It has always been assumed that a large number of ICOs would fail, whether at the fundraising stage or when delivering the project itself. However, it is difficult to fix a precise figure between projects that hang out or the exit scam that fly away from the money raised. Having completed a thorough study of last year's crowdsales, bitcoin.com can report that 46% of them are already dead - despite lifting more than $ 104 million.
ICOs are even more risky than you think
Over time, everything is withering and dying, from the most robust institutions to the most popular sales. Nobody expected all the 2017 ICOs to last. The speed with which they died can still surprise. Tokendata, one of the most comprehensive ICO trackers, has listed 902 public sales that took place last year. Of these, 142 failed at the funding stage and 276 have failed since then, either because they have exit scam or because they have slowly vanished. This means that 46% of last year's ICOs have already failed.
The number of ICOs that are still active is even lower. 113 ICOs can be classified as "semi-fail", either because their team has stopped communicating on social media, or because their community is so small that the project has no chance of success. This means that 59% of last year's large-scale sales are confirmed failures or failures.
A digital cemetery of broken promises
Abandoned Twitter accounts, empty telegram groups, websites that are no longer hosted, and communities that have not been maintained are common. A digital graveyard characterizes the 2017 ICO culture that decided to exit scam and spread fear in this market. Many have not raised anything, others have raised a few thousand dollars and some have raised more than 10 million dollars. In any case, the end result is the same: no MVP, no alpha release, and no contribution to the decentralized canvas for the progress of humanity.
Many missing ICOs were sentenced from the beginning. It will not be surprising to learn that projects like Clitcoin, Neverdie and Zero Traffic have not been successful. (Update: No one has ever been in touch to say that reports of his disappearance are premature.) Some who have fallen to the fundraising stage are doing so again this year and hope that the failure of 2017 may be canceled on a trial basis. The Doft trucking platform is one example. Looking at the countries of origin of the defaulting ICOs, developing countries - and a whole continent in the case of Africa - are overrepresented. Nevertheless, all the major countries and continents are on the list of shame.
Lessons learned
Many of the 531 OICs that have failed or are failing since last year seemed vague from the start. In most cases, investors have been able to spot the signs and stand aside. However, everyone has not escaped the disaster: these projects have still raised $ 233 million between them. With ICO's mania showing no signs of slowing down, there's no reason to expect this year's crowd sales to be better off. With reduced returns, increased competition, and a steady stream of opportunistic ICOs, crypto investment in 2018 is riskier than ever.
