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According to recent recearch, 56% of 2017 ICOs fail. And you know what? That's OK. 90% of startups fail but the rest grow so high that they compensate venture investors 90% loss and provide very high profits.

So the basic rules with ICOs are very simple:
1. Do the research before you invest
2. Diversify, diversify, diversify
3. Ignore news and HODL

Yeah, that's really true. I agree with you. I think it is best to invest in 7-9 ico, because thus risks become even less.

Not really applicable,not every successful ICOs are doing their job some of these successful ICOs are turning into scam that is why theres assurance with these projects,the best thing to do is to stick with the solid projects which has good developers this is the main reason why i am not investing with ICOs because it has more risk than trading.

Disagree, I did something like that and now I just have a bunch of crappy bags lol. Wish I had taken the advice of no ICO from the start but nobody told me how to avoid them :'(

That's true and it might be higher this year, but as financially most projects are very good they can stay in the market and try not to fail for a long time compared to other companies.

With the first two points I agree, but with the third one is not at all, how do I ignore the news ?? If the team has fled, and there were news. What to ignore them?. This point is wrong, you should always pay attention to the news

76% of ICO, completed in 2018, are unprofitable! After listing the exchange, there is a short-term increase in the price of ICO tokens, and then the cost of most of them falls below the level of initial sale. Fast profit is received only by investors at the stage of pre-sale, who bought tokens at a special discount. Tokens of promising projects can be bought long-term after completion of the sale and list to the exchanges cheaper than during the main round of ICO.

i think this percentage is normal because it is business  and some times business may go down but that depend on the dev team to make up a strategy to go over any problem facing their project.

I think you're just out of luck. According to statistics, 4 out of 10 tokens after ico make X3 or more. Just bad luck.

What if you invest in 7-9 wrong ico's? You will lose money for sure.
If you want to invest in project during ICO you have to sit down for day or two and do very deep research about everything, including team member pictures and try to find information about them.
Also, if you see john mcafee promoting ICO stay away from it, that guy likes to gamble and he is looking for 400X ICO's. It doesn't mean he will find them.

Hey. Of course it's the way you say it. all my life startups were lotteries, if their creators really do not know what they create. therefore, the analysis of the project will help the investor.

It's even good that 56% fails and it won't be good if almost all of them succeed.
By the way your advices are good, especially last one: Ignore news ans HODL. Panic and emotion is what can even kill project if it's good and only once failed in one step.
People usually don't do research too, they just read promises and invest blindly, that's sad fact.

Invest in ICO is just like invest in a company. Its about long term not short term. But unfortunately most of people always ask about when moon, when lambo or anything else that express the desire to get quick profit. I want to add one more thing, the number 4 is look at the team members, you cannot thrust the linkedin or Facebook or Twitter account, I join bounty campaign which the dev provide his linkedin but it useless, the project is scam.

If you are an experienced person, please give us more detailed instructions. How do we choose a good ICO project, which will help people have a better overview and experience to choose a good ICO project for themselves. Portfolio diversification helps us minimize risk, do not put eggs in the same basket. Your comments are great.

it's not nice, but now all the coins have fallen in price. because of the bear market.
  and most likely cheaply sell only bounty hunters

What information is available about the remaining 44% of ICO?

The cryptocurrency market is having too many ICO projects formed daily so most of them are ineffective or scam. It is not easy to search and research for a good ICO project. You can study more about the project EFFECT.AI, this is a very good project in the field of artificial intelligence, with very professional management team and community support, open sale program ICO will start this Saturday. Learn more about it and make your own decision, that's my advice.

I am not an expert but I will help OP to answer your question, based on my experience.
1. Most of successful ICOs that I know are project which provide passive income for their investors.
2. Project team that open about their identity like ICO of Docademic.and the team members should be more than 5 people.
3. Atleast there should be an already made product.

At least 44% ICO are successful (based on OP's data) it will bring positive impact to bitcoin as well.

In my experience, if in addition to a detailed analysis, there is an existing startup product , or at least a demo version, this significantly increases the chances of ICO success.

You definitely shouldn't ignore the news. But it must be trusted sources. It's even better to make good acquaintances with competent traders and investors who will give you some great advices.

As you said most of the startups fail. That's how the investors get good return form the successful projects with takind risks.
And that's how we're learning project by project.

I agree with you, but I would like to point out some things.

The reason of the last year ICO hype and amazing gains it's called Ethereum.

From January to April 2017 Ethereum floated from 10$ to 40$. Now imagine an investor depositing 100 eth in some ICO worth 1000$. You have already understood the point, right? Let's suppose the token invested in went live in exchanges in November when eth was 450$, just for the change in the contribution value you made a x45 gain.

