2017 was the year of ICOs, available stats suggest that the cryptocurrency industry raised as much as $5.6B across 435 successful projects. 2018 was a chilly crypto winter where the market lost much of its 2017 gains. ICOs are probably not coming back especially because many people believe that the crypto winter of 2018 was triggered by the indiscriminate actions of scam ICOs and a concerted effort by governments and regulators to shut them down.
2019 is shaping up to be the year of Initial Exchange Offerings (IEOs) as cryptocurrency exchanges take up the intermediate role of vetting, approving, and promoting blockchain projects that want to raise funds from the market. Many cryptocurrency exchanges now have IEO platforms but the most popular IEO platforms are Binance Launchpad, Biitrex, Huobi Global, OKex, LAToken, and KuCoin. As at May 2019, IEOs have raised about $1.4B globally.
Is the crypto bull back?
The cryptocurrency market appears to be gradually regaining lost ground from 2018. In the year-to-date period, Bitcoin is up 151%, Ethereum is up 86%, Ripple is up a subtle 15%, Litecoin has an impressive 320% gain, Bitcoin cash has gained 151% and EOS is up 15.66%.
The performance of the 6 largest coins by market cap suggests that serious money is moving into crypto and its high time crypto investors started exploring the opportunities in these new coins that are launching via IEOs.
This piece provides insights into some of the best coins that launched their IEOs on popular launchpads this year. The coins that launched this year were not around during the bull run of 2017 and they might be uniquely positioned to lead the charge in the next crypto bull run.
Matic Networks – Binance Launchpad
Matic Network, which launched its IEO from Binance Launchpad is one of the best performing IEOs in the general cryptocurrency market this year. The chart below shows how Matic token has fared since launching its IEO in April. The coin went from trading at $0.004521 on April 28 to a high of $0.0411 on May 21, marking an incredible 800% rally in less than a month. The coin has since given back some of those gains as it trades sideways in the last couple of weeks; yet, it still sports 433% YTD gains with a circulating market cap of about $51M.
The key metrics are also looking good for Matic. Its 24-hour trading volume has grown by almost 600% from around $8.1M worth of trade to more than $50M worth of trade in less than two months. Market sentiment analysis suggests that the market is bullish on Matic in the short-term because its daily sentiment is positive at 61.67% while its long-term sentiment is neutral at 53.79%.
Matic’s impressive performance is not strange; in fact, investors would have been worried if the price of the token didn’t take off the way it did. For one, Matic Network is the only startup from Binance Launchpad to have gotten funded by Coinbase Ventures. The Coinbase investment is a vote of confidence in Matic and its ability to successfully scale Ethereum as the industry prepares for the mass-market adoption of dApps.
Matic is simply a Layer 2 scaling solution for facilitating off-chain computation using the Plasma framework and a decentralized network of Proof-of-Stake validators. In simpler terms, Matic Network is designed to solve some of the scalability challenges that has kept Blockchain technology from living to its true potential. For instance, Matic can ensure faster and cheaper transactions on Ethereum considering that its testnet recorded about 10,000 tx/s on a single sidechain.
TOP Network – Huobi Global
TOP Network launched its IEO from Huobi Global as a decentralized open communication platform optimized to provide cloud communication services over a Blockchain. TOP provides users with cheaper real-world business communication tools such as video, calling, messaging, IoT, data sharing, and VPN. Its technology stack includes a three-layer network, two-layer sharding, two-layer lattice DAG and a delegated Proof of Stake consensus that enables it to process hundred thousand transactions per second.
TOP Network would have been the best performing IEO out of Huobi Global but the project seems to have lost its initial momentum. In the chart above, TOP started out with an incredible 250% gain immediately after it completed its IEO. It appears that the decline in the price of TOP tokens is a protest from the market in response to the technical challenges that marred the IEO. It would be interesting to see the catalyst that will reignite the bullish momentum for TOP as the token tries to breakout from the sideway trend of the last several weeks.
Chromia - KuCoin
Chromia launched its IEO from KuCoin as a relational blockchain on which developers can engage with the public to build complex and scalable dApps easily. Unlike other Blockchain protocols where dApps are mostly powered by smart contracts, Chromia posits that dApps are first-class entities on a Blockchain and they should have their own dedicated CPU threads while running a specific set of nodes. Chromia believes that its model will address the shortcomings of existing dApp platforms thereby making it easy for to scale dApps more easily by allocating computing resources based on needs.
Chromia got off to an exciting start after completing its IEO, making a quick 22% jump within the first 24-hours. However, Chromia was unlucky to have completed it IEO when Bitcoin Whales decided to move the markets and it recorded steep losses. Chromia appears to be struggling with resistance around $0.90, a breakout might be all it needs to return to the previous high that was cut short last month.
VeriBlock - Bittrex
VeriBlock launched its IEO through Bittrex but it is unfortunately down 67% since its coin got on the market. VeriBlock is a Blockchain designed to extend the security provided by Bitcoin to other blockchains by implementing a Proof of Proof consensus that allows Blockchains and sidechains to inherit the full security of a Bitcoin. VeriBlock is hoping to drive interest in Bitcoin sidechains as a means to decongest the Bitcoin network and potentially improve transaction speeds.
VeriBlock has declined by more than 60% since it completed its IEO and it has been stuck in a range around $0.032 in the last three weeks. Despite the obvious weakness in the trading price of VeriBlock, it is interesting to see that its market capitalization is starting have a form in sharp contrast to the last two months when the market was unable to compute its market cap.