Memoirs of ICO money-attracting behemoths: Some have become Bitcoin tycoons, while some have only a market value of 70,000, and their investment returns are not as good as BTC and ETH.

Author: Frank, PANews

Golem Network, a project that raised 820,000 ETH in the ICO in 2016, has recently attracted attention for its frequent sales of ETH. As of July 8, a total of 36,000 ETH has been sold recently, worth approximately US$114.5 million. Combined with the previous creation of the largest ICO case in the industry, the EOS founding company still holds 140,000 Bitcoins, worth approximately US$8 billion.

Investors suddenly discovered that the teams of some of the projects they rushed to invest in had disappeared, and the projects that had not held the currency were making a lot of money. PANews made an inventory of the asset status of the 10 most popular ICO projects in 2016 and 2017, and found that the investment returns of all projects were lower than those of BTC and Ethereum.

Sirin Labs: 157 million in financing, token market value is only 70,000 US dollars

The biggest contrast between the financing amount and the current development situation is Sirin Labs. The project raised approximately 158 million US dollars through ICO in 2017. It became one of the star projects with the largest ICO amount that year. The token it issued is SRN. Its current market value is only US$70,000, and its 24-hour transaction volume is only US$8.

Sirin Labs was the first company to target Web3 mobile products. As early as 2017, it used the blockchain smartphone Finney as a gimmick to raise US$158 million in ICO market. In 2018, football player Messi also funded this product. Encrypted phones were endorsed. The good times did not last long. In 2019, it was revealed that Sirin Labs had laid off 25% of its employees due to poor mobile phone sales and was in arrears with factory wages. In 2021, investors in Sirin Labs were indicted for using ICO fraud and embezzling more than $250 million.

Today, Sirin Labs’ social media account has not been updated for more than 3 years, and only “liar” curses are left in the comment area.

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

EOS created an ICO fundraising peak, a record that has not yet been broken. In 2017, with BM’s star halo and Li Xiaolai’s endorsement. EOS, known as the Ethereum killer and third-generation public chain, has received more than $4 billion in financing, becoming the largest ICO project in the crypto field to date.

The company behind EOS, Block.one, subsequently converted all the ETH raised into BTC, and its holdings once exceeded 164,000, surpassing the largest Bitcoin holder micro-strategy company. According to the latest data, Block.one still holds more than 140,000 Bitcoins, with a total value of more than $8 billion.

In 2022, the EOS Foundation has repeatedly tried to use legal means to get Block.one to return US$4.1 billion and transform EOS into a DAO organization. In April this year, the EOS Foundation tried to launch new token economics, but the market seems to have completely abandoned this former public chain star, and the price has dropped by nearly 40% since April. Today, the market capitalization of EOS tokens is only $780 million, less than one-tenth the value of Block.one’s Bitcoin holdings.

Tezos: The token market value is not as large as the foundation’s assets

The public chain Tezos received US$232 million in investment through ICO in 2017. Although the Tezos Foundation is said to hold 17,500 Bitcoins, PANews according to the Tezos Foundation A report in March 2024 showed that the organization still holds BTC worth US$295 million, and based on the BTC price at that time, the number was about 5,000. However, Tezos raised a total of 65,681 Bitcoins and 361,000 Ethereums during the ICO. These tokens are now worth approximately US$4.8 billion, while the current total market value of the Tezos token TXZ is approximately US$740 million, which is only three times the amount raised and not even as good as the Tezos Foundation’s 760 million assets.

Polkadot: Still holding 300,000 Ethereum unsold

Recently, the public chain Polkadot has caused heated discussions due to its first-half financial report. Its promotion fee expenditure of US$87 million and revenue of US$1.1 million have triggered concerns in the community. It seems that the promotion cost of 87 million is not as high as the topic triggered by a financial report. As a star project in 2017, Polkadot raised US$140 million in financing that year, raising more than 429,000 Ethereums. According to on-chain data, the current ICO smart contract address still holds 306,000 Ethereum, worth approximately US$930 million. Therefore, concerns about Polkadot’s vault appear to be unfounded. This portion of Ethereum tokens has not been sold since the beginning.

Bancor: From unknown to unknown

The decentralized trading protocol Bancor raised approximately 390,000 Ethereum through ICO in 2017, worth over US$150 million, exceeding the amount raised by The DAO. The current value of these tokens is about US$1.1 billion, while the market value of Bancor’s token BNT is only about US$70 million. For users who invested at the time, this result was obviously unacceptable.

Golem: Be careful with your calculations and sell more assets

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 is not famous for its Forward-looking market deployment, but a currency holding strategy that is good at financial management. In 2016, Golem Network raised 820,000 Ethereum through ICO, which was the project that raised the most Ethereum besides EOS. Although Golem's project progress has been tepid, the project team did not sell off ETH as quickly as other teams, but sold it in small amounts and many times over the years. From the earliest ICO worth US$9 million, by June 2019, although the number of coins held dropped to 369,000, the value exceeded US$100 million. The current number of coins held has dropped to 125,000, with a total value of US$390 million. Riding on the dividends of Ethereum's price growth, Golem's assets can be said to be selling more and more. At that time, people who invested $11 in Golem with ETH didn’t know what to think.

TenX: The project team realized a wave of cash, with a market value of only 1.64 million US dollars.

The payment project TenX raised more than 80 million US dollars in 2017, with a total of 245,832 Ethereums. However, the project team does not seem to have much confidence in the encryption market. One month after the ICO, it began to sell most of the tokens through exchanges. The current market value of the project’s token PAY is only $1.64 million.

Filecoin: The star of decentralized storage is still hot

Filecoin is a popular project in decentralized storage and one of the projects with the highest financing amount in 2017. Filecoin raised $253 million through ICO. To this day, there are still many crypto investors mining FIL tokens through mining machines. Judging from the results, the current market value of FIL token is approximately US$2.2 billion, second only to Polkadot among the star projects in 2017.

Cardano: Raising 100,000 BTC, one of the rare ICO evergreens

Cardano has maintained a relatively low profile and rarely gains too much attention through marketing in the market. However, as a former public chain star, Cardano also created the longest-lasting ICO record. From 2015 to 2017, a total of 5 rounds of ICO were conducted, raising 108,000 BTC, with a total amount of approximately US$62.24 million. However, the performance of its token ADA has been good. It still has a market value of US$17.7 billion and ranks around 10th. It can be regarded as a rare project that is still competitive in the ICO era.

Status: It was hard to find a coin back then, but now I’m lucky I didn’t invest.

Status completed an ICO financing of US$105 million in 2017, raising a total of 300,000 ETH. Since 2017, the project has successively sold the tokens it holds, and currently still holds 17,000 Ethereum, worth approximately US$54 million. The market value of its token SNT is approximately $150 million. Status’s popularity in 2017 was also unusual. According to official disclosures, as many as 347,000 ETH were returned from the ICO, which was more than the amount raised. I wonder if these investors who did not successfully get on the bus are now glad that they did not exchange their ETH for SNT.

Summary

In addition to the projects listed above, there were a large number of projects during the hot ICO era of 2016~2017, many of which have been completely discontinued and are silent in the market. It is always meaningful to look back at history. Judging from the 10 projects reviewed, these projects were undoubtedly the most dazzling stars of that era. With the halo of celebrities, they easily obtained huge investments. Seven years have passed, and the project that claimed to be the next Bitcoin and Ethereum has changed its players. This also makes us think about how many of today's star projects will still exist in the public eye in seven years, and who will be able to fulfill their promises or survive on financing.

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