80% of ICOs Are Scams – New Study Reveals

81% of all ICOs currently are scams. This is according to a study carried out by Satis Group, an ICO research and advisory firm. The highest percentage of failed ICOs were those with a market cap of $50-$100 million which was the lowest tier tracked.

The team of researchers divided the ICOs into 6 groups. They included outright scams- those projects that had no intention of fulfilling their promises; failed ICOs- projects which failed to hit the soft cap and had to refund the investors’ money; gone dead ICOs – projects that failed to be listed on exchanges and have not updated GitHub code for last three months; dwindling- initially succeeded but the project has stalled; promising- moderately flourishing and lastly, successful – completely delivered on promises.

"The Rising Popularity"

• ICOs have risen astronomically in popularity in the past one year and have now become the new investment vehicle that everyone wants to hop on. With the immense success achieved by cryptocurrencies in 2017, those who hadn’t invested in them felt left out and endeavored to be on the frontline in the next wave. This group of expectant and eager investors has proven to be fertile ground for fraudsters who have made millions from them and then vanished.

• This year alone, more than 1,300 ICOs have been conducted according to ICOs indexing site, ICObench.com. These ICOs have raised an astounding $2.1 trillion! This is a clear indicator of the great popularity initial coin offerings are getting.

"The Scams"

• With the increase in popularity of ICOs, the number of scammers has shot up. In 2017, many investors lost millions of dollars to startups that promised incredible returns only for the websites to be pulled down shortly after completion of the ICO and the founders vanishing.

• One of the ICO scams was Bitcard, a startup that promised investors to develop a smart contract platform and biometric validator that would disrupt and overhaul the current way of conducting business. Shortly after the ICO closed, the project was disintegrated and the money invested was never recovered.

This pales in comparison to ToTheMoon, a startup that promised its investors full-service mining solutions among other wild promises. Eager investors quickly bought the tokens and in one month, the ICO had raised $27 million. The money was never recovered and none of the team members’ whereabouts are known.

• For more information: https://goo.gl/XmvbFa