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ICO Analysis for February 2018

Welcome to the second ICO analysis for 2018, brought to you by the Algalon Capital analytical department. You can leisurely browse our previous reports in our blog.

Dynamics of number of ICOs per month.
Diagram 1. Dynamics of number of ICOs per month.

This report covers 122 ICOs completed in February 2018; pre-ICOs are not included. However, we have also included ICOs divided by different phases. The results in this case are calculated separately for each phase.

These terms are the key metrics in our report:

  • Soft cap is the minimum amount required by a project.
  • Target is the funding goal as stated by a project’s team.
  • If a target does not get stated, then we use hard cap, which is the maximum amount a project is hoping to achieve, or a technical limit of a crowdsale.
  • ICO market size covered in this report should not be considered as overall money flow coming into the crypto market from fiat, as there is still speculation going on with tokens. We are exposing the willingness of crypto holders to participate in new projects with BTC, ETH and fiat currencies.

What is the Success Criteria?

An ICO is considered to be a success if each the of following conditions are met:

  • Soft cap is reached.
  • More than 50% of the target or hard cap gets collected.

An ICO is considered to be a failure if at least one of these conditions are met:

  • Soft cap is not reached.
  • Less than 50% of the target or hard cap is collected.
  • No information on the project status and funds raised is available, the official website has been deleted, and or the official Bitcointalk thread is cleared.
Distribution of projects by status.
Diagram 2. Distribution of projects by status.

If the soft cap, target and hard cap are not stated, our experts will analyze the project and make sure that the funds raised are sufficient to implement the business. Thus, if a company has collected the necessary funds to implement their roadmap, we deem it a success. If not, it is considered unsuccessful.

39% of all ICOs were completed successfully this month, which is slightly less than in January (44%), but still higher than last year.  30% of ICOs were successful in December 2017.

In the next diagram you can see the dynamics of ICO success.

Dynamics of ICO success in raising funds.
Diagram 3. Dynamics of ICO success in raising funds.

What about the market size?

Let’s see what is going on in the market with regards to funds raised.

Table 1. Funds raised (if stated), million USD
Total Funds Median Funds
Raised by all projects $1052M $6M
Raised by successful projects $862M $12.5M
Raised by unsuccessful projects $185M $2.8M
Dynamics of total funds raised.
Diagram 4. Dynamics of total funds raised.

The amount of funds collected has decreased: in February 2018 $1052M was collected, which is 23% less than what we saw last month.

Dynamics of total funds raised in correlation with the number of ICOs.
Diagram 5. Dynamics of total funds raised in correlation with the number of ICOs.

If we compare this with the number of ICOs completed per month, we can see a strong correlation.

Median funds raised in comparison with total funds, millions USD.
Diagram 6. Median funds raised in comparison with total funds, millions USD.

The median amount of funds collected has also dropped. The median funds collected by all projects, including successful and unsuccessful ones, was $6M in February, 2018 as compared to $8M in January, 2018. The median for successful ICOs dropped significantly, from $15.1M in January to $12.5M this month. A far more significant shift was with the median for unsuccessful ICOs, with February concluding at $2.8M compared to $0.9M in January.

How are funds distributed between projects?

Top-10 ICOs compared to others.
Diagram 7. Top-10 ICOs compared to others.

The market is still asymmetric, meaning that there are always some huge ICOs taking a significant portion of the overall market. The top 10 projects collected almost $500M, which is 46% of total funds raised this month. Last month the top-10 ICOs covered 38% of the market.Only 6% did not set a hard cap for their ICOs, while around 60% of all projects set soft caps. 4% of all projects stated their ICO results didn’t meet their soft caps, which has dropped 4-folds since last month. Only 7% of ICOs specified their target cap.

In February 30% of all ICOs did not report the amount of capital raised, which is nearly the same as over the last 3 months. Some projects keep silent after failed crowdsales, using vague statements such as “completed successfully,” with no actual results provided.

Here you can see the comparison for three previous months.

Dynamics of ICO with no financial information.
Diagram 8. Dynamics of ICO with no financial information.

In January, we can highlight one significant spike with Bankera’s ICO raising over $135M. We don’t include the 1st round of TON pre-ICO ($850M) and Venezuela’s “El Petro” private ICO (which will end March 19th).

