Charlie Lee, the creator of major cryptocurrency Litecoin (LTC), believes that the ongoing spike in popularity of the nonfungible token, or NFT, industry has much in common with the 2017 initial coin offer, or ICO, mania.

Lee provided at least five similarities between 2021's NFT popularity and 2017's ICO mania, too comparing both to the altcoin craze in 2013 in a tweet on Tuesday.

According to the Litecoin creator, all iii cryptocurrency phenomena await very similar, as they are easy to create "with no barriers" and simple to understand and explicate. Lee noted that NFTs, ICOs and 2013's altcoins also have a big similarity in terms of adoption — as all of them bring, or used to bring, "tons of new people into crypto."

Similar to the loftier prices and pumps of altcoins in 2013, ICOs and NFTs are associated with massive hype and fright of missing out. All the same, "Few will hold and have value," and most people did not or volition non ain them, Lee concluded.

Lee previously expressed some assuming criticism over the NFT industry, claiming in February that NFTs accept "goose egg cost" of cosmos. "Because of the near zero toll to create another NFT, the market will eventually be flooded with NFTs from artists trying to cash in on this craze. Supply will overwhelm demand and the prices will eventually crash," the creator of Litecoin predicted.

Lee is not alone in thinking that NFTs are the new ICOs, equally many crypto enthusiasts accept drawn parallels between the ii major concepts in the crypto manufacture recently. Michael Goldstein, president of the Satoshi Nakamoto Institute, also tweeted Monday that "NFTs are the ICOs of 2021."

Andrew Kang, a crypto investor and co-founder of Mechanism Capital, also took to Twitter Tuesday to pinpoint that NFTs have become increasingly popular among celebrities who may "rug all their fans," implying they are purely looking for profits.

Representing a new method for digitally ownership and selling fine art and other media, NFTs have indeed gotten attending from pop celebrities recently, including Canadian musician Grimes and Linkin Park rapper Mike Shinoda. Glory endorsements apparently make up another solid parallel between NFTs and ICOs, as a number of ICOs in 2017 were largely supported by celebrities, including American music producer DJ Khaled and American actor Steven Seagal.