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2017 was an incredible year for Initial Coin Offerings. According to various reports, the overall amount of funds raised through ICOs in 2017 ranges from a fiat equivalent of $4 bln to $5.6 bln. At the end of 2016, this figure stood at ‘just’ $225 mln.
That said, according to the same reports, less than a half of the total number of ICOs held in 2017 were actually successful, while 25 percent of the overall amount was raised by just 10 projects. Those statistics once again prove that potential investors need to be very careful when choosing a startup to invest in.
In this installment of our guide on ICOs, we will discuss 10 of the most successful ICO campaigns to date. However, as this guide is created for investors, not startups, we will focus on projects with the biggest Returns On Investment (ROI). To put it simply, ROI measures the amount of return on an investment relative to the cost of said investment.
Here’s a helpful formula:
If you want to check the current ROI ratio of any given project, all you need to is compare their token’s price at the time of an ICO to its current value.
The ICO fiat price is usually calculated by dividing the amount of money in USD raised during the campaign by the number of tokens sold during it.
You can always look up a token’s value on any exchange it is listed on (a simple Google search should point you in the right direction). Alternatively, you can use CoinMarketCap, which lists pretty much every token there currently is.
It is important to mention that there can’t possibly be a definitive list of top 10 ICOs of all time, as a possible return on investments fully depends on the current value of a project’s token. Naturally, there is quite a lot of movement on the all-time top performers list. Anyway, here’s our list of best performing ICOs in terms of returns on investment as of the end of February 2018:
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NXT is one of the oldest Blockchain-related projects out there. The official announcement was made on the BitcoinTalk forum on Sep. 28, 2013 by an anonymous developer, who claimed to be a veteran member of the forum using a new account to stay anonymous.
In this announcement, NXT was described as a descendant of Bitcoin, which was meant to improve some features of Bitcoin, resolve some of its issues, such as a bloated Blockchain, and switch to a proof-of-stake mining algorithm.
The crowdfunding campaign was held on the forum as well. By the end of it, the anonymous developer managed to amass around $16,800 worth of Bitcoin, distributing one bln tokens. So, the NXT token’s value during its ICO was just $0.0000168. At the time of writing, the token was trading for $0.213, generating astronomical profits for its early investors and making it the most profitable ICO token ever at today’s market valuations.
Today, NXT is a fully-operational advanced Blockchain platform. It provides its users with a modular toolset, which enables them to build their own Blockchain-related applications. The platform also has its own asset exchange, a messaging system and a marketplace.
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The name of the projects is a synecdoche based on the term IoT, or “Internet of Things.” The term is used to describe an envisioned future in which many different “things,” such as appliances, cars, automatic service providers and so on communicate with each other. For example, a smart fridge capable of automatically re-ordering certain products and automatically paying for it. IOTA aims to provide a token for such transactions.
Moreover, IOTA is the only major cryptocurrency which doesn’t actually use a full Blockchain to perform transactions. Instead, it runs on a system called The Tangle. The system requires its users to verify a transaction at the exact same the as it is being conducted. This solves the scalability issue, which is one of the most pressing problems for a lot of cryptocurrency networks out there and allows for transactions without any fees.
All of this makes IOTA is an innovative, stand-out project. Moreover, it aims to provide service to an extremely new market, quite obviously looking ahead and planning for the future. So, it’s easy to see why their ICO held at the end of 2015 was a success, with over $400,000 raised. All of one bln IOTA tokens were sold for less than $0.001. These days, it trades at around $1.8.
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Neo is a project often referred to as “China’s Ethereum.” It also utilizes smart contract applications, but also adds decentralized commerce, digitized assets and identification into the mix.
The Chinese developers are creating a Blockchain that would represent legal proof-of-ownership and will be accepted by the broader society, not just the cryptocurrency community.
At the time of their ICO, there probably wasn’t even a single investor out there doubting whether it’ll be worth investing in Neo. The project was backed by such big names as Microsoft and Alibaba. Naturally, their ICO held in October 2015 was a big success, they sold 17.5 mln tokens raising $556,500. A year later, in September 2016, Neo had a second crowd sale during which they sold 22.5 mln tokens and raised over $4.5 mln dollars.
The original ICO price of the Neo token was $0.032. At the time of writing, the cryptocurrency was trading at $120.38. The token was at its all-time high on Jan. 31st, 2018, trading at $162.11.
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Every single person who is even remotely interested in cryptocurrencies has heard of Ethereum. It is a public, open-source distributed ledger platform, which enables its users to create and run decentralized applications (dapps) as well as implement and use smart contracts.
The platform’s mastermind Vitalik Buterin is perhaps the most well-known person and sort of a poster-boy for the entire cryptocurrency community. Moreover, through their Enterprise Ethereum Alliance, the platform works in cooperation with hundreds of major clients, including world’s biggest corporations, towards the implementation of Blockchain technology and smart contracts into business worldwide.
Ethereum’s ICO was held in the summer of 2014. Naturally, it was a great success – the team managed to raise $15.5 million, selling 50 mln tokens at the price of $0.311 per token. Today, Ethereum trades at $871.8. On Jan. 14th, 2018, Ethereum reached its all-time high of $1,377.72.
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Spectrecoin is one of several cryptocurrency networks that prioritize privacy and anonymity above everything else. In order to achieve this, Spectrecoin combines a Blockchain with a tokenized ring signature scheme.
In cryptography, a ring signature is a type of digital signature which can be done by any member of a group of users that each have keys. It is impossible to trace which particular member of the group signed for a transaction. Moreover, any group of users can be used as such group without any additional setup.
Unlike most other cryptocurrency networks, Spectrecoin utilizes the Tor network in order to increase the network-level privacy. All the nodes communicate with each other exclusively through Tor, meaning that Spectrecoin transactions go through a series of “middlemen” before reaching their destination, thus becoming untraceable. The network even offers a way to hide the fact that it uses Tor via a technology called OBFS4.
The team behind Spectrecoin (naturally, completely anonymous) held its ICO from Nov. 18th, 2016 to Jan. 6th, 2017. 19 mln tokens were sold and the team managed to raise $15,500. Each token was sold at just $0.001, while these days it trades at $1.22.
