ICO by numbers: UK-based Autonomous Research agency provides detailed industry statistics

UK-based Autonomous Research, a financials-focused research firm has published a comprehensive study, “Token Mania”, which addresses many questions recently on investors’ minds about cryptocurrency and Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs).

The report delves into many controversial issues that have surrounded the ICO phenomenon, including similarities to the dotcom bubble, the impact of “bitcoin whales,” the regulatory landscape, and other topics. Autonomous also looks at what opportunities and obstacles ICOs present start-ups, incumbent financial industry players, and investors. An overview of this comprehensive, 78-page work are posted on the company website, as well as a link to download the full report

ICO Category

Part of the Token Mania report was dedicated to sizing the ICO market and its segmentation. According to Autonomous, more than 3.4 billion was raised by ICOs in 2017 so far, with more than $2 billion of that since the publication of the report. This number exceeds the amount of venture investment in blockchain and bitcoin companies during the same time period. The study also looks at ICOs by category, showing that use cases are shifting from core technology to include markets, investment products, media and identity.

Bubble or not?

Many have compared the dot-com bubble in the 1990’s with today’s ICO boom. Autonomous makes notes that 84% of tech IPOs between 1997 and 2000 had disappeared within 10 years; yet Amazon and Netflix survived and now monopolize their industries. And what are the early signs of ICO performance? Autonomous analyzed data from around 130 ICOs and concludes: “outcomes for ICOs are very binary at this point, meaning it is almost a coin-flip whether a particular project goes to zero or skyrockets. There are few in-the-middle outcomes.” Autonomous data shows 70% of ICOs have underperformed either Ethereum or Bitcoin since inception. But on the other hand, about 50% of ICOs deliver a return greater than 100% in the TokenData set of tracked instruments. Some 15% have returned above 100%. More information on this work can be found at Autonomous here.

Over $3bn in ICOs

How quickly is the ICO market growing? Using publicly available sources (ICO Stats, Coindesk, Token Market, Token Data and others), Autonomous Research has concluded that ICOs raised about $3.4bn in the first 11 months of 2017 (January to November) verus $222mn in 2016 – year-on-year growth of over 300%. A post published on the company website provides these numbers along with data on the number of crypto hedge funds in existence.

“Token Mania” research was led by Lex Sokolin, a partner of Autonomous Research and a respected futurist and fintech specialist. Sokolin has spoken widely on the topics of blockchain, and financial innovation and technology. He recently served as the keynote speaker at ICO Event London (a specialized conference on cryptocurrency crowdsales) held on October 11. The full text of the Token Mania study is available for download on the Autonomous Research website.

More about ICO trends at ICO Event Amsterdam>>> https://icoevent.eu/