Not to mention the ICOs that have cashed a lot of eth when it was worth 10$-20$  ;)

yes, this is quite true, a lot of ICOs are failure or scam, that's why before we join an ICO we should do a research first, check the website,whitepaper,the developer,and the project itself.

And every day the number of scam projects is growing. Investors must analyze all, starting from team profiles and white paper, ending with real company registrations according to the laws.

Scammers understand that they have little time left to do this with impunity.

truly your right, i think failing of ico's is connecting to the bitcoin price fall down because the tokens or coins are affected during bitcoin  price is dump in the market, reseach before to invest is normal to the investor's to learn the legalities of the project, i think just for now the problem or the trouble are gonna fix it later. still hold and your investment do not panic.

In the future i think the Fake ICO will still growing up, and thats mean that we need to take carefully when choose an ICO. Because we want to make profit in there, not just get losing our money.

More research, more filtering is very important tp avoid of scammer

I agree but not entirely. As long the project is not alive, the price will fluctuate or the project fail. So make sure when you are investing to not take too much risk.

Yeah I believe that is okay, we got too much ICO that come out every day and some ICO without good marketing team and good features will failed, and yes before you invest in ICO, reading whitepaper is the most essential part, and if you want to make profit with ICO then you need to be patience because almost all of ICO coin got a rough start and the coin will slowly increasing

Yeah, you have to do it.
Even when people buy the share in oil companies - they always buy from the several companies.
Because no one knows what will happen after few month.

Just look at the icostats.com website and you'll see how ICO's are doing:

https://icostats.com/vs-btc

A lot of coins have very weak volume, so these stats can be misleading. Needless to say, some people got very rich from some of the ICO's, which is what keeps the ICO game alive... people dream with these ROI's coming back with the next ICO that will make their BTC x1000... the scams will continue to happen since it only takes 1 successful ICO to get a bunch of delusional people on board buying anything under the mill.

Because basically all the business and everyday activities that we do each there is the risk. I strongly agree with the 3rd point, If you have participated in the ICO do not listen to FUD (Fear, Uncertainty & Doubt) that are in circulation.

I agree. For most parts, that's also how I see the ICO market. As an ICO joiner myself, through joining different campaigns, I feel how hard it is to choose those projects that has more fighting chance compared to other ones that are somewhat destined to fail. Since so many projects are coming out seemingly everyday, you really need to study where you would join because that would mean that you have to give your commitment to it for months at a time before you can see the light at the end of the title, which is usually dim at best. So, you really need to study where you put your money and time so that it won't be a waste.

It is not okay because the money that they use are came from investors compared to the start up in a business where they spent their own money. ICO start up that became scam left the investor and run with their money while the start up that you talking about was failed because of bankruptcy or due to  not enough budget or money.

56% is kinda high though, at the end ICOs are the same as startups and they will share same risks

I can say 90% of ICO also will fail it's just a matter of time frame

i agree with your opinoin, when a half ICOs fail, and very difficult to find good ico we must know about team, idea project, whitepapers, road map, and popularity, and im not agree when we must ignore news, that is critical, information we must update information to know every opportunities

use the ICODROPS website to search a good ico. i highly recommended the icodrop. i have invested credits, wabi, sential according to their recommendation.

now a days do not invest any ico's even the grestest ico's give 1x potential because of the market condition. please wait for like end of april

44% ICO success rate is good in my opinion. I agree 100% with rule 1 and 2. You cannot really ignore news, it is still important to get updates from time to time.

I agree with you regarding the "rough start" for almost any ICO, especially in the current market conditions. Even if the ICO has been hyped it is likely to tank just right outside the gate. Especially in these cases when so called "investors" who are just in for a quick flip and sell everything they got in order to secure a return on investment.

If you really believe in a project it might be a better option to wait for the rebound.

I think the 2018 year that will be a year of ICO. There are many potential ICO and also have garbage ICO everyday. It can make ETH's price raise but when a ICO project fail, it can be affect with ETH's price when they sell all ETH of investors

Of course, the news should not be ignored. Well, as it was said above, they should be from reliable sources. In general I agree with the author of the topic.

It is correct that nothing terrible, in place of these 56% came even more new ones, which can also disappear. The market is a tough competition and if you can not show anything and give a new one you just throw it away.

