Too Eye See Oh or not Two Aye Cee Owe?
I'm a big fan of investing in ICOs
Dentacoin
Enjincoin
UTrust
Electroneum
Power Ledger
Titanium
LOCIcoin
NEXT
HOQU
CargoX
Envion
Sp8de
CryCash
Vice Industry Token
Dorado
Those are the ICOs that I can think of that I've invested in within the last 12 months or so. I invested in almost all of them (if not all of them) during the first half of that period. Some I still hold, others I sold off long ago. Some have done well, others have been rather appalling.
Too Eye See Oh or not Two Aye Cee Owe?
The bear market of 2018 has not been kind to ICOs. While BTC was given a reprieve after the first big dip or two (it has continued to find support around the $6k mark since 6 February), altcoins have not been nearly as lucky. Conservative investors have pulled funds out of the altcoin market, and especially out of perceived riskier investments like ICOs. Personally I have been avoiding ICOs lately as I just don't have any money for them (and I have seen very few appealing looking ones launched lately).
While most of my ICOs of late 2017 / very early 2018 were good deals when I bought into them, by the time that they launched it was a disaster. In better times ICOs would hit the exchanges, "Moon", drop below listing price, recover, climb more, go sideways and then "Moon" again to great profits, possibly in mulitple "Moon" phases as they continued to grow. After the bear mauled the market, ICOs have listed, been dumped to extremely low prices, gradually continued to decline and then flat-lined at a ridiculous price way below listing value.
How can we benefit from this?
Well the most obvious consequence of the above mentioned facts is that many (often very good) ICOs of about 6 to 12 months ago have now got their coins listed on exchanges at bargain prices. Many of these are the low market cap coins of which I often speak. For example: I missed the ICO for THEKEY. But after it listed I managed to pick some up at a very good price. Had I waited longer I could have picked it up at a far better price, but I try never to judge my trades based on the unfair clarity of hindsight.
It is no secret that I am expecting the market to recover soon. Substantially. If you believe this as I do, then I suggest that you strongly consider picking up some of these ultra-cheap coins while you still can - the old ICOs that have never "Mooned", quite the opposite in fact, and which have tremendous growth potential. I seriously believe that many of these coins could easily go 50x or even 100x within the next year. Considering that 20x may get them back to listing price, you can see that my estimates are not exaggerated. If you don't believe that the market will recover soon (or at least that it can), then you may as well skip the rest of this post as it is not for you!
The second thing that a bear-turning-to-bull market means is that this is the time to buy into ICOs! Now ICO buying is not easy, you need to be even more meticulous and vigilant than usual with the DYOR process. I have yet to write one (it hasn't seemed relevant lately), but there are several good "ICO buying tips" articles available on the internet. Read three or four of them and you will get the idea. I believe that in this rather dead market you will be able to pick up great deals on ICOs. I also believe that if those list in a few months time, when the market may be far stronger, you stand to reap substantial rewards. You will get the benefit of buying a coin at a cheap price, PLUS the added benefit of the usual price jump of an ICO listing in a bullish market, PLUS the benefit of any upwards price movement of the crypto market in the time between when you bought and when the coin lists.
As I said earlier, I see very few good ICOs around lately, perhaps ICOs are just not as popular right now, interest has waned. Or possibly I have just been avoiding ICOs myself as they have been providing little reward of late and I don't have money for them. The only ICO that has had my interest lately is NEX. Despite what I said a few days ago about my displeasure wrt their ICO timing badly affecting buy-in price for investors, NEX should be one of the best ICOs and one of the best cryptos ever. I see it becoming an absolutely top-notch exchange and a very popular one at that. The entire concept is brilliant. It is a great pity (in some ways, not in others) that only NEX lottery winners got to invest in the NEX ICO (which ends today). I don't know when their coin will list on exchanges, but when it does, I will be extremely eager to grab any NEX going cheap! (I still hope they look at compensating their investors if NEO turns bullish soon and the NEX team find themselves sitting on a massive bag of very valuable NEO).
Summing up
I think that this is a good time to buy into ICOs. As always, only very good ICOs should be selected. I believe that the market will soon turn and that ROI from any good ICOs bought now (perhaps even a few bad ones - but I don't recommend that!) may be massive.
Quick footnote
I am increasingly becoming of the opinion that BTC has started a new converging triangle and that it is no longer following the old level-based one from earlier in the year. If I am right, I take this as a bullish sign. It means that we can expect lower highs and higher lows until a breakout probably occurs. I will try to squeeze in a quick analysis of this pattern soon. It may well end in the start of the bull market that I and so many other have been waiting for. It also means no more testing support at $6000 or lower. Of course the breakout could be downwards, but for fundamental reasons that I have already spoken about too many times, I do not consider this to be a viable possibility. I am not in the "capitulation has yet to come" camp.
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Yours in crypto,
Bit Brain
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While I think you are right that there are great opportunities out there in the ICO space I would be careful participating in some of them that may look like securities given the growing uncertainty around the regulation on their issuance. Many have started to comply similar to SEC requirements which is a good sign but the last thing you would want is to put money into an ICO that needs to then spend money to settle a subpoena from the SEC. In the meantime, I think that many of the previous ICOs now on exchanges could potentially be good pick ups as the market consolidates.
You raise a valid point and it's a tricky question. The SEC does make a difference, but for how long? The SEC is an American "problem", but the old maxim of "when America sneezes, the world catches a cold" certainly applies. I know that Americans tend to forget that they are but one country out of hundreds, but that is the case, and every mighty empire falls from dominance sooner or later.
It is already quite possible for a properly marketed ICO to take off completely independently of US influence. I foresee this happening increasingly in the future, with over-regulated countries (like the US) finally being forced to adapt their regulations to the changes, or risk being left behind in the future of the global economic race. This opens the doorway to far wider topics, including the reasons that I am so supportive of crypto and optimistic about it in the long-run.
I am not sure I share your enthusiasm for ICOs BB @bitbrain, tokens have been massively overvalued, lack liquidity, have dubious utility and have attracted the wrong kind of investors (impatient, disloyal retail investors).
Very few ICO tokens will survive this bear market and I wouldn't be surprised to see lots of these start-ups go under in 2019.
I think for the next few years most of the money will be made by investing in core protocols: Bitcoin, Ethereum etc.
Here's an interesting read from Ari Paul:
https://thecryptocurrencyinvestor.com/2018/06/22/early-stage-valuations-fall-to-earth/
I think the Ari Paul article is too bearish and 2018 flavoured for my liking. I understand where he is coming from: it's written as a counter to the 2017 ICO hype and massive profits no matter how bad the ICO. I believe that the truth and some sort of "fair valuation" for ICOs lies somewhere between that 2017 hype and what he has written. I think that the bear market has made it easy for people to forget just what a revolutionary technology blockchains is and just how much it will grow and be used.
Fair point mate, there are some diamonds in the rough for sure :)
Thanks for the input (and the link). Yes, perhaps I did not highlight the downsides enough. Most ICOs will fail. Most. A lot of people will lose a lot. I have already seen my Titanium fail outright, and Envion stall to a halt because of internal legal issues. I ditched Electroneum because of their pathetic management and I readily acknowledge that some of my others are long-shots and will quite probably also fail.
For me ICOs optimise the high risk/high reward type of assets that I like to invest some of my funds in. I would certainly not recommend holding a mainly new ICO based crypto portfolio! But as a strong proponent of crypto diversification, I think that investing in a carefully selected ICO or two is very good for a crypto investor, even if it only teaches you what not to do next time!