Most projects successfully raised funds in the range of $10 to $50 million USD. According to our criteria, all successful ICOs , collected 82% of their total funds this month, compared with 93% last month.

The following diagram categorizes the projects by total earnings.

Distribution of successful and unsuccessful projects by funds raised, millions USD.
Diagram 9. Distribution of successful and unsuccessful projects by funds raised, millions USD.

This month ICOs set very ambitious goals. In February, fewer low capped ICOs were successfully completed. During the past few months, we concluded that ICOs are tending to set more realistic caps, raising money for specific purposes. In February, around 30 ICOs hard capped under $10M (compared with 40 ICOs last month). They are still quite successful, almost 50% covered their goals in January alone.

Distribution ICO quantity by funds raised (from 85 which are stated the results).
Diagram 10. Distribution ICO quantity by funds raised (from 85 which are stated the results).

On the following diagram, we showed that a lot of projects raised very small amounts, which are well below their cap. No projects have a hard cap below $1M. Around 39% of all failed ICOs collected less than $1M as compared to 45% last month.

Distribution of the projects by funds raised, as a percentage of the target/hard cap.
Diagram 11. Distribution of the projects by funds raised, as a percentage of the target/hard cap.

76% of all ICOs collected under 10%, or above 90%, of their target/hard cap. Last month it was 83% of ICOs. Almost half of all projects raised 90+% of their caps, which means we are seeing much better planning of ICO campaigns with reasonable goals. Those ICOs collected 42% ($442M) of all funds this month.

Do we have any ‘ninjas’?

We still have an increasing correlation between ICO duration and funds raised. 18 successful ICOs hit hard caps in less than a day, raising over $350M which represents 34% of all funds raised this month vs. 30% last month.

Distribution of ICO quantity by duration.
Diagram 12. Distribution of ICO quantity by duration.

We can see the increasing number of funds collected two weeks after starting the campaign. Often projects wait until the end to raise “just something,” claiming afterwards that the ICO was “successful.” Often such projects are 2.0 versions of some failed ICO that happened few months ago. There are still plenty of rescheduled ICOs. We can indicate that more than 40 projects extended their ICO date into March, which were originally planned to end in February.

Distribution of funds raised by ICO duration, millions USD.
Diagram 13. Distribution of funds raised by ICO duration, millions USD.

Below we can see the total number of funds collected during each period. Basically, it’s a correlation with the previous chart of ICO quantity. We should also emphasize that the percentage of successful ICOs drops significantly each period.

Distribution of funds raised per ICO based on duration, million USD.
Diagram 14. Distribution of funds raised per ICO based on duration, million USD.

The amounts of funds collected by one ICO on average is heavily decreasing over time. The spike in the last column spike is only due to Bankera’s $135M ICO, which lasted for 93 days.

Interesting facts

Referium’s pre-ICO hard capped under $28М reached its goals, cancelling the main ICO round. The overall number of requests exceeded $800M, according to the team’s statement.

This month, there were 37 pre-ICOs, raising around $250M. This figure does not include TON’s 1st pre-ICO round with $850M raised.

We can see the appearance of a new kind of post-ICO, the round held after the main ICO campaign. There are only a few projects this month raising around $15M.

The finance sector still dominates the market with over $400M collected by 28 projects.

Huobi, the cryptocurrency exchange in China, distributed tokens on $300M among their users, who purchased a service fee package at a discount. It was not considered as an ICO.

Conclusions:

  • Overall amount of funds raised, slightly decreased from $1367M in January to $1052M in February.
  • The total number of ICOs was 122, this is 12% less than in January.
  • The proportion of successful projects decreased to 38% of the total as compared to 44% in January.
  • The median funds collected by all projects dropped. It was $6M in February, compared to $8M in January.
  • The median funds for unsuccessful ICOs tripled, composing $2.8M.
  • There are around 30 projects hard capped under $10m and almost 50% of them are successful.
  • 76% of all ICOs raised under 10% or above 90% of their target/hard cap. Around 50% of ICOs raised over 90% of their caps.
  • The Top 10 projects collected 46% of all funds, which is almost $500M.
  • 30% of ICOs did not report the amount of capital raised, just a few projects confirmed unsuccessful ICOs and issued refunds.
  • 18 ‘ninja’ ICOs hit hard caps in less than a day, raising over $350M.

Algalon Capital will continue to provide monthly ICO analysis, and overall view on the blockchain ecosystem.