The total funds collected in Q3 for the ICO industry amounts to $2.4 Billion which is lower than the trends observed in the 1st & 2nd quarter. Around 40% of the Q3 funds’ collection ($1 Billion) was provided by 20 of the largest ICO organisations.
From the details listed at the website Icobench.com, it can be seen that for the period between 1st July- 30th September, around 525 ICOs were successfully completed with 240 another scheduled to start post 1st October.
Despite rumours of unscrupulous projects, systematic reduction in many ICO token values, and the general high risk associated with investing funds in an ICO, the sector continues to show remarkable growth fuelled by the optimism of an efficacious cryptocurrency market.
Some ICOs are offering tokens which are nothing but securities that are disguised in the form of ICO tokens. This could be potentially dangerous for investors, however, due to the lack of legislative and regulatory principles to oversee and monitor the ICO issuance, many of the ICO participants face new challenges and possibilities at the same time.
Q3 was full of surprises and interesting events. For example tZERO, which is an auxiliary of the Block stain Overstock.com, stood out on top in terms of the funds collected. A 9th August Forbes publication reports that tZERO collected around $134 Million. The expected goal was for $250 Million, however tZERO could collect &134 Million. tZERO provides the first alternate method of trading cryptocurrency tokens as is assigned by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) under the category of securities. GSR Capital is expected to purchase shares worth $270 Million once the capitalization of tZERO reaches $1.5 Billion.
Some of the important events and news of Q3 that kept the market buzzing are as follows:
- Regulation of 3 laws for the cryptocurrency industry came into effect in Malta (Source: coininsider.com)
- Malta launched the world’s first ‘Initial Convertible Coin Offering’ (ICCO) [Source: ccn.com]
- The new Ethereum Blockchain token standard ERC777 could replace the prevalent ERC20 standard and is in the final stage of development (Source: ethnews.com)
- Telegram Passport introduced wherein the personal details of an individual would be used as an authorisation for access (Source: telegram.org)
- 55% of ICO campaigns have been successful thus reiterating the faith of the investors. The investments seemed to have doubled within a year (Source: Coinspeaker)
- ICOs in Europe would now be regulated by law by including them in the new crowd-funding rules (Source: Coindesk.com)
- The jeju province of South Korea may well become the first special zone for cryptocurrencies (Source: usethebitcoin.com)
- China continues its crackdown on ICO by asking residents to report and lodge complaints against token sales (bitcoinexchangeguide.com)
- A conglomeration of European Parliamentary experts and crypto leaders met to discuss the ICO regulations and thereby boost cryptocurrency based products (Source: cointelegraph.com)
- Binance signs a MoU with Malta for the development and launch of a new security tokens trading platform (Source: cointelegraph.com)
- A US federal court judge has given a decision that ICO sales are covered by Securities Laws. This may have repercussions towards the future token sales ( Source: bloomberg.com)
- UAE’s regulatory plans include classifying the ICO generated tokens as Securities (Source: btcmanager.com)
- ICOs in France would now have to receive approval from AMF. This gives the ICO backers something to count on (Source: cointelegraph.com)
- China’s war against the crypto continues with the issuance of a fresh warning to its citizens from using cryptocurrencies and crypto based products (Source: cryptovest.com)
- In an innovative plan, the Juventus Soccer Club plans to launch a new crypto token to boost interaction with the fans (Source: coindesk.com)
- Despite the crackdown and several warning by China, its citizens continue to trade in cryptocurrencies through VPN and Telegram (Source: bitcoinist.com)
A total of 197 companies successfully completed their ICO in Q3 of 2018. The average funds’ collection of Q3 stood at 12.4 Million USD. The average amount collected per project was at $4.7 Million.
