ICO Market Has Raised $9 Billion in 2018
While a number of reports and analysts suggest that the ICO market activity is slowing down, there are certain positive takeaways too. If we look at the figures for the last 3 years, there has been a steady rise in the popularity of coin offerings as a mean to raise funding. In 2017, businesses raised $6.6 billion via initial coin offering, and the amount has crossed $9 billion in 2018 – and we’re yet to pass half of the year.
Critics are right in pointing out the fact that if we pull Telegram and EOS out of both numbers, we land at $5.9 billion 2017 and $4.1 billion for 2018. Particularly, if we take out Telegram ($1.8 billion) and EOS ($4.1 billion) on a monthly basis, it goes down to $560 million as compared to $1.5 billion in Dec 2017. However, we don’t buy the argument that mega deals should not be taken into account while assessing the market. In fact, they portray a healthy picture where big players with more money are entering into the market.
It is true that ICO market has had a number of issues like regulatory uncertainty, cybersecurity, lack of progress in development and tangible improvement in the application of theoretical use cases. However, we believe that a lot of things will be resolved very soon, and the market will ultimately find the right pace to move on.
Take the example of uncertainty – the leading factor that keeps the market shaky. Even if the countries like USA or UK do not show any support for the cryptocurrencies or do not bring reassuring regulations, there are certainly other markets and institutions that may provide a space for growth. Look at Japan: from Rakuten tokenizing $9 billion of loyalty points to Mitsubishi bank talking about launching its own cryptocurrency.
South Korea is unbanning the ICOs, and Seoul is planning to introduce own cryptocurrency, making it the world’s first capital with complete support for the digital coins. Singapore and Thailand are a couple of other markets that are supporting cryptocurrencies at two ends. First, their own domestic market has a big demand for smart solutions, smart coins, and innovative ways to raise funding. Second, they are the hub of immigrant businesses where entrepreneurs from China, Korea, South Asia, and other parts of the world as their domestic markets have strict restrictions or a complete ban on cryptocurrency trading.
The other concern was about the marketplace and many fear that due to the various factors, the market activity may go slower, resulting in an unstable future. We have been writing on this blog about various happenings in the market – and believe that the future looks brighter.
There are enough statistics and reports to back our claim. There are at least 4 prominent companies (like Kodak) that have announced ICO in order to raise funding for their projects. Facebook, the leading social network, has also announced to study the blockchain in order to learn how to use it to their advantage. Regulators in States also believe that the government does not want to shut the market, but want to make things transparent.
These factors put combined, give a very positive outlook on the market. You can explore the factors in details as we have hyperlinked every point to our detailed blog post.