It was researched that number of successful global ICO (Initial Coin Offering) projects alone in 2017 came out to be 435. Total amount of ICOs that have raised at least $100 million was $5.6 billion. When amount of entire ICOs was put together, it is estimated that procurement that they have raised surpassed $7 billion
According to CoinMarketLab, Blockchain Research Institute, and relevant industries, total amount of ICOs that have raised at least $100 million was $5.6 billion. If ICOs that have raised less than $100 million are added to the total amount, it is estimated that amount of global ICOs is similar to the amount of entire IPOs (Initial Public Offering) in South Korea ($7.45 billion).
Amount of procurement related to ICOs increased greatly due to explosive increase in digital assets last year.
According to Token Data, total of 435 ICO projects became successful in 2017.
Above all, an infra project called Filecoin and a public blockchain project called Texos have raised $257 million and $232 million respectively. A mobile project between blockchain called Polkadot has also raised $145 million.
Depending on blockchain network (platform), some has issued tokens 100 times or even up to 1,000 times more than last year.
When converted to legal currency, Spectrecoin currently has the highest increase rate (741 folds) out of all ICO projects with followed by Quantum-related coins with 348 folds.
However, growth rate of amount of ICO procurement has slowed down this year due to various regulations and insecurity from many cyber-attacks.
Actually, amount of ICO procurement in April was $1.145 billion and it is more than 50% lower than the amount of ICO procurement in February when it was $2.569 billion. However, total amount of ICO procurement this year surpassed total amount of ICO procurement in 2017.
Size of ICO procurement has gotten bigger recently as global IT companies have started to focus on ICO market. Telegram had attracted $850 million total in February and March. Total amount of its funding alone reached $1.7 billion. EOS had also attracted about $3.3 billion from January until end of April through its Cloud funding.
Some believe that amount of procurement will reach about $100 billion as thousands of companies are looking to do reverse ICOs. Some even believe that ICO will replace VC (Venture Capital) or IPO (Initial Public Offering) after 3 years.
Reason why many companies are gathering around ICO is because they can raise huge amount of fund in a short period of time.
On the other hand, there can be fraud companies that are not verified of their technologies and there can also be dangerous elements that can cause one to lose all of his or her money due to inadequate institutional supports.
“Many blockchain platforms will start to acquire high-quality internet applications to enhance their DApp (Decentralized Application) ecosystems.” said a representative for Huobi Research Institute. “There is a high chance that promising venture companies and startup companies find their breakthroughs within blockchain in the future.”
Staff Reporter Gil, Jaeshik | osolgil@etnews.com