Last year 2017, was a huge year for ICOs and cryptocurrencies, as the crypto market was in a bull trend for the entire year. More ICOs were completed and more money was raised than all of the years combined before, with a total of $6.1 billion raised through ICOs. 2018 however, has been in a downward bearish trend for most of the year thus far. Therefore, how has the ICO market faired during this bear market? Have investors missed the booming opportunity that we saw in 2017 or was it just the beginning?
The overall market capitalization of cryptocurrencies has been decreasing from the beginning of 2018. The year started off with a market cap of around $820 billion and is now valued at around $270 billion. That is a significant decrease of almost 70% of the entire value of all cryptocurrencies. Therefore, one would think the ICO market in 2018 has tanked with no new money or projects flowing in. However, quite the opposite has happened. Within the first quarter of 2018 more money was raised than the entirety of 2017, with a total of $6.3 billion raised from ICOs.
These statistics seem rather odd as they contradict the trend of the total market capitalization of the cryptocurrency market. Therefore, to better understand how 2018 has been an even bigger year for ICOs than 2017, we must look at the projects this money has been distributed too. A great visual representation of the value of ICO projects in 2018 can be found here:
Upon reviewing the biggest ICO projects of 2018, it’s evident that the majority of money raised was from a select few ICO projects. For instance, the largest ICO was the Telegram ICO that raised a staggering $1.7 billion. Following Telegram was the Dragon and Huobi ICOs which raised $320 million and $300 million respectively. As for most other ICOs, they don’t even come close to these and most don’t even break $100 million or even $50 million. However, the year is far from over and we have yet to see what the second half of 2018 will bring in the ICO market.
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Thanks to HowMuch for this awesome infographic!
