ICO market on record breaking run

ICOs raised a record $8.3 billion in Q2 2018, although the majority of the runners and riders were failures, according to research by ICORating.

The aforementioned figure was raised by 827 projects over the quarter, compared to the $3,331,005,381 collected in Q1 2018. Funds raised by EOS project account for most of this increase; they have collected $4,197,956,135 for a year-long ICO.

Collectively, ICOs in 2018 have thus far raised $11,690,981,663 of investments, ten times bigger than the cumulative sum of investments from Q1-2 2017. Excluding EOS, the cumulative amount of funding received from ICOs in Q1-2 2018 is 6.4 times bigger than in Q1-2 2017.

Top of the flops

A small number of projects have raised an average of $50 million. However, 50% of those announced in Q2 2018 were not even able to attract more than $100,000. The percentage of ICOs which could not achieve this has increased from 13% in Q1-Q2 2017 to over 50% in Q1-Q2 2018. That being said, the quality of projects has improved compared to the end of 2017.

The most popular industries include financial services, gaming and virtual reality, social media and communications and blockchain infrastructure. In terms of geographical distribution, the USA leads the way ($393.7, 70 projects), followed by the UK ($301 million, 49 projects) and Switzerland ($298.1 million, 25 projects).