With More Institutional Investors Participating, Study Says ICO Market Doubled within the Past Year

According to ICORating, the Initial Coin Offering industry has grown by two-fold in just this year alone. The revelation was contained in the second quarter report issued yesterday by the New York headquartered independent analytical research company. The company that also has offices in Singapore, Amsterdam and in St.Petersburg, Russia specializes in evaluating the ICO market and coin offerings.

The report say that the industry has so far this year raked in investments to the tune of $11 billion, ten times the size of the investments that were made for a similar period last year. The report indicated that a total of 827 coin offering were initiated within the second quarter of 2018 alone, amounting to $8 billion in funding, representing a 151 percent increase over the $3.3 billion raised in the first quarter of this year.

The report also stated that:

“Funds raised by EOS project account for most of this increase, they have collected $4,197,956,135 for a year-long ICO.”

The rating agency believes that Europe has surpassed all others in become the global leader for ICO launches with 46% of all project launches while North America leads in the values of investments raised through ICOs, with a staggering 64.67 percent. The report also highlights that “Asia-based projects showed an increase in funds raised (+20%), but a decrease in the number of projects launched (–40%).”

While the research noted that there was an upsurge of institutional capital in the ICO markets, it indicated that a “continued decline in the number of retail investors.” According to the study, this results in an environment in which project requirements increase, while the amount of funds raised during ICOs increasingly becomes dependent on “how well projects cooperate with investment funds.”

The report also revealed that the financial services, blockchain infrastructure, and banking and payments led the list of top ten industries based on the amounts of funding raised through ICOs. The three sectors combined were said to have pulled over $1 billion in raised assets. The report found that “Financial services led all other industries both in the amount of funds attracted, and the number of projects.”