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Several crypto industry leaders said that thousands of digital tokens could collapse while the number of blockchains in existence will also decline over the coming years.

As of this writing, there are over 19,000 cryptocurrencies with hundreds of blockchain platforms. Ethereum — a leading blockchain platform — is the underlying technology that many of these different cryptocurrencies are built upon.

The recent collapse of the so-called algorithmic stablecoin terraUSD and its associated digital sister token luna — which deepened the crypto market’s wounds — has raised questions about the lifetime of other cryptocurrencies.

“One of the effects of what we’ve seen last week with the Terra issue is we’re at the stage where basically there are far too many blockchains out there, too many tokens. And that’s confusing users. And that’s also bringing some risks for the users,” Bertrand Perez, CEO of the Web3 Foundation, told CNBC at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last week.

“Like at the beginning of the internet, you were having lots of dotcom companies and lots of them were scams, and were not bringing any value and all that got cleared. And now we have very useful and legit companies.”

Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of cross-border blockchain payments company Ripple, said there is likely to be “scores” of cryptocurrencies that remain in the future.

“I think there’s a question about whether or not we need 19,000 new currencies today. In the fiat world, there’s maybe 180 currencies,” Garlinghouse said.

Guggenheim Chief Investment Officer Scott Minerd added further pessimism last week when he said that most crypto is “junk” but that bitcoin and ethereum would survive.

The comments came as the crypto market continues to suffer major losses. Bitcoin is 50% below its November all-time high, with most other digital coins losing approximately 80% of their value. 

Blockchain platforms such as Ethereum to Solana are competing for a leadership position in the industry. But Brett Harrison, CEO of cryptocurrency exchange FTX U.S., said the hundreds currently in existence will not all survive.

“When you think about the blockchains ... there probably won’t be hundreds of different blockchains in 10 years, I think there’ll be a couple of clear winners for different kinds of applications,” Harrison said.

“And we’ll see the market ... sort that out over time,” he added.