ICOs have rapidly become the new standard method of raising funds for cryptocurrency startups and enthusiasts. Although not every ICO raises its minimum goal, most projects have had no problem selling all the available tokens quickly. Throughout 2017, we have seen some major cryptocurrency ICO projects raise a lot of money. Below is a brief overview of the most successful ICO projects in terms of funding throughout 2017 so far.
10. MONETHA
Although this project was only launched a short while ago, the amount of money raised surprised a lot of people. Monetha aims to provide a globally trusted commerce solution powered by the Ethereum blockchain to merchants in all industries. By raising US$36.6 million during the crowdsale, the ICO showed that people have high expectations for this project moving forward.
9. AETERNITY
Bringing smart contract technology to the masses will not be easy by any stretch of the imagination. Aeternity aims to do exactly that by making smart contracts interface with real-world data. Whether or not the company will be successful in doing so remains to be seen. However, with US$36.96 million raised during the ICO, there are plenty of reasons to be optimistic about this concept.
8. SONM
The world of supercomputing can benefit from more decentralization. Although SONM is competing against other projects in this industry, it also has a tremendous amount of potential. Its ICO raised US$42 million, which is a modest amount compared to how highly-valued this project can become, given enough time. There is not much hype surrounding SONM, as the team mainly focuses on developing a working ecosystem rather than making empty promises.
7. MOBILEGO
One of the more fascinating projects to date goes by the name of MobileGO. Bringing the world of cryptocurrency and mobile gaming together is quite a major undertaking. However, the project has seen its fair share of successes so far. This also explains how it raised US$53.069 million during its initial crowdsale. It's definitely a project worth keeping an eye on moving forward.
6. TENX
In the world of cryptocurrency-related debit cards, one can never have enough competition. TenX is one of the ICO projects launching in 2017 which aims to make a big impact in this regard. By raising US$64 million during the ICO, there has been a lot of initial interest in this project. However, that amount of money is no guarantee for success whatsoever.
5. STATUS
Many people will recall the Status ICO for the wrong reasons. It's not because the project is bad, as some real progress has been made. Unfortunately, the Status ICO highlighted major scalability issues for the Ethereum network, which got stuck due to the number of people trying to invest. When everything was said and done, Status raised US$90 million rather quickly.
4. BANCOR
The Bancor ICO has received a lot of initial interest due to the involvement of Tim Draper. This project is also one of those ICOs which sold out very quickly, for obvious reasons. Raising US$153 million is not shabby. It will be interesting to see what the team will do with this money, as the expectations of them are incredibly high.
3. EOS
The EOS project has turned a lot of heads even though no one knows for sure if the team can deliver on its promises. There is a lot of interest in the concept, though, which has already translated into successfully raising US$185 million during its ICO. Putting that money to good use will be the number one priority right now.
2. TEZOS
Creating a decentralized blockchain capable of governing itself through a digital commonwealth sounds pretty interesting on paper. Bringing this technology to the masses will be something else entirely, though. Tezos successfully raised US$232.319 million to bring this blockchain to fruition. Whether or not the product will succeed in the end still remains to be determined.
1. FILECOIN
A lot of people were legitimately surprised by the Filecoin ICO, for obvious reasons. This project raised US$257 million out of the blue, even though the concept appears to be solid. A decentralized file storage network will certainly have major implications. Users will also earn Filecoin for hosting files, which is something a lot of enthusiasts will look forward to.