Altcoin News: Research: ICO Market Finally Stalled in 2019

October 1, 2019, by Marko Vidrih on ALTCOIN MAGAZINE

The times of multimillion-dollar ICO campaigns, which were organized by all kinds of projects that had only white paper, are left behind.

Nevertheless, even after the upsurge in 2017, the ICO market continued to demonstrate characteristics that made it possible to conclude that life was saved on it.

“All signs point to a maturing ICO market,” wrote Elementus in August 2018.

However, a year later, and these signs almost disappeared, analysts at the LongHash portal said, citing ICO Watch data. The study did not take into account IEO campaigns, which in 2019 showed more convincing results.

Just look at the number of new projects. Even after the end of the bull phase of 2017, hundreds of new ICOs appeared every month, but by 2019 their flow had decreased to almost zero.

Image credit: ICO Watch

Along with this, the amount of collected funding fell. In the diagram below, each ICO is represented by a point corresponding to the end date and the amount of investment. In 2018, 14 different projects overcame the $50 million mark, and some of them managed to significantly exceed this value. In 2019, only Contentos was able to raise about $50 million, but it is more likely a project of 2018 since its ICO ended on January 3rd.

Image credit: ICO Watch

In total, ICOs raised over $7.6 billion in 2018, according to ICO Watch. Based on the dynamics from January to August this year, it can be predicted that by its completion the value will be only $338 million. Thus, the decrease will be more than 95%.

At the same time, those few projects that decided to enter the ICO in 2019 could really be of higher quality compared to their predecessors. The median amount of collected funding for one campaign this year is $6.8 million, whereas in 2018 it was equal to $131,814. And although not all of the ICOs in ICO Watch’s data set had data on Telegram fans, among those that did have data, ICOs from 2019 averaged more than twice as many fans as ICOs from 2018.

It is possible that while maintaining the current dynamics, the ICO model will be completely forgotten by cryptocurrency projects in 2020. This is facilitated by both the tightening of the regulatory situation in the world and the general disappointment of investors against the background of unfulfilled expectations.

Author: Marko Vidrih