ICO collection falls 25% during April and private sales gain ground

During the month of April the total amount raised through initial offers of currency (ICOs) was located at 548 million dollars, according to calculations of Token Data, which represents a fall of 25% with respect to the level of collection of March .

According to Token Data, this amount was collected by some 48 ICOs and represents a setback of almost 70% with respect to the maximum collection peak that was experienced last January.

During the year so far, about 8,000 million dollars have been collected in ICOs, despite the fact that the collection levels during this year have had a downward trend and have been collected much more than during the past year, since in 2017 the The amount of total collection of ICOs was 5,600 million dollars.

There are two important observations made by Token Data in this sense, first explain that 7 out of 10 ICOs that ended in April did not publish data on the successful completion of this sale or simply disappeared from the Internet without a trace, these ICOs are considered as failed.

Secondly, they explain that even for ICOs that do publish data, there is a growing tendency to disclose increasingly vague and inaccurate information, without reporting, for example, the amount of funds collected or the direction of their smart contracts.

It is important to note that while the rate of collection in ICOs has been falling recently, the number of private pre-sales rounds that use the SAFT model (Simple Agreement for Future Tokens) has been rising, in this only private investors can participate.

It is possible that both the deceleration in collection and the popularization of the SAFT model are related to the growing regulatory pressure that exists against ICOs. Advertising related to ICOs and cryptocurrencies has been banned in more and more jurisdictions. On the Internet, social networks such as Snapchat, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram and online search engines of the caliber of Google, have been some of the platforms that have eliminated this type of advertising, which has certainly influenced the dissemination of information related to this collection model.

In turn, the regulatory uncertainty that exists about the possibility of regulating the tokens issued in ICOs as securities or as another type of asset may be discouraging many projects, at the same time the SAFT model becomes attractive, since it applies for an exemption for part of the Securities and Exchange Commission of the United States (SEC). The latest example of the latter is Telegram, which has decided not to open its ICO for sale to the general public and to keep the funds raised from accredited investors.