According to analyst firm Xangle, a third of US retail investors who take part in initial token offerings (ICOs) consider themselves cheated.
Xangle conducted a survey among 600 users who participated in the ICO between 2017 and October 2020. Judging by this period, Xangle specialists did not limit themselves to investors who were covered by the ICO boom. Only 22% of the respondents invested in ICOs in 2017, while in 2018 35% of investors were interested in initial offerings of tokens, 26% of investors first entered this industry in 2019 and 9% in 2020.
46.7% of respondents invested small amounts – less than $ 1000, 29.2% of users invested in cryptocurrency startups from $ 1001 to $ 10,000, and about 8% invested in projects from $ 10,001 to $ 20,000.45.7% of investors said that their decision to take part in the ICO influenced by friends, family or colleagues who told them about the projects. The rest of the investors received information from the media, forums and social networks.
About 55% of survey participants invested in ICOs hoping to get a profit from their investments, 23% believed in the idea of the project and were interested in its concept, and 17% wanted to learn more about the technology on which digital currencies operate. 56% of investors plan to participate in the ICO again, but will study the proposals more seriously, since they previously failed to conduct a thorough analysis of the projects. 33% of people believe that ICO organizers deliberately deceive users or hide important information from them. 17% responded that they did not have sufficient knowledge to assess if these projects were fraudulent. Therefore, more than half of the investors surveyed believe that the organizers of fraudulent ICOs should be held criminally liable.
In addition, the survey participants were asked the question: “What is holding back the development of the cryptocurrency industry?” 27.5% of investors answered that regulatory oversight impedes its development. 23.7% pointed to a lack of awareness of the population about cryptocurrencies and the principles of their work, and 14.5% of users named incomplete disclosure of information about cryptocurrency projects during ICO.
Recall that since the beginning of 2020, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has collected more than $ 4.68 billion in fines and confiscated illegal proceeds. Of these, $ 1.26 billion was paid by the organizers of unregistered ICOs.
