Abstract: Although the reliability of the data is limited, in this piece we look at the investment returns one would have achieved by investing in ICOs. We compare the returns against the amount each ICO raised and look at the historic investment performance of the most prolific ICO advisers.
ICO investor returns (log scale)
Source: BitMEX Research, Coinmarketcap, ICO websites, Reddit comments
Notes: A return of 10x means the investor made 10x their money. Prices up to 25th September 2017
The integrity of the data
- In general the quality of pricing data for ICOs is poor, we are likely to have made significant errors in many cases. We apologies for any inaccuracies.
- ICOs often have particular circumstances and conditions, for example multiple ICO rounds or offerings in different currencies. Unfortunately due to a lack of transparency and a high degree of complexity, in some cases, we have not been able to account for all of these particularities in a consistent basis.
- In some circumstances we may have been unable to determine the ICO price and therefore may have used the price on the first day of trading.
- There may be some selection bias in our analysis, for example we may be more likely to have investigated the investment performance of ICOs which subsequently turned out to be successful.
- Unfortunately, in a small number of cases we obtained the ICO price from Reddit comments, due to the lack an alternative source.
ICO investor returns compared to the amount raised in the offering (log scale)
Source: BitMEX Research, Coinmarketcap, ICO websites, Reddit comments, Coindesk
Notes: A return of 10x means the investor made 10x their money
In the above chart we compare the amount raised in the offering with the investment returns of the ICOs. From looking at the chart, it appears that there is a slight negative correlation, although the correlation is not strong enough to pass rigorous statistical requirements.
ICO investor returns of for the top 20 ICO advisers (log scale)
Source: BitMEX Research, Coinmarketcap, ICO websites, Reddit comments, ICO Hunt
Notes: The numbers in brackets represent the number of ICOs we were able to obtain return data for compared to the total number of ICOs the adviser is involved in
Finally we look at the investment returns of the top 20 most prolific individuals in the ICO space, by number of ICOs. In many cases, the ICOs occurred very recently and therefore pricing data is not yet available.