Are ICOs are dead? Data suggests things might be more positive for Q2 and beyond

By Gregory S Matthew

You’d be forgiven if you thought ICOs are dead. Why? Because ICO numbers have been dwindling since Q2 2018 and no one is sure if it will ever stabilize. It’s fair to assume that there is little utility in something that is clearly depreciating in numbers.

The number of ICOs depreciated by 72% YOY. Clearly, the Initial Coin Offering method of fundraising has little-to-no utility in the future. Right? That’s where things get interesting.

Despite their dwindling numbers, almost twice as many ICOs raised funds

You may be surprised when you know that not all ICO manages to raise funds. Often a majority of ICOs don’t raise any funds at all while some ICOs raise a certain amount. It’s actually statistically very rare that an ICO manages to raise their soft-cap amount let alone their hard-cap.

So what’s changed this time?

The scales have tipped in the other direction. During March 2019, the percentage of ICOs that raised some funds (albeit not the entire amount they were seeking) has grown by 71% to as much as 60%, according to InWara’s Monthly Report-April 2019.

Percentage of ICO that raised funds

So what’s the news here just a year ago, only 35% of ICOs managed to any funds at all.

So we are left with a hard choice here. ICO numbers are dwindling, yes that’s true. But at the same time, ICOs are successfully raising decent sums and a greater percentage of ICOs are managing to do it.

For example, during April of 2019 alone- ICOs across the globe managed to raise a whopping $569 million.

Now how does something that is dead manage to raise more than half a billion dollars in just a month?

Funds raised by Country – April 2019

Note that most of these funds were raised in the Asian market with relatively more friendly ICO regulations. Asian markets such as Singapore, Japan, China, and South Korea raised $320 million between them which is substantially higher than their European or American counterparts.

Hence it’s more accurate to say that ICOs are more successful at raising funds than they were a year ago but overall ICO numbers have been declining.

Disclaimer: All the above data used in this article is sourced from InWara’s market intelligence platform.

The Most Trusted Blockchain Market Intelligence Platform, InWara’s intelligence platform analyzes millions of data points on Initial Coin Offerings, Security Token Offerings, Blockchain startups, Crypto exchanges and more so that you can focus on what’s important

You can read more articles by InWara here.

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