The ICO market in 2017 raised more than 3.5 billion dollars, and much has been written about the problems caused by this market which is as rampant as it is unsupervised.

In an alarming report, Diar, a weekly publication that analyses the digital coin industry, reveals that the market is even more vulnerable than had been previously thought.

The report highlights that the billions of dollars raised by the ICO market in 2017 is not equally split; the majority of the money was raised by a relatively small number of large projects. Over 1.5 billion dollars were raised by 17 projects alone, and 40 percent of the total can be attributed to no more than twenty.

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This isn't reassuring news in a market beset with problems. Regulatory authorities worldwide are struggling with how to define and tax ICO projects, while security continues to be a major issue - one study found that almost 300 million dollars had been stolen from more than 60,000 people in 2017.

The most pressing issue stemming from the lack of supervision is the fact that projects are not obligated to follow up on the promises of their whitepapers, meaning that many ICOs are either unfeasible/unnecessary, or outright scams (a couple of examples: Confideo raised 374,000 dollars only for its organisers to disappear with the money, and two Seele employees stole 2 million dollars from investors).

169 new projects were launched in October 2017 alone - more than five every day - and reading a project's  Whitepaper  Whitepaper A whitepaper is defined as a pitch or persuasive, authoritative, and often in-depth report on a specific topic that presents a problem along with a respective solution. Marketers rely on whitepapers for a variety of reasons, most simply to educate an audience about a particular issue or to promote a particular methodology. In the cryptocurrency world, a whitepaper is a document that should contain all of the information about the technology that was used to build a cryptocurrency network, and how the network will be used, and for what purpose. Some whitepapers may also contain information about the business plan behind the cryptocurrencies and the organization that created it. Whitepapers as a Component of ICOsToday associated almost exclusively with Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs), these documents actually seek to provide a roadmap for a business plan for the company. This can include information for potential investors about specific product, structure, mission, benefits, team, roadmap, future plans, etc. These documents proved essential to the rise of ICOs.Whitepapers today receive a generally negative connotation for this reason, given the amount of speculative and ultimately unsuccessful ICOs promoted via whitepapers.A troubling number of whitepapers severely lacked vital or in many cases accurate information. This proved one of the foundational elements of the ICO craze which consequently reached its apex in 2017.Most whitepapers delved into specific details for investors in ways that normal marketing channels could not readily transmit.In this sense, whitepapers were very effective in providing detailed information on products, security protocols, methodology, target users, and team members. Despite the propensity for scams or high failure rate, there have been several successful ICOs. This includes Ethereum, NEO, Spectrecoin, and others. A whitepaper is defined as a pitch or persuasive, authoritative, and often in-depth report on a specific topic that presents a problem along with a respective solution. Marketers rely on whitepapers for a variety of reasons, most simply to educate an audience about a particular issue or to promote a particular methodology. In the cryptocurrency world, a whitepaper is a document that should contain all of the information about the technology that was used to build a cryptocurrency network, and how the network will be used, and for what purpose. Some whitepapers may also contain information about the business plan behind the cryptocurrencies and the organization that created it. Whitepapers as a Component of ICOsToday associated almost exclusively with Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs), these documents actually seek to provide a roadmap for a business plan for the company. This can include information for potential investors about specific product, structure, mission, benefits, team, roadmap, future plans, etc. These documents proved essential to the rise of ICOs.Whitepapers today receive a generally negative connotation for this reason, given the amount of speculative and ultimately unsuccessful ICOs promoted via whitepapers.A troubling number of whitepapers severely lacked vital or in many cases accurate information. This proved one of the foundational elements of the ICO craze which consequently reached its apex in 2017.Most whitepapers delved into specific details for investors in ways that normal marketing channels could not readily transmit.In this sense, whitepapers were very effective in providing detailed information on products, security protocols, methodology, target users, and team members. Despite the propensity for scams or high failure rate, there have been several successful ICOs. This includes Ethereum, NEO, Spectrecoin, and others. Read this Term often leaves one befuddled by the techno-babble, wondering if there is really anything material behind it, and more importantly, how it is possible that so many people are blindly pouring money into projects that it may not even be possible to understand ("powered by an up-scalable Neural Consensus protocol for high throughput concurrency among large scale heterogeneous nodes" anyone?).

