BitMEX research has been looking at the total amount of Ethereum raised across 222 major ICOs and, contrary to recent claims, it appears that most projects have liquidated the majority of their Ethereum raised, and at prices above the US$ value of the ICO.

If you were raising funding for an ICO and deciding how much money to raise, it’s assumed you would be thinking about the funding requirements for your projects in US$. You would be planning to pay rent, wages and other project costs that would be in local fiat prices.

Of the 222 projects which BitMEX looked at, they raised $5.5 billion worth of Ethereum and they may have already sold almost exactly the same amount (just $11 million less).

These ICOs currently hold 3.8 million Ethereum (around 25% of the Ethereum they originally raised). However, in US$ terms, these projects have essentially already sold the same amount of Ethereum which they originally raised, leaving them a holding of $819m of Ethereum.

The recent Ethereum lows of $170 came at a time of high speculation about many projects ‘panic selling’ any remaining ETH to make sure they had enough cash reserves to keep paying the bills.

It’s assumed that not all this money raised in the ICO bubble will be spent on ‘Lambos’ or conferences… some may actually be spent on creating a decentralised project/scam.