Cryptocurrency ICOs are incredibly popular this year. Projects raise millions of dollars, often without a working line of code or a prototype to show off to the world. Despite this lack of evidence, teams continue to raise enormous sums of money. Below are the six cryptocurrency ICOs which raised the most money during the first half of 2017. Whether any of these projects can succeed remains to be seen.
6. MobileGo
The MobileGo project is quite interesting. With over two years of development, MobileGo is one of the few projects with something to show for it before their ICO even began. It is a crypto-centric mobile gambling platform as well as an app store for in-game purchases. Hundreds of mobile games are already available on the platform. MobileGo comes in the form of either Ethereum-based or Waves-based tokens. During its ICO, the company raised $53.3 million, a substantial amount.
5. TenX
Spending cryptocurrency remains a major challenge for novice users these days. There simply are not enough retailers willing to accept Bitcoin payments right now. This is where TenX is trying to make a name for itself by providing a cryptocurrency and digital asset debit card to customers. Their COMIT protocol allows every blockchain in the world to connect to TenX and make its native token or currency spendable. For now, the platform supports Bitcoin, Ethereum, ERC20 tokens, and Dash. TenX raised an impressive $80 million during its recent ICO.
4. Status
We have written about the Status project several times on this website. This mobile interface to access the Ethereum ecosystem combines a browser, messenger, payment solution, and marketplace all in one decentralized offering. The platform is also designed to serve as a convenient gateway to the many Dapps in development. Unfortunately, the Status ICO was also responsible for partially crippling the Ethereum blockchain, and it raised $95 million in the process.
3. BANCOR
Perhaps one of the most ambitious projects to launch this year is BANCOR. This new protocol aims to become the industry standard for smart tokens. Smart tokens are often pegged to one or more reserve currencies, allowing anyone in the world to buy or sell smart tokens in exchange for one of their own reserve currencies. It is an interesting system, although its chances of succeeding remain unclear. BANCOR raised a stunning $153 million during its cryptocurrency ICO.
2. EOS
Judging by the initial community response to the EOS project, it allegedly has “the worst ICO setup in history.” Without an official cap on the amount of money to be raised, there was a lot of concern regarding this project. The business plan for EOS is rather ambitious as well. Its team seeks to provide the world’s most powerful infrastructure for Dapps, made possible thanks to concepts such as horizontal scaling. This project raised $200 million quickly, making it one of the world’s biggest crowdfunding campaigns to date.
1. Tezos
The Tezos project has gotten a lot of mainstream media attention, yet that should not surprise anyone. This project has been publicly endorsed by Tim Draper, which also made it interesting to cryptocurrency enthusiasts. Tezos is a new decentralized blockchain focusing on establishing a digital commonwealth. When everything was said and done, the project raised a total of $208 million.
