2017 will likely go down as the year of the ICO. Whilst the first example of an ICO / token sale model of crowdfunding is thought to date back to 2013, it was in 2017 that ICOs became the mass phenomenon that we know today.
According to one academic study, there have been over 1600 known ICOs / token sales so far, and well in excess of 90% of these are thought to have appeared in 2017 alone. Amongst these ICOs which first came to market over the course of 2017, the single most successful project from an investor’s point of view has been ICON, according to ICO statistics website icostats.com.
5000% Return Two Weeks After Hitting Exchange
Having peaked at just $7 barely two weeks after hitting the exchange in December, any investor who would have cashed in at that stage would have enjoyed a 5200% return on a coin whose issue price averaged around $0.13.
The ICON project, a South Korean venture, is seeking to create a streamlined blockchain architecture that will allow governments, universities, financial institutions and others to participate in an open, transparent and uniform network that is hoping to become South Korea’s go-to platform for general blockchain services.
The token price has since fallen to just under $4.90 but still represents a healthy 3500% investment for ICO participants who are still in possession of their token. Some analysts are projecting a growth in price as the platform matures.
Whilst ICON may be deemed by some to be the most successful ICO of 2017, it is not however able to claim the mantle of most successful ICO of all time.
Depending on the calculation methodology, there are a few candidates for that crown. One of these is IOTA whose ICO per-unit token price sat just under $0.0002 but which has since climbed to $3.85 at time of writing, representing a return-since-ICO that currently sits at just over 800,000%, according to icostats.
Analysts are still debating whether the current ICO market climate qualifies as a bubble or the beginnings of a longer-term transition to a new business model.
