Crypto markets are maturing; this is the oldest cliche one can hear in the cryptosphere now and then.

This is no different in 2018. The crypto market overran in December 2017, with Bitcoin breaching its all-time high and reach $20,000 per coin.

Along with it rallied the whole crypto market and the ICO findings, which reached billions and later to only fully more than 50%. This is normal, and this how the crypto markets work.

Amidst, all this has been the tremendous development of cryptosphere, specifically the ICOs and STOs niche and in this study report, we aim to hight just that based one following salient points:

ICO landscape 2018

STO landscape 2018

Crypto market trend analysis 2018

Private fund in blockchain companies 2018

Always take such study reports with the grain of salt because tracking cryptocurrencies and its investments flowing into STOs and ICOs is a tedious task, so here you go.

ICO Landscape 2018

Though the market fell off the cliff in 2017 December and kept falling throughout 2018, counter-intuitively, the ICO fundraising remained healthy across the year.

Countries like the USA, UK, Singapore, Japan, and Switzerland lead the pack, where the number of ICO launches grew more than 50% in comparison to 2017.

The least growth was recorded in Russia during this phase, whereas even countries like China grew more than 100% during this period in a number of ICOs launched.

Estonia and Australia, increased their ICO offerings as no one did in this duration and quadrupling their number of ICOs during this period.

When you compare the west with Asia, the Asian region lead the world in the unprecedented ICO boom unheard before, and the period ended with a couple of billion raised in a single year.

Amongst the ICOs launched, the dominant industries were financial services, fintech, gaming, and media & entertainment sectors with financial services growing more than 100% in comparison to 2017.

But on the other hand, the ICOs getting listed on the exchanges were 20% less than what they were in 2017. This could be a result of the US SEC stringently regulating the ICOs and ushering in the age of STOs.

The drop if you compare quarter wise, you will notice in some quarters the listing reduced by 300-400% which is too and many investors would have been stuck with illiquid tokens

STO Landscape 2018

STOs are mostly like ICOs but regulated ones under the federal governments around the world. The US has the SEC, and South Korea has FSC.

In 2018, STOs gained momentum over ICOs because of the prevalent frauds in them. So the year 2018, especially saw the rise of STOs through the drawdown, wasn’t that much in ICOs.

Many investor’s confidence was eroded because of the scams in ICOs, so they started preferring STOs, and hence the listing of STOs increased.

But STOs could reach only a number in a few hundred throughout the year and entering the maximum number of launches per month in the last quarter of the year. Especially, September and October recorded the most amounts of STOs in 2018, but they were still only miniscule when. Compared to ICOs launched in those months in 2017 & 2018. This is a clear reflection of the difficulty of starting an STO because it is not as easy as ICO.

In STOs, trading industry-related STOs lead the pack wheres as in ICOs financial services has to lead, and this is a clear reflection of STOs being more suitable for private requires, hence a lot of capital when that side.

Cryptocurrency Market Trend Analysis 2018

On the overall cryptocurrency market funds, quite a few critical things happened. Right from the bust of Bitconnect and its latest ICO attempts in 2018 were fused by the SEC.

Later in the year, Bitcoin ETFs were rejected by the US regulators and Ethereum coming under scrutiny as to whether it is a security or not. Then in the year, EthereDelta was hacked and came under SEC’s radar and paid a heavy price of offering un-regulated tokens in the US.

Private Funding in Blockchain Companies 2018

Private funding in blockchain companies has been lower when compared to 2017 highs, but it has been considerably increasing in 2018 and falling only in the last quarter of 2018.

New entrants have also entered the space of private funding, where DCG- Digital Currency Group is the only private funding group that has remained even bullish and consistent in2018.

Whereas in comparison to previous years, new entrants like BlockVC, KosmosCapital, Neo Capital, etc. have entered this time.

Mergers and Acquisition in Blockchain Space 2018

Mergers and acquisitions are a common thing in any business or market. They have existed since the beginning of enterprises. Essentially, when a company or group goes to get acquired or merged, they are saying that they don’t have the resources or will to stay in the game.

The same thing happened in 2018; 90 % of surge in merges occurred in the crypto markets as the markets stumbled. Notably, the Bitcoin came down 50% from the start of the year, forcing many investors and founders to reconsider their euphoria and have a look at their balance sheets.

Circle acquired Poloniex in the one big mega bailout for $400 million. Circle did this to make Bitcoin more accessible to people around the world.

Poloniex has remained a known brand in the cryptosphere, which will give much-needed scale and liquidity to Circle in realizing its aims.

When speaking a bit of 2019, in comparison to 2018, dollar denoted funding is 28% down from its peak of $4.3 billion.

Companies like Bitman (crypto mining hardware company) and Coinbase (fiat-based cryptocurrency exchanged) raised the most amount of private funds in 2018. They both fetched $400 and $321 million respectively and made the number of 2018 somewhat good.