ICO fundraising behemoth memoirs: some became BTC tycoons, some with a market capitalization of only 70,000, and the investment return is lower than BTC and ETH

Author: Frank, PANews

The Golem Network, which raised 820,000 ETH in ICO in 2016, has recently been selling ETH frequently, attracting a lot of attention. As of July 8th, a total of 36,000 ETH worth approximately 114.5 million USD have been sold in the recent period. In addition, the company behind EOS, which previously created the largest ICO case in the industry, still holds 140,000 BTC worth approximately 8 billion USD.

Investors suddenly found that some of the projects they were eager to invest in have disappeared, while the projects they held onto have made a fortune. PANews took stock of the asset status of the top 10 hottest ICO projects in 2016-2017 and found that the investment returns of all projects were lower than holding BTC and Ethereum.

Sirin Labs: Raised $157 million, TokenMarket Cap only $7,000

The biggest gap between financing and development status lies with Sirin Labs. The project raised approximately $158 million through ICO in 2017, becoming one of the star projects with the largest amount of ICO that year. Its token is SRN, and the current Market Cap is only $70,000, with a 24-hour trading volume of only $8.

Sirin Labs is the first company to target Web3 mobile products. As early as 2017, it raised $158 million in ICO market with its blockchain smartphone Finney as a gimmick. In 2018, football player Lionel Messi endorsed this encryption phone. However, the good times didn’t last long. In 2019, Sirin Labs was exposed for poor phone sales, resulting in a 25% staff reduction and unpaid factory wages. In 2021, Sirin Labs’ investors were sued for fraudulently using ICO and misappropriating over $250 million.

Now, Sirin Labs’ social media accounts have not been updated for more than 3 years, and only the sound of ‘scammers’ remains in the comments.

EOS: The highest ICO in history creates the richest Block.one

EOS created a fundraising peak for ICO, which has not been broken so far. In 2017, with the star halo of BM and the endorsement of Li Xiaolai. EOS, known as the Ethereum killer and the third generation public chain, raised over $4 billion, becoming the highest funded project in the encryption field ICO to date.

Block.one, the company behind EOS, later converted all the raised ETH into BTC. Its holding once exceeded 164,000, surpassing MicroStrategy, the largest BTC holder. According to the latest data, Block.one still holds over 140,000 BTC, with a total value of over 8 billion US dollars.

In 2022, the EOS Foundation made multiple attempts to use legal means to reclaim $4.1 billion from Block.one and transform EOS into a DAO organization. In April of this year, the EOS Foundation attempted to introduce a new tokenomics, but the market seems to have completely abandoned this former star of the public chain, and the price has fallen by nearly 40% since April. Today, the Market Cap of EOSToken is only $780 million, less than one-tenth of the value of BTC held by Block.one.

Tezos: TokenMarket Cap is not as long as foundation assets01928374656574839201

The public chain Tezos raised $232 million through ICO in 2017. Although it was rumored that the Tezos Foundation held 17,500 BTC, PANews reported in March 2024 that the organization still holds BTC worth $295 million, which is equivalent to about 5,000 BTC at the time. However, Tezos raised a total of 65,681 BTC and 361,000 ETH during the ICO. The value of these tokens is now about $4.8 billion, while the total Market Cap of Tezos Token (TXZ) is about $740 million, only 3 times the fundraising amount, and even less than the Tezos Foundation’s $760 million assets.

Polkadot: Still holding 300,000 ETH that have not been sold

Recently, the public chain Polkadot has caused a heated discussion due to its first-half financial report. The expenditure of $87 million for promotion and the revenue of $1.1 million have raised concerns in the community. It seems that the topic caused by the financial report is more significant than the $87 million promotion expense. As a star project in 2017, Polkadot raised over $140 million in funding, obtaining more than 429,000 ETH. According to on-chain data, there are still 306,000 ETH tokens held in the ICO Smart Contract Address, with a value of approximately $930 million. Therefore, concerns about Polkadot’s treasury seem to be unnecessary. These ETH tokens have not been sold since the beginning.

Bancor: From Well-Known to Neglected

The Decentralization trading protocol Bancor raised about 390,000 Ethereum, worth more than $150 million, through ICO in 2017, exceeding the fundraising amount of The DAO. The current value of these tokens is about $1.1 billion, while the market capitalization of Bancor’s token BNT is only about $70 million. This result is obviously unacceptable for the users who invested at that time.

Golem: Carefully managing assets, selling more and more long

Golem Network is a very early ICO project. As early as 2016, Golem Network proposed the concept of a decentralized Computing Power market. By 2024, Golem Network was known not for its forward-looking market deployment, but for its expertise in holding coins. In 2016, Golem Network raised 820,000 ETH through ICO, which was the second-longest project to raise ETH except for EOS. Although the progress of Golem’s project has been lukewarm, the project team did not sell ETH like other teams, but made small long-term investments over the years. From the earliest ICO value of $9 million, to June 2019, although the number of coins held has dropped to 369,000, the value has exceeded $100 million. Even now, with the number of coins held down to 125,000, the total value is still $390 million. With the rise in the value of ETH, Golem’s assets have become more and more valuable. Those who invested $11 in Golem with ETH at that time don’t know what they’re feeling now.

TenX: The project party cashed out, leaving only 164 million US dollars in Market Cap

The payment project TenX raised over $80 million in 2017, totaling 245,832 Ethereum. However, the project seems to have little confidence in the encryption market, and began to gradually sell most of the tokens through exchanges within a month after the ICO. Currently, the project’s TokenPAY Market Cap is only $1.64 million.

FIL: The Star of Decentralized Storage Still Has Residual Heat

As a popular project for Decentralization storage, FIL is also one of the projects with the highest fundraising amount in 2017. FIL raised $253 million through ICO. To this day, many encryption investors are still mining FIL Tokens through Mining Rigs. As of now, the Market Cap of FIL Token is approximately $2.2 billion, second only to Polkadot among the star projects in 2017.

Qtum: A recording tape falls from the altar

Qtum is a project that was once red-hot and controversial in 2017. In terms of the amount raised in the ICO, Qtum’s 15.6 million USD is not considered long. However, the price surge of Quantum Chain in 2018 made it a well-known blockchain project. But with the exposure of Li Xiaolai’s recording, the image of Qtum’s founder was also tarnished, and since then Qtum has been in decline. Qtum raised 11,000 BTC and 75,000 ETH, which is now worth over 870 million USD, far exceeding the market capitalization of QTUM Token, which is 240 million USD.

Status: It was difficult to find a coin back then, but fortunately I did not invest in it now.

Status completed a $105 million ICO financing in 2017, raising a total of 300,000 ETH. Since 2017, the project has been selling its held tokens and currently holds 17,000 ETH, worth about $54 million. The market cap of its token SNT is about $150 million. Status was exceptionally popular in 2017, with the ICO returning 347,000 ETH, which is more than the amount raised. I wonder if those investors who didn’t get on board are now glad they didn’t exchange their ETH for SNT.

Summary

In addition to the listed projects, there were also many projects during the hot ICO era of 2016-2017, many of which have completely shut down and faded from the market. It is always meaningful to review history. From the inventory of 10 projects, these projects were undoubtedly the most dazzling stars of that era, easily obtaining huge investments under the halo of celebrities. Seven years have passed, and the projects that claimed to create the next BTC and Ethereum have been replaced by a new batch of contenders. This inevitably leads us to think, how many of today’s star projects will still exist in the public eye in another 7 years, and who will be able to fulfill their promises or survive by financing.