmarketcap, at the time of writing 24 October 2017, there are currently 1194! Cryptocurrencies in circulation.
UPDATE: December 20, 2017
Just two months later, there are currently 1368 altcoins in existence!
Most of them are simplistic (read naive and dangerous for investors money and miners time) forks of Bitcoin usually intended just to pump and dump from shady people.
When a new altcoin appears, that has nothing new to add to the technology, no whitepaper, and unknown developers nowhere to be found one should be aware, and probably look the other way just to be safe.,
The amount of Bitcoin hard forks and contenders has also shown an alarmingly increase in recent times, though Bitcoin remains unscathed up to now.
Feast your eyes on the following screenshot :
Screenshot from coinmarketcap.com
It would appear that in the last six months, a staggering 90 new altcoins are spawning out of thin air (usual copies of older coins and forks)!
Where do we go from here?