The founder of Ethereum is not optimistic about the current wave of tokens using the ERC20 standard. He compares the controversial ICO funding model to traditional startups and expects these projects to have the same fail rate of about 90%.
Still, Buterin expects a market correction that will bring a new wave of tokens he calls tokens 2.0, fixing the issues he believes are currently plaguing crowdfunded cryptocurrency startup projects: “I expect that tokens 2.0 and the kinds of things that people will start building in 2018 and 2019 will generally be of substantially higher quality. Especially once we start seeing what the consequences of the first wave of tokens are in the medium-to-longer term... What is a good role for them and what is a role that doesn’t really make sense?”, Buterin said at the Ethereum hackathon ETHWaterloo.
While Buterin's comments might seem harsh, it is important to apply critical thinking to the state of the cryptocurrency community and keep in mind that there is more to decentralized technologies than the values of their related tokens.