Yes mate,  even with so many icos that are not legit, doing our own research is a good way to hunt those good ico. For example, if many investors are there in that ico, that is a good sign that its good to invest there. But doing your own research is very important mate

This article can be true that's why we need to choose the right ICO because we can see new ICO everyday but we have to use our consciousness to select the correct ICO as anyone can start it with fake credentials to scam new.users by promising huge return on little investment

last year the ICO is indeed still a corpulent impressed playfully but for the moment the ICO more serious and proven true in real payments. This is quite a concern and made investors keen to invest in ICO. increasingly in the future, this will make the ICO getting crowded and real projects will be more and more.

Many big companies with history starting ICO...

Most ICOs, like most start-ups, share one problem - a bad idea that nobody needs in the world

How you determine if an ICO "fails" is highly subjective. You are investing in startups that can take years before they really start to get traction. If you are counting ICO's as failures just because it is trading below the price you paid a month after the TGE, I think you may be premature in your judgement. I judge success by how well management are executing their plan and sticking to the timeline.

It is quite normal. Let's see, how many now around the different ICO. Every day their list gets bigger and bigger and what many fall is the norm. So be prepared that a certain percentage of your investment may fall.

That number is lower than i expected and it's interesting to see what criteria they used to claim that the ico fail or not, below ico price or something else. I agree that we have to do some research before putting our money into some icos and it's not recommended to go all in on something. But i also think that we also have to read news to position ourself and can prevent loss because of some bad news.

What is the defintion of fail? I wouldn't have even thought we had gotten to the stage where startups in Crypto have collapsed. I know many have had no progress, but they are able to string investors along for 12-18 months before abandoning.

Right, most angel investors expect some 90% of their investments to fail. 10% they expect 1000%+ returns on. Nothing wrong with 56% failing.

Not necessarily for everyone. The one investing only on failing ICOs will have a loss and those finding out those gems would be in higher profit. So, it all sums up to the time you spend researching about the company you are investing on. Don't believe just what they show but try to find the facts using other sources about the legitimacy of the info they provide.

Most fail due to poor project plans and very unreasonable goals while others were just money grab plots. its true that researching well gives you an upper hand as you get to understand properly what you are dealing with

The crypto community is in desperate need of some form of control, so if the big players in the crypto community can come together and work out with relevant authorities to impose some checks and regulations on new ICO, there should have fewer ICO failures as these requirements would stamp out lots of scams and weak ICO. As a result this will enhance investors' confidence and encourage more investors to crypto market.

The risk become smaller and have more chance to win because we have more than 1 basket.
If people try this old trick, there is no more people will suicide because of losing in investing.

Another reason to take into consideration is that a lot of ICOs are scams, and that's why they fail.

So, that's why the % shouldn't scare you.

That is true for investing more and the risk will go down, but the important thing is that there should be more than 50% of the ico projects get successful, or if the percentage is less than 50%, the more you invest in, the more you loss your money, this is a simple math calculation.

The last time I read it was 47% so I guess the failure rate has increased. None the less with the amount of copycat ICOs being launched no shit that these projects are failing. Many ICOs launching currently are nothing but ponzi schemes. One needs to do a thorough research before investing his money in ICOs now a days.

Its a nice amount that they are success. Check the forex market 90% of people losing money on forex and this system continue to work.
We are doing great 56% is a nice ratio to keep up developing ICOs until 80% loss

Totally agree, with crypto in its infancy, there are bound to be miss and hits in the ico realm, and though labeled scams, i am sure not all come under that purview, as some might be unable to sustain rising above the experimental stage.

56% is a huge sum. thanks for the basic rules. it seems i have to learn a lot.

Most ICOS are scams as they have no working product

New investors will not understand this before investing in ICO. how many investors are even researching well before investing money in ICO?. I met an investor recently who lost 33 ETH of her retirement to Denaro ICO scam. one thing I discover about many of this project startup is that they lack idea to be successful after ICO. no idea is new but the method you intend to use to achieve your aim should differentiate all of them and finally, I find out that ICO with a working products are less risky than ICO with just graphic website and bulky whitepaper.

56% is a very good result. This number is subtracted from another 50% scam ICO. I will not ignore the news. Perhaps because of this, many will not be able to exchange their coins because blind faith in the project. It is not necessary to do so.

Tnhans for your dvice and I will do better than last year.

There are a lot of ICOs which turned out fail, because it can't reach the hardcap of the project, people (investors) don't want to invest in that ICO, maybe it's because the project itself doesn't look promising, as we can see from the idea of the project itself, the devs, and the whitepaper of the ICO

Investing always involves the risk that something may go wrong. That's why I think if about half of the projects succeed, this is not a bad result. Apart from typical scam, of course.

