The key to a winning ICO
We studied 100 initial coin offerings to find the secret for success
Published in
2 min readMar 23, 2018
Executive summary
We looked at 100 successful ICOs from the last six months to determine what is needed to raise considerable funds with this popular form of crowdfunding. We gathered data on 23 different variables spanning several industries. Read on to learn what we found.
What does the online communication for a successful ICO look like?
- Snappy and memorable: The length of the domain name is seven characters.
- Radiates trust and experience: There’s a median of 10 team members and five advisers presented on the website.
- Has a wide social reach: The median number of followers is 4,203 for Twitter, 5,471 for Facebook and 2,982 for Telegram.
- Mentions across the web: The median number of backlinks is 6,510.
- Shares a lot about itself: The sites are large with decent load time. The median site size is less than 3.5 MB and loads under six seconds from anywhere in the world.
What are the key indicators for success?
- Advisors: The number of advisers presented on a website strongly correlates with money raised.
- Telegram: Out of all the social channels, the number of Telegram followers strongly correlates with money raised.
- Traffic: Paid and organic traffic correlates very strongly with money raised.
Finally, the big question. How much?
- $9,275,000: The median amount of contributions for a successful ICO.
- Accepts mostly ETH: Ethereum and bitcoin remain the most prominent forms of contribution, while altcoins and fiat lag behind.
