ICO analysis: technical approach. Part I - General Conclusions

I thought for a long time about where to start publishing in 2018: and I realized that the answer lies on the surface - from the conclusions about what I did in 2017 most, that is, from the analysis of ICO and forecasts for this industry. But I will say right away that the study turned out to be voluminous, so it was decided to break it into three, at least, parts.

The first one will give general ICO analytics together with the Icofisher.com team - the project is in beta version, but it already copes well with the task (technical analysis of blockchain projects). In the second I’ll try to dwell on one of the worst projects for the industry (in Russia) - ZrCoin, and in the third - on the world MMM scam - ... However, first things first.

There was already an article on Forbes by Anti Danilevsky from Kickico, where he examines the portrait of a participant in the primary token placement campaigns, but I will try to identify other trends in a larger sample as well.

2017 was remembered by the ICO boom for the crypto community: yet it’s extremely difficult to find clear information on this phenomenon and many still can’t understand what it was. To begin with, I tried to answer the question: “who and how much invested in 2017?”. Based on data from 40 ICOs: among them - EOS, Status, Bancor, Lexec, MatchPool, Tenx, IndaHash, Raiden ...

How much is it?

So what sample do we have? 500K transactions. People invested from 0 (hereinafter counting - only for whole units) to 150,000 ETH. 95% of all payments fall in the range from 0 to 20 ETH .

Let’s try to divide into groups of all investors, depending on the amount invested. Using the k-means method for the entire sample and also for individual ranges, we distinguished the following groups (Fig. 1):

• The first range is 0 - 0.1 ETH : a rather large group of 13% of all investors in the sample. Minimum payments, most likely people made a transaction to check how the contract works or was this their first transaction in ICO projects as a whole.
• Range 0.1 - 0.9 ETH : includes 23%. Presumably these are people who did not consider ICO as a way to earn money, but simply wanted to try out the technology
• 0.9 - 1.1 ETH : 14% - those who invested 1 ether. The most popular payment (more on this below): why? The answer is simple: 1 ether is already a tangible amount of funds for an ordinary person, not a professional investor.
• 1.1 - 12 ETH : 34% is the largest cluster. It does not look like a serious investment, but if the ICO shows growth of 10,000% (which happened: the ROI of some reached 3,500,000%, but more about that next time), then this will turn into a good capital. Let's say 700 ETH bought for 10,000 rubles. during the ICO they turned in the peak of 2018 at $ 1,000,000.
• 12 - 580 ETH : 13% - Serious amounts, it looks like a cluster with people who are ready to invest significant funds in ICO. Perhaps these are professional investors.
• More than 580 ETH : approximately 1% and these are already big players: investor groups and funds.
  Groups:
  
  Now let’s evaluate what contribution to the total invested capital was from each group. The groups have changed a bit for clarity.
  
  • 0 - 1.1 ETH : 1% Small payments + the most popular payment 1ETH barely gained a percentage
  • 1.1 - 12 ETH : 9% In total, it turns out that the contribution from 95% of all investors barely amounted to 10% of the total investment
  • 12 - 580 ETH: 53% This group invested more than half of the total. Let me remind you this is 13% of investors.
  • > More than 580 ETH: 35% Large players (less than a percent of them) made a third of the total investment.
  
  
  
  Next, we take a closer look at the histogram of payment frequencies:
  
  In the range of small payments, there is a clear peak - 1 ETH: the most popular payment in our sample. It turns out that every tenth investor invested 1 ETH in the ICO. There are also obvious peaks at 0.5, 1.5, 2, 2.5.
  
  
  
  In the group from 3 to 10, the most popular payment is 5 ETH (oddly enough, but 10 ETH is not popular)
  
  
  
  
  
  Then there are peaks at 50, 200, 300, 500 ethers.
  
  
  
  Results:
  
  More than half of ICO investors in 2017 paid less than one ether or 1 ether ( in any incomprehensible situation, invest 1 ETH ). But all small investors barely made up 1% of the total ICO capital. On the one hand, this is direct evidence that the ICO market has not become truly massive. But on the other hand, this same factor can speak about the potential of the ICO market. I suppose that with minimal growth, people will be willing to invest more. Most of the funds raised in 2017 are medium and large investors. Judging by the nature of the peaks in the diagram of payment frequencies, people are guided more by the nominal value of payment in ETH than by its equivalent in USD, for example, at the time of investment.
  
  I think the general trends are clear: how they will develop in 2018 - the next time, as well as consider separately the delicate interconnections of different ICO projects and compare real numbers with facts and figures from the projects themselves and various services.
  
  In particular, I asked icofisher.com for material to analyze even more, including small ICOs, as well as statistics on various projects: I think that in 2018, when this market begins to be regulated in many popular jurisdictions, it is very important comprehend at least three important components: firstly, is ICO dangerous for non-professional participants in the light of the above? Secondly, how will the average check change taking into account the boom of the arrival of the masses in November-December 2017? Thirdly, how much does an ICO cost taking into account the new cost of Ether and the price of gas, respectively: and is this not an obstacle for just a mass participant? However, there are more questions and it is better to ask them as the answers to the previous ones are revealed.
  
  For now - everything: up to!