The results of this research do not surprise me. In recent months the number of ICOs has increased significantly and in 2018 the percentage of failure in ICOs could exceed even 56% of last year. The important and select in my opinion a few high quality projects and diversify

apart from last point i totally agree. you have to be well informed about the project. If you didnt see it coming, for sure you gonna lose alot. I hope this percentage improves in 2018 but still its amazing. Lets hope for the best

Everybody seems to pull out numbers from their pocket. Is there any official statistics to back their claims. I would love to see.

As I believe the number of ICO is not growing, but fading. Moreover the quality of ICOs is rising higher. But I feel the same - still most of ICo is a total scam.

It is necessary to study the project well before taking part in its ICO. A lot depends on yourself and how much time we spend analyzing the object for investment. Therefore, in our failures, we need  blame only ourselves.

56% of failure in ICOs is a very high percentage, I hope that there will soon be regulation in most countries also to protect investors. However, it is important to follow the rules you wrote at the beginning of the post and to invest only a small part of your capital in the ICOs

I think that this is normal. Not all startups are successful and when investing you need to understand that there is a risk of losing everything.

Sometimes it's very dangerous to ignore the news. I don't agree with this point but I agree with all the others. The percentage of successful ICO is very small, but we must understand that it's high-risk projects. I believe there will be more qualitative ICOs in the future.

Its normal that so much ICO fails. Look at the Altcoin anouncement area. There are everyday ten new ico. One idea more stupid then the last one. Its unbelievably what for porject the people are creating ICO's for. And you see there want all just to make fast money. So in the end, i can just say to all the investors, watch where you put your money on. Do not give your money away for some stupid ideas. Just remember, the dev team hold the most of the coins and will always make the biggest profit.

I think 57% of fails is really good number, especially of such a new tool of investment. I suppose this year the numbers of fails will decrease, as people become more experienced.

Not much wonder. so many ICOs coming out. all are not good projects. this why you have to do researches before investing. I believe in such a good ICO named CVProof. I think CVProof project will be successful.

This assertion should be taken with pinch of salt!  2017 ICO are not even taken  off yet.  One year is so short for you to make proper assessment of any start up.  The downside of open industry of cryptocurrency is ridiculous opinion and unfounded assertions!

I agree. New-born ICOs will oftentimes look like a big failure even after reaching the targeted market cap because usually a few weeks after the ICO, there is a sudden decrease of coin value. But don't judge quickly! I know someone who earned this particular token last October 2017 and he immediately sold it. Guess what, its price as of now is five times its price last October.

Recently, ICOs are not as good as it was before. This is my opinion. I think there are several trash ICOs as of now, not to mention scam ICOs and such. These unreliable ICOs pose a threat on the crypto investors and may have been contributed to the dump of some coins because less and less investors trust ICOs.

It probably is not such a bad result. This is nothing extraordinary if a lot of them fail. About half of the projects are successful and work. If the project is good and has a team involved, it has a good chance of success.

I really do not think so. There will certainly be a greater selection and will no longer be accepted by the ico scam market. only the best will win

Too easy to start an ico and collect money.
Only the strong can survive.

56 I think this is not true, but the fact that more than half is accurate. Just choose a long time to invest. This is your money.

Currently almost 90% of ICO projects are fraudulent, so requires investors to be able to analyze the market, project development trends and potential of an ICO project. Analysis is important to help you reduce the risk of choosing the wrong project and diversify your investment, not to drop the same egg basket, allocate your funds to many projects. So you will minimize the risk.

What research? Do you have a link? Publication? Something to back up this claim? I would be really interested to see it.

I think 56% are very conservative, there are some projects in the space that the price do not reflect that the project is dead already, if most people know that some of these ICOs are just set up to rape them of their money. The space is now full of scams and we need not to be surprise about these number

great words. even 56% is very big percentage. That means that most of startups, even if they are weak (those 90%) do good preparation before ICO and investors believe in them. This is very good.

I am sure he is not making any assertion and just stating some real life fact. It is the truth, it is not all startups that always end up well, so it is best we fact the fact here. On a normal day, some will fail and some will do well. Nevertheless, it is abnormal for a working developer most especially in this world not to get the product out there and get it doing well. If for any reason a company end up failing, the team is always at fault and which is the reason I make sure I do not leave my investment in the wrong hands.

Obviously, even Vitalik mentioned about failures of ICO sometime last year, that not all ICO should be expected to go on well as planned and that is normal, considering that even in real life, startups fail. However, this is the main reason why investors always try as much as possible to invest in a team they can at least believe in and expect that they should at least try as much as possible to their best to give them the best as an investor.

Yeah it is, but we also have to understand that it is always hard for a hard working team to fail. I know there are some times that we may not see some real life stuffs coming, but we also have to expect that no matter what, every team that have some experience and some achievement in the past will always want to make sure that they do not tarnish that which is the main reason I invest in a team most of the time coupled with the product.

