Most of the tokens sold through initial coin offerings (ICOs) that got listed on popular cryptocurrency exchanges in Asia, including Binance, Huobi, HADAX, KuCoin and OKEx, ended up trading below their token sale price, with only a few exceptions managing to rise in value.
According to a report published by BlockBeats, 98.8% of 264 tokens researchers looked into were trading below their ICO prices as of August 21, with only stablecoins and three tokens managing to appreciate or keep their value.
The report reads:
From the frequency distribution histogram, most of the projects fell below the issue price within a few months after the currency was settled, and the currency price decline range was mainly concentrated between 70-98%, which [means they] can basically be considered air currency.
One of the tokens that kept its value is the Huobi Token (HT), which according to CryptoCompare data is currently trading at about $2.08 after rising 1.9% in the last 24-hour period. The token’s ICO price was of $1.52, a nearly 30% rise.
On the other hand, a token with the ticker WBTC reportedly saw its value plummet by 99.86%, as it was initially sold for 4.03 CNY ($0.59) and was trading at 0.0056 CNY ($0.00081) on August 16.
Per BlockBeat most projects can swing wildly on their first trading days, depending on the market’s performance. On Huobi’s Autonomous Digital Asset Exchange (HADAX), tokens are more likely to skyrocket or plummet in intraday trading, as it reportedly lists “a large number of high-risk projects.”
Behind the decline of most of these tokens, BlockBeat claims are poor quality projects that use their funds in an attempt to support the token’s price, instead of developing an actual product. Although some investors manage to make money on these projects, its report notes, most end up losing almost everything they put in.
The bearish trend the cryptocurrency ecosystem has been enduring has also played a part in these tokens’ downfall. Ethereum, the network in which most tokens are launched on, has seen its price drop from a near $1,400 all-time high to about $275 at press time.
As CryptoGlobe covered, ICO-related exit scams have raked in nearly $100 million, and in the second quarter of this year the median return on investment (ROI) on ICOs was of -55% Despite these setbacks, research conducted by premier ICO advisory firm Satis Group found that 54% of all money raised through ICOs went to successful projects..
Notably, the ICO market keeps on growing. Token sales raised over $8.3 billion in the second quarter of this year, with only 7% of the tokens managing to get listed on exchanges. The market interestingly “more than doubled in a year.”
Note: Some statements in this article were translated from Chinese
