Initial coin offerings are a new version of the old Wild West
As many as 80% of ICOs are either outright scams or fail to result in any working product, according to recent reports
At the height of its bull run in December 2017, the combined cryptocurrency market capitalisation was more than $800bn. In little more than a year the value of bitcoin had surged from $952 to just less than $20,000, a market cap rivalling most multinational companies.
As the market charged forward so did the number of initial coin offerings (ICOs). In 2018 there were about 1,250 ICOs, which collectively raised more than $7.8bn in capital. Among them was EOS, a blockchain platform for the development of decentralised applications tipped to rival ethereum, which is reported to have raised more than almost all of the IPOs on Wall Street that year. EOS managed to raise this capital despite not having a working product at the time of its ICO...
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