Trash ICOs actually evaded the whole crypto space but the investors also have a lot of role to play in that aspect as most people stopped looking out for good projects but a quick way to make money. Nevertheless, the likelihood of seeing a real project not making some waves and sustainable value in the long run is always rare because as long as that is intact, the product will always be useful and that is what would make it work.

If you think I am indeed gan the longer we keep the coin it will come but also ride in a few months this price is also getting down and cheap gan

Yes it could be just the heck it all depends with the forefront of gan also we got to know each job so it will be able to work together for the success of all the projects that we hold the appropriate expectations and could penetrate harcap.

This has to be one of the most idiotic thing shared by someone. Ignore the news? You must be kidding me. If you don't know than let me tell you that most of the ICOs currently are nothing but scams. And by ignoring the only way through which you will find out if a ICO is scam or not you are just closing your eyes.

I think that is a normal %. ICO are not like IPOs that there are already a running project. Sometimes there are miscalculations in the plan that the project is not feasible to launch.

I think 56% is the lowest projection I've every seen. I would take nearly 50/50 odds all day long.

It is really difficult for both ICO companies and investors because it is not easy to pick out a good one from all the different choices out there. One of the important factors to ensure it is not a scam is for the company to have public and transparent details about the staff. Youtube interviews and photos at conferences will help with this regard

Before investing in ICO we should learn about the projects. I think the same amount of money I will invest 5-6 projects if a project fails I will get money back by other projects.

I though 90% ICOs of 2017 failed or failing. Only some good ico with honest team and real products such as: Civic, EOS... most remain ICOs just now building their protocols, hire team  etc. We should call that just a paper ideas projects and I can't believe on them.

And that's what makes investing fun and challenging. You have to be very keen on specific details that will make your investment worth it. Sometimes doing research before investing is not enough to ensure that you will invest in the right one, there are still several factors to consider. For example, you should determine the type of token that will be used, like will it be really useful in the community or will it be used right off the bat by a lot of people. That and that determines the outcome of the ICO in the market.

I fully agree with you. I do not like these hysterics hamsters who unsuccessfully and thoughtlessly invested money in several tokens and now shout everywhere that 100% or 99% ICO Scam. Yes, the bench is a lot, but it is easy to recognize, if you carefully analyze the company.  Because of the negative moods suffer good and promising ICO. Study companies before buying tokens! It's important.

I agree specially the newbie they need to know this three basic steps to have a knowledge on what they are need to know before going on something that is new for them, and ignoring the news is the best idea to avoid panicking and sell their coins in just a lower price so that the price of the continue will continue to become higher.

Good words, my friend. I totally agree with you -panic selling is the worst thing possible to do with tokens from ICO.

ICOs are very risky investments most especially nowadays that the rate of scam has been increasing. You should be very sure and convinced of any ICO you are investing in and don't let hype deceive you. Many hyped ICOs have scammed in the past.

I think this number is more and falls to about 75%. Currently, care should be taken when investing in ICOs, especially for Token!

lol far more than that will fail I can assure you...

56% lol

make that 96% or greater. Give them more time to burn through the dev funding first, some of them have to justify devouring 100's millions of dollars not your usual 100k start up.

The best reason for them to fail is there is no advantage to those running the ICO to succeed.

Better to take any tech created and start a new ico under a different name and raise all those yummy noob btc all over again later and take their lions share out again. No risk no work.

huge % of the noobs here since  sep 2017 will be burned hard ........


stick to btc or keep your fiat because doing any real research is beyond the scope and effort most can put in.

NEW projects starting are years behind the curve....... the smart teams were formed years ago.

The problem is you need to give them time to prove themselves a success. If you give them a little more time you will find out this figure is much higher, probably around 90%.

that's not good of course, 90 percent of startups fail because they do not have something expected by investors of course.

But sometimes you should consider news because it can make the price decrease drastically.
You can sell at that time and buy again in dip

I heard that 80% of new coins have fallen in price since 2017 after entering the stock exchange

I think there are many factors that make ICO fail. the main factor is the crypto price is decreasing and can not reach hardcap. just reaching softcap not necessarily ICO will be successful.

I think that there is around the same amount of projects which don’t deal with blockchain that fail every year. A little more than a half of all startups stop existing during the very first year because they are not competitive on the market.

That was what happened last year but this year 80% of the ICO are successful but because of issues with the price of cryptocurrencies some of them are selling below the ICO price.

All things considered thats actually a pretty low number. If I were to have guessed I would have said it was closer to 70%.