1 in 2 ICOs failed in the second quarter - and those that succeeded suffered huge losses
- The amount of funding raised through "initial coin offerings" rose from $3.3 billion in the first quarter to $8.3 billion in the second, according to a new report.
- But the proportion of funding campaigns that failed also rose to 55%, leading analysts to say the quality of projects in the market has "significantly worsened."
- The average return for ICO tokens in the quarter was -55%, compared with a gain of nearly 50% in the first quarter.
LONDON - Money continues to flood into the booming market for digital tokens issued by startups despite the projects seeking funding getting worse and investment returns suffering, according to a new report.
55% of "initial coin offerings" (ICOs) failed to complete in the second quarter, according to a report from agency ICORating. That was 5% more than failed in the first quarter.
ICOs are where companies and projects issue digital tokens structured like bitcoin or ethereum. These tokens are sold in return for cash used to fund the development of their businesses. ICOs exploded from almost nothing to be a multi-billion dollar market in 2017, surging in popularity alongside the rise in the price of bitcoin.
The increasing failure rate came despite a rise in the amount of money being invested into ICO tokens. 827 projects raised $8.3 billion through initial coin offerings in the second quarter of the year, the report states, compared to $3.3 billion in the first quarter.
This mismatch led ICORating to conclude that "the overall quality of projects has significantly worsened." Fewer projects are attracting bigger sums, while many others languish with small sums or outright failure. The biggest ICO in the second quarter of 2018 was PumaPay, a cryptocurrency solution for merchants that raised $117 million in May.
The increase in investment into ICO tokens comes despite poor performance in the second quarter. ICORating found the median return for tokens in the second quarter was -55.5%, compared to +49.3% in the first quarter. Bitcoin, the bellwether for the crypto and digital asset market, has declined over 50% since the start of the year.
North American startups attracted the bulk of funding, taking in 64.6% of the total raised in the quarter. Financial services continued to be the most popular sector for startups, with 87 ICOs focusing on the industry.
Outlier Ventures' review of activity in the blockchain space found an increase in M&A activity among startups. Tron acquired torrenting service BitTorrent for $140 million in June, for example. Tron aims to decentralize the entertainment industry and raised $70 million through an ICO last December.
Jamie Burke, CEO at Outlier Ventures, said in a release: "We are seeing extremely well-capitalized protocols launch venture funds and accelerators as well as acquire equity-backed companies and teams to scale development or buy network-market-fit."