Diar found that after reaching out to ten of the twenty big projects, only two replied, and only one responded to follow-up questions (Bancor, ICO 153 million dollars, was the only one that continued communication).

The ICOs that Diar reached out to were listed as:

Filecoin (ICO raised 257 million dollars);

Tezos (232 million dollars);

EOS (197 million dollars);

Bancor (153 million dollars);

QASH (106 million dollars);

Kin (98 million dollars);

Comsa (95 million dollars);

TenX (80 million dollars);

TRON (70 million dollars); and

SALT (48 million dollars).

Filecoin, which actually had to suspend its ICO because too much money had been pouring in, hasn't been heard from since the 1st of January. Tezos has been mired in court proceedings for months, and the EOS whitepaper opens with a disclaimer that the creator “does not guarantee the accuracy of or the conclusions reached in this white paper” and that it will “have no liability for damages of any kind arising out of the use, reference to, or reliance on this white paper or any of the content contained herein”. This didn't prevent Bitfinex, the largest cryptocurrency  Exchange   Exchange An exchange is known as a marketplace that supports the trading of derivatives, commodities, securities, and other financial instruments.Generally, an exchange is accessible through a digital platform or sometimes at a tangible address where investors organize to perform trading. Among the chief responsibilities of an exchange would be to uphold honest and fair-trading practices. These are instrumental in making sure that the distribution of supported security rates on that exchange are effectively relevant with real-time pricing.Depending upon where you reside, an exchange may be referred to as a bourse or a share exchange while, as a whole, exchanges are present within the majority of countries. Who is Listed on an Exchange?As trading continues to transition more to electronic exchanges, transactions become more dispersed through varying exchanges. This in turn has caused a surge in the implementation of trading algorithms and high-frequency trading applications. In order for a company to be listed on a stock exchange for example, a company must divulge information such as minimum capital requirements, audited earnings reports, and financial reports.Not all exchanges are created equally, with some outperforming other exchanges significantly. The most high-profile exchanges to date include the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE), the London Stock Exchange (LSE), and the Nasdaq. Outside of trading, a stock exchange may be used by companies aiming to raise capital, this is most commonly seen in the form of initial public offerings (IPOs).Exchanges can now handle other asset classes, given the rise of cryptocurrencies as a more popularized form of trading. An exchange is known as a marketplace that supports the trading of derivatives, commodities, securities, and other financial instruments.Generally, an exchange is accessible through a digital platform or sometimes at a tangible address where investors organize to perform trading. Among the chief responsibilities of an exchange would be to uphold honest and fair-trading practices. These are instrumental in making sure that the distribution of supported security rates on that exchange are effectively relevant with real-time pricing.Depending upon where you reside, an exchange may be referred to as a bourse or a share exchange while, as a whole, exchanges are present within the majority of countries. Who is Listed on an Exchange?As trading continues to transition more to electronic exchanges, transactions become more dispersed through varying exchanges. This in turn has caused a surge in the implementation of trading algorithms and high-frequency trading applications. In order for a company to be listed on a stock exchange for example, a company must divulge information such as minimum capital requirements, audited earnings reports, and financial reports.Not all exchanges are created equally, with some outperforming other exchanges significantly. The most high-profile exchanges to date include the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE), the London Stock Exchange (LSE), and the Nasdaq. Outside of trading, a stock exchange may be used by companies aiming to raise capital, this is most commonly seen in the form of initial public offerings (IPOs).Exchanges can now handle other asset classes, given the rise of cryptocurrencies as a more popularized form of trading. Read this Term in the world by trading volume, from partnering with it to create a new exchange.

The cryptocurrency market is notoriously fickle, and as Diar correctly points out, one of the big twenty projects failing could have a major effect on the others, and by extension the entire market. The fact that almost none of the major ICOs listed responded to communications is not exactly reassuring.