Here's the Tokenguide review of everything that happened with the ICO market between 7th and 21st of July 2017. The last two weeks have been relatively quiet, hence our decision to issue one report instead of two. Many interesting announcements happened during the CoinAgenda conference in Barcelona, but the market has been in "light mode" comparatively speaking - perhaps ahead of early August and anticipated volatility.
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LAST WEEK'S SUCCESSFUL TOKEN SALES:
- Tezos: Just when we thought token sales couldn't get any bigger, they did. The ICO closed, raising a record-setting $232 million. While the proposition behind Tezos is sound, our team does wonder whether such an amount is required to deliver on all the promises. The huge sum also mars the sensibility of this investment. You can read our full review on the Tezos token sale here.
- Nimiq: The payment protocol designed to "lower many barriers to entry" into the blockchain world successfully closed its 10 day token sale, collecting roughly $20 million. The crowdsale was successful in spite of a number of unsavory reports, hinting at the fact that the Nimiq team is untrustworthy. The browser-based blockchain ecosystem managed to generate enough support to overcome the fact that none of its project is currently developed.
RECENTLY LAUNCHED AND ONGOING
- Blocktix: This blockchain-based ticketing platform's ICO has been live for some time now and is going strong. At the time of writing, the ICO is at 92% of its $7.7 million goal. With 6 days to go until closing time, there is still an opportunity to get involved.
- Aventus: Another blockchain-based ticketing platform has opened its token sale recently, aiming to raise a maximum of $15 million. The timing of this ICO is interesting, since it's in direct competition with another active ICO: Blocktix.
- DENT: One to watch in our opinion. DENT promises to revolutionize the way mobile data works around the world. The team announced an important partnership with a top US-based mobile service provider at CoinAgenda earlier this week, showing that the proposition is viable and interesting. DENT have plans to collect 152,000 ETH and there is still an opportunity to purchase tokens until the 26th of July.
- District0x: A network for decentralized markets and communities, based on Ethereum, Aragon and IPFS. A valuable ecosystem-based proposition, a rational $10 million soft cap and a strong team of supporters. This is an ICO that's flying a bit under the radars, but one to watch in our opinion.
- Starbase: Welcome to the rabbit hole: an ICO for a platform to help companies issue tokens and run ICOs. We're not sure that the industry needs even lower barriers to entry and more participants, but there are definitely other opinions out there.
LESSONS LEARNED
The last couple of weeks have been heavy in terms of hacks and security breaches. The Parity hack, which happened just last Thursday, has been the most worrying for many observers. Multi-sig Parity wallets were reportedly compromised, with hackers draining around $35 million worth of ETH. This caused a fair bit of panic, with founders scrambling to confirm that ICO tokens were not stored in multi-sig wallets affected by the attack.
This news came just days after CoinDash ICO attracted a lot of mainstream media attention, but for all the wrong reasons. Just 13 minutes after the token sale opened on July 18th, an "unknown perpetrator" attached CoinDash's website and changed the ETH address to a different one. The CoinDash team was quick to react, but the frenzy to invest in the early minutes of an ICO are a known fact. As such, the hack diverted around $7 million worth of ETH to the attacker. CoinDash were good sports about the whole thing: although they pulled the plug on the ICO, they still managed to collect $6.4 in funds and promised to issue tokens to everyone who participated in the ICO, regardless of whether they sent funds to the correct address or not. Interestingly, this is not the only top-tier ICO to suffer this fate over the last couple of weeks. London-based insurance start-up InsureX had to halt its crowdsale on July 13th, just two days after launch, also citing security attacks.
Conclusion: security is still the Achilles heel for most ICOs, and still what gives them a bad rap in mainstream media. We predict that this series of attacks will have a drastic impact on how token sales will be conducted in the future. Expect many more security hoops to jump through!
OPEN PRE-SALES:
- Tierion: A platform for verifying data by linking it to the blockchain. The pre-sale opens on the 22nd of July, with a cap of $15 million ($25 million for the whole token sale) and a minimum $50,000 in ETH/BTC equivalent for the token sale.
- Unikoin: A sportsbook for esports. Already raise $10 million from private investors with flashy names such as Ashton Kutcher and Mark Cuban. No pre-sale terms are public, but you can register on the website.
- Propy: Real estate platform on the blockchain. The token sale has been postponed until mid August, so there is still time to get involved with the pre-sale. Given the estimates from our engineering team and considering the upcoming fork in the Bitcoin network, the actual crowdsale date will be announced on August 2nd or 3rd and it's planned to be launched ~10th-15th of August. $50,000 minimum contribution and $10 million hard cap on the pre-sale
- Rivetz: Decentralized and mobile cyber security token. Minimum contribution for pre-sale is 150 ETH.
NEXT WEEK'S TOKEN SALE LAUNCHES
- Tierion: A platform for verifying data by linking it to the blockchain. Tierion is a VC-backed company which already has a functioning product, used by multinational companies (Microsoft, Philips). This is a unique situation for a company launching an ICO and means that Tierion can't release some of the information the participating public is used to. Fenbushi Capital has announced support for this ICO. We expect it to reach its $25 million cap very quickly. Opens July 27th.
- Rivetz: This is something we like to see, but don't get to see as often as we like: innovative, fresh technology. Rivetz uses the hardware on your device for app security. The ICO has a 70 million token hard cap. Only ETH will be accepted during the ICO. Opens July 25th.
- InvestFeed: A cryptocurrency social network. Opens July 26th with a 28,000 ETH hard cap, including the pre-sale.
TO READ
- Top investment firms in the industry have some advice on how to invest in ICOs. Worth a read, if just to find out what the "big industry names" are.
- Charles Hoskinson (who helped develop Ethereum) thinks that the current craze of ICOs just shows that people want fast and easy money. He might be onto something. Or not?
- Still afraid of early August? Read this and don't be!