BitMEX releases blockbuster report: tracks ICO project token flows
At noon on April 10th,BitMEX Officials released a third survey report on icos. The first two reports described the relationships of ICO team members and tracked ethereum balances in ICO asset accounts.
The third report focuses on the digital balance of ICO tokens themselves on ethereum's network.
Report team control digital assets held by the value at the launch of the bond at an astonishing $24.2 billion (but actually, the liquidity is too low, can't really achieve this value), that number has fallen to about $5 billion today, difference is mainly due to the tokens, a fall in the value of the market value of cluster and $1.5 billion tokens from team address turned out (may) for the treatment.
(source: BitMEX research)
Team controlled token assets (own tokens) - aggregate data
(note: price data as of January 2019, token data as of December 2018, based on 108 tokens)
As can be seen in the figure, out of the total $2.42 billion in wallet disbursements controlled by the team, they lost $1.2 billion, or nearly 54% of their value, due to the drop in token prices. At its peak, at the unit price of tokens, the value of the team's own currency was more than $80bn. In other words, the value of the team's holdings now. Loss & quot; More than $70 billion. Of course, due to poor liquidity, the peak value is not stable and the spontaneous tokens in the hands of the team are issued at zero cost. Said tolossThere are some overstatements. But the data still make sense.
According to the data, the team still has about $5 billion in zero-cost tokens based on unrealizable spot prices. At the same time, based on the transfer of some tokens from the team address cluster, the team may have realized $1.5 billion in revenue from selling tokens.
Although this number may also be overestimated, since tokens can be transferred from the team address cluster for a number of reasons.
Data hints and shortcomings of calculation methods
Due to the low liquidity of tokens, the variable value and the challenges and uncertainties involved in generating the dataset revolve around the process of assigning tokens to the team address cluster.
BitMEXThe analysis is based on the review of smart contract data and trading patterns, rather than the documents and policies of individual projects. Therefore, we may include tokens as part of the team balance, but they are actually held in other forms of reserves, escrow, or part of other categories, in which case it would be inaccurate to attribute tokens to the team's own funds.
This data assumes that the issue date is the same as the date the first price appeared on Coinmarketcap, which may not be reliable.
Summary data
Token value (own token) sent to the address cluster controlled by the team - $million - top 10
(note: token data as of December 2018, based on the price at the time of issue)
Loss of value of team controlled assets (own tokens) - $million - top 10
(note: price data as of January 2019, token data as of December 2018)
Percentage of token value (owned tokens) lost in a team-controlled address cluster - top 10
(note: price data as of January 2019, token data as of December 2018. Huobi and Qash are exchanges where token displays have been sent to their respective platforms. The above figure may represent a sale/" cash out ", but there may be other reasons for the transfer)
Current value of tokens in the address cluster controlled by the team - $million - top 10
(note: price data as of January 2019, token data as of December 2018)
Raw data - team owned tokens - million dollars
Note: price data as of January 2019, token data as of December 2018)
Conclusions and summary data
This analysis highlights the lack of standards and transparency in the ICO market, especially when allocating tokens to the founding team's wallet. Teams can often mint, destroy, buy and sell tokens at will, and analysts cannot easily track what is happening. We often see tokens in exchange clusters, and it is difficult to tell whether a token project is "paying" an exchange for a listing, or whether the project is simply transferring its digital token assets to the exchange to cash out.
To be fair, perhaps we could spend more time reading specific documents for each project and communicating with the relevant teams to improve the analysis. This can lead to more reliable data sets.
One of the things that many people often overlook about icos is that there are two ways that ICO teams typically make money from an offering:
Selling newly issued tokens (usually in exchange for ether)
Issue their own tokens.
Our October 2018 report focuses on the former, while this report focuses on the latter. The summary table below synthesizes the figures from our two reports.
(note: ethereum price data as of October 2018, and own token price data as of January 2019)
As we have repeatedly stated, it appears that the ICO team made nearly $13 billion from ICO programs based on our algorithm, despite many inaccuracies and assumptions when generating the data. We believe the money is incredibly easy to come by, requires very little work and has very little credibility or transparency. So icos have proved to be an attractive way for project founders to raise money. For investors, of course, the results are less appealing.
Now, the ICO cycle seems to be dying in part, and raising money is much harder than it was at the end of 2017. But with so much money made and lost, the events of 2017 and early 2018 are unlikely to be quickly forgotten. Entrepreneurs are obsessed with success (and continue to struggle to raise money), while investors will feel the pain. So the chances of repeating the cycle in a few years are much lower than most people think.
Sources: BitMEX research, TokenAnalyst, ethereum blockchain, Coinmarketcap (token price information)
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