Why this page exists
Every one of these projects had a serious team, real funding, genuine technical ambition and a confident community. Each was described, at its peak, as an Ethereum competitor. None failed through fraud.
They simply lost relevance — and that is the outcome most crypto assets actually reach. Not a dramatic collapse like Terra, not a fraud like Nigeria's Ponzi schemes, but a slow decline into irrelevance while attention and developers moved elsewhere. For a Nigerian holder deciding what to buy, understanding this failure mode matters more than understanding the dramatic one.
EOS — the $4 billion cautionary tale
EOS raised roughly $4 billion in a year-long token sale ending in 2018, the largest fundraise in crypto at the time, on a promise of a high-throughput Ethereum alternative. It launched, it worked technically, and it never captured developers at scale.
What went wrong was governance and delivery rather than technology: a small set of block producers, persistent disputes about how the raised funds were deployed, an SEC settlement over the unregistered offering, and a long-running conflict between the EOS community and Block.one, the company that raised the money. In 2025 the network rebranded as Vaulta with a repositioning toward financial services.
The lesson. Money raised is not adoption achieved. EOS had more capital than almost any project in history and lost to teams with a fraction of it, because developers followed usability and community rather than treasury size.
NEO — the "Chinese Ethereum"
NEO launched in 2014 as Antshares and rebranded in 2017, positioned as China's smart-contract platform with a focus on digital identity and regulatory compatibility. It rose enormously in the 2017 cycle on that narrative.
The narrative was also the constraint. A platform whose thesis was regulatory alignment in China became much harder to advocate as Chinese crypto policy tightened through 2021, and the developer ecosystem never reached a self-sustaining size. NEO still operates and still ships, with a design where holding NEO generates GAS for transaction fees, but it is no longer a serious contender for the position it once claimed.
IOTA — the good idea that arrived early
IOTA aimed at machine-to-machine payments for the internet of things, using a directed acyclic graph called the Tangle instead of a conventional blockchain, with no transaction fees. Genuinely original, and it attracted serious industrial partnership interest.
It struggled on execution. The network relied on a central Coordinator for years, which undercut the decentralisation claim; a 2020 wallet incident led to the network being halted; and the machine-payment market it was built for did not materialise on the expected timescale. The 2025 Rebased upgrade moved IOTA to a Move-based, stake-secured architecture — a substantial technical reset, and a long way from the original thesis.
The lesson. Being right early is indistinguishable from being wrong, if the market you are building for does not arrive while your funding and attention last.
Waves — the one that ended badly
Waves launched in 2016 as a platform for issuing custom tokens, was briefly popular for that purpose, and then made the decision that defined it: launching an algorithmic stablecoin, USDN, backed by its own WAVES token.
The structure was the same as Terra's. In 2022 USDN lost its peg, and the mechanism intended to defend it imposed pressure on WAVES exactly when WAVES was least able to absorb it. Both fell heavily and neither recovered. There were also credible allegations of price manipulation involving the ecosystem's lending protocol during this period.
Waves and Terra are the same lesson, learned twice in the same year. An algorithmic stablecoin backed by the issuer's own volatile token has no floor. Two independent projects proved it in 2022. This is why we tell Nigerian readers to hold only reserve-backed stablecoins.
The four, side by side
| Coin | Peak claim | What went wrong | Now |
|---|---|---|---|
| EOS / Vaulta | High-throughput Ethereum killer | Governance disputes, no developer traction, SEC settlement | Operating; rebranded; marginal |
| NEO | China's smart-contract platform | Its narrative depended on a policy environment that turned | Operating; small ecosystem |
| IOTA | Feeless payments for the internet of things | Centralisation, a network halt, a market that arrived too late | Operating; architecturally rebuilt |
| Waves | Token issuance platform | Its own algorithmic stablecoin collapsed | Heavily diminished |
What a Nigerian buyer should take from this
Being top-ten is not a moat
All four were. Rank reflects yesterday's attention, not tomorrow's relevance. Weight survival probability heavily — see the framework.
Developers are the leading indicator
Every one of these declined because builders went elsewhere. Ask who is building, not who is marketing.
The usual ending is irrelevance, not collapse
Your coin probably will not go to zero in a week. It will drift down for four years while you wait for a recovery that has no mechanism.
A narrative dependent on one external factor is fragile
NEO's China thesis and IOTA's IoT thesis were both bets on something outside the project's control.
Never touch an algorithmic stablecoin
Waves and Terra, independently, in the same year.
Liquidity dies before the project does
By the time you decide to exit a declining asset, the Nigerian naira route may have thinned considerably. This is the practical cost of holding on.
If you already hold one of these
Two honest questions. First: would you buy it today, at today's price, knowing what you now know? If not, holding is a decision you are making by default rather than on purpose. Second: what would have to happen for it to recover, and is there any reason to expect that? "It was $20 once" is not a mechanism.
None of this is advice to sell — that depends on your circumstances and on tax. It is an argument for deciding on purpose rather than waiting, which is what most holders of declining assets are actually doing.
We do not print prices in prose — they go stale and cost readers money. Every figure you need is live on crypto prices in naira.
Frequently asked questions
What happened to EOS?
It raised roughly $4 billion in a token sale ending in 2018 and never captured developers at scale. Governance disputes, a small set of block producers, an SEC settlement over the unregistered offering and conflict with the company that raised the funds left it marginal. It rebranded as Vaulta in 2025.
Is NEO still active?
Yes, it still operates and ships, with a design where holding NEO generates GAS for fees. But its thesis was regulatory alignment in China, which became much harder to advocate as Chinese crypto policy tightened, and its developer ecosystem never reached a self-sustaining size.
What happened to IOTA?
Its feeless machine-payment thesis was original and attracted industrial interest, but execution struggled: reliance on a central Coordinator undercut its decentralisation claim, a 2020 wallet incident led to the network being halted, and the IoT payment market did not arrive on schedule. The 2025 Rebased upgrade rebuilt it on a Move-based architecture.
Why did Waves collapse?
It launched USDN, an algorithmic stablecoin backed by its own WAVES token. When USDN lost its peg in 2022, the mechanism meant to defend it put pressure on WAVES exactly when WAVES could least absorb it. Both fell heavily and neither recovered — the same structure that destroyed Terra the same year.
Should I buy former top-ten coins because they are cheap?
Cheap relative to a past price is not a reason. Ask what would have to happen for it to recover and whether there is any reason to expect it — "it was $20 once" is not a mechanism. Also check the Nigerian naira exit, because liquidity in declining assets thins before the project ends.
What is the lesson from these four coins?
That the usual ending for a crypto asset is irrelevance rather than collapse — a slow four-year drift while developers and attention move elsewhere. Weight survival probability heavily, follow where builders are going rather than where marketing is loudest, and never hold an algorithmic stablecoin.
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Last reviewed: 2026-09-09. We update this page whenever Nigerian rules, fees or platform availability change. Nothing here is financial, tax or legal advice — see our editorial policy.
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