Chinese Report Finds 9 in 10 Altcoins to Have Stolen 80% of Their Code

A report published by Chinese media has alleged that more than 80% of alternative cryptocurrencies are comprised of “plagiarizing code.” The report analyzed 488 different cryptocurrencies, finding that the code underpinning more than 90% of the projects shared a similarity score of at least 80%.

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4 in 5 Altcoins Accused of Stealing 90% of Their Code

A report conducted by researchers from Xi’an Jiaotong University in northwest China’s Shaanxi Province and representative of Netta Lab, and published by Securities Daily – a state-operated Chinese media outlet, has found more than 90% of the code underpinning at least 4 in 5 altcoins to have been plagiarized.

The report purports to have examined 488 virtual currencies that use open source code. After comparing the code underpinning the analyzed cryptocurrencies in pairs, the researchers found that the code underpinning 405 cryptocurrencies (83%) yielded a similarity score of between 90% and 100%. Further, 324 of the virtual currencies (66.6%) had a similarity score of between 95% to 100%.

Only 38 cryptocurrencies (8%) were found to have a similarity score of less than 80%. 45 virtual currencies (9%) were found to have a similarity score of between 80% and 90%.

Altcoin Bubble Driven by Marketing, Not Development

The founder of Netta Lab, Xie Shaoyun, emphasized that the report’s findings highlight that the vast majority of altcoins allocate their resources to marketing rather than development, stating: ”So many blockchain projects shift their focus from technology development to marketing[, …] lead[ing] to the increasing number of copying and plagiarisms in this field.”

Xie Shaoyun also criticized what she described as a lack of technological innovation emerging from the distributed ledger technology industries, stating: “At present, the industry still lacks the real breakthrough in innovation and solves the problem, and puts the implementation of the application in the first place. The people are holding the mentality of experimenting and luck.”

“We should return to the essence, truly solve practical problems, do tools that can be used by users and bring convenience, build real value and usability, come up with actual products, and promote the development of the industry from the actual recognized value,” she concluded.

Are you surprised by the scale of code plagiarizing that Netta Lab’s report alleges is taking place among altcoins? Share your thoughts in the comments section below!

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