Reports Claim That 2019 ICO Market Is Not Booming As It Should

With the market looking mostly green and Bitcoin’s incredible bull run, we can safely say that 2019 has so far been a good year for crypto. But does that mean that initial coin offerings (ICOs) are gaining steam again?

Well, the reports are out and they tell a different story. According to the ICO Market Quarterly Report, the first quarter of 2019 witnessed fewer ICOs raising funds, as opposed to the fourth quarter of 2018. But does that mean ICOs are dead in 2019?

The report by ICObench contains stats and analytics regarding the industry for Q1 2019. The figures show that in Q1, there were almost 350 ICO projects, which is a dip from the numbers in Q4 2018. The total volume of funds raised in Q1 was allegedly close to nearly $1 billion.

However, that number is not as impressive as it looks, when put into perspective. The total amount raised has gone down by $0.5 billion compared to that of Q4 2018. The report further reads:

“Notably, in Q1 2019 there were twice less ICOs projects that have raised funds comparing with Q4 2018. However, the average ICObench rating has not been changed. The success rate of ICOs that raised a positive amount of funds in Q1 2019 is nearly the same as in Q4 2018 even though the amount of ICOs have declined. More than 60% of ICO projects still raise less than $5million.”

The report claims that at the end of Q1, there were nearly 328 ICO projects, out of which 107 had managed to raise funds and 221 did not raise funds. Compare this to the figures of Q4 of 2018, where out of 585 ICOs, 207 raised funds and 378 did not.

The report claims that Ethereum (ETH) network was again the most popular platform for conducting ICOs. The most popular industries involved in ICOs in Q1 of 2019 were virtual reality, big data, artificial intelligence (AI), and entertainment.

There has been a lot of talk about the ICO market fizzling out soon enough, but it looks like the figures are hinting at a continued dominance of the concept of ICOs. Back in April, it was estimated that ICO projects in Q1 2019 had reportedly raised about $118 million.