Throughout 2018, the ICO market showed a negative trend, from month to month the amount of investment was decreasing. The peak of investments was in January 2018 in the amount of $1.5 billion, in November, this amount fell to $180 million, which means a drop of almost 90%. The fall of Ethereum - the main currency used during ICOs - itself has led many companies to cut costs and staff in order to adapt to the current situation.

While the market showed decline and correction, many investors came to realize that the effectiveness of their investments was questionable. The ICO format gradually left crowdfunding scheme and came to closed private sales. The latest projects that launched ICOs, are already far superior in quality to those that were carried out in 2017. However, the negative dynamics of fundraising did not stop. In this situation, It’s not a surprise that a new type of fundraising appeared - STO (Security Token Offering).

STO means an increased attractiveness for accredited private investors because it gives the right to receive income from the company's activities, as well as the protection of their interests due to the fact that the company must meet all the requirements of the regulator. The main challenge for STO is to comply with the requirements of regulators in token holder's countries of origin.

In June 2018, the blockchain platform for STO Securitize announced it had raised $ 500 million in STO (Kairos, Lottery.com, 22x), and Tzero, a platform for security tokens, collected $134 million.

Despite the growing popularity of STO, it is too early to write off ICO. Since ICO is essentially the only way for an ordinary, non-accredited investor with modest amounts of capital to participate in investment activities. At the same time, with the influx of new ordinary investors and stable market growth, the trend on ICO can make a return.

Despite the decline in 2018, many high-quality projects collected more than $100 million (Telegram - 1.7 billion, filecoin - 257 million, dfinity - 195 million). However, a serious revaluation is expected after they will enter the secondary market.