This was not very common before 2019 indeed. The years 2017-2018 was somehow very good years for altcoins. Those were also the years when the ICO craze was still very much alive. Crypto investors were still very much excited and bullish on crypto projects that was why hundreds of millions in investments were pouring in. Upon listing of new altcoins on exchanges, volumes would almost instantly rise.
Years after however, there seems to be nothing productive that came out of it. That was one big hollow trend. The beginning of the end then followed and the trust from crypto fans and investors started to fall down. And then altcoins slowly died, one after another. Volumes were lost, developments were not seen, even project team developers were slowly exiting.
What we are seeing now is but the aftermath of this, the lost of interest and trust in altcoins.
The ICO craze worked and ended up the same way any other stock craze does: the rich and experienced end up with more money while the weak traders and FOMO hunters ended up emptying theirs.
Nothing productive came out ot the ICOs because it was just a cycle that couldn't go on forever. It was something that many knew had to stop but only few took the right actions. A ton of money has been poured in DeFis as well in the past month, how do you think this will end?
Most probably the way the ICO craze ended. This looks very temporary to me. This exaggerated hype surrounding DeFi looks almost exactly the same hype that characterized the ICO trend way back then.
And as with the ICO craze, those who are wiser will make the most out of it while it lasts but those who really believed, who became more than loyal to certain projects and tokens, will end up with tokens drained of value.
I just hope that people are learning their lessons from the ICO years. Those were not cheap lessons after all. Hundreds of millions were burned from that.