BitStarz Hot ICOs of 2018 – Where are they Now (Part 2)?

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ICOs generally had a bad time in 2018, but with the resurgence in the crypto markets this year we decided to look at our picks for the hottest ICOs of 2018 and how they’re faring 12 months later. If you haven’t read part 1 of this 3-part series you can find that right here, and part 3 will be coming next week. In the meantime, Strap yourself in for part 2 – it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

Atonomi (ATMI)

  • Project summary: An ecosystem that will facilitate secure interactions and commerce between devices on the IoT network
  • ICO raise: $25 million
  • ICO token cost: $0.05
  • Current market cap: $153,000
  • Current token value: $0.003 (-99.4%)

Atonomi was one of crypto-Twitter’s most hyped projects last year, which has made its fall from grace even more spectacular. The ICO proved to be the project’s high point, with everything since the oversubscribed $25 million token sale being only bad news – the token price crashed on launch, leaving ICO investors facing an immediate loss; the team was forced to sell huge amounts of ETH to pay for overheads, assisting in crashing the market; and in April this year they were hit with a charge of selling unlicensed securities because of the way they handled (or mishandled) the ICO. The case, which could see them forced to refund the $25 million to investors, it ongoing, and has seen the token price fall further to $0.003, representing a 99.4% loss. An example of terrible project management if ever there was one.

QuarkChain (QKC)

  • Project summary: Sharding-based protocol that provides a high-capacity peer-to- peer transactional system
  • ICO raise: $20 million
  • ICO token Cost: $0.0237
  • Current market cap: $21.7 million
  • Current token value: $0.01 (-57.8%)

QuarkChain has been one of those projects that has spent the bear market quietly developing their product and not making noise for noise’s sake. The mainnet was launched at the end of July which is a big moment for any project, and while it doesn’t seem to have a huge following this doesn’t seem to be because they are doing anything wrong – the team are racking up the GitHub commits, offering regular updates to the community, and just last week announced an injection of $200 million from Chinese VC form Unicom Innovation. This shows that, while they may not be making headlines all over social media, they are certainly doing something right. One to keep an eye on.

Lightstreams (PHT)

  • Project summary: Decentralized storage on the blockchain
  • ICO raise: $5 million
  • ICO token Cost: $0.15
  • Current market cap: $353,585
  • Current token value: $0.0075 (-95%)

Lightstreams were hit particularly hard by the bear market, so much so that they had to delay the public token sale from September 2018 to June this year. They were still able to use the $4.7 million raised at seed level in 2018 to create an MVP to take through to ICO stage however, where they raised another $5 million. However, given that they were hoping to raise a combined $40 million from both investment rounds, this could be a sign that enthusiasm for the project is waning. Despite this they managed to launch the mainnet in April and get listed on a small exchange, Coinall, in July, although not much can be expected of the token price at this stage. The team’s communications and GitHub commits show that they are still very much active and working on the project, meaning that the delays are hopefully just that and the team can reclaim the lost time and get the product moving.


Thanks for reading Part 2 of our BitStarz Hot ICOs of 2018 revisited. Look out for part 3 next week!

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