The Biggest Problem for ICOs? In 2018, It Was Their Own Investors

In particular, in markets like China and Korea where cryptocurrencies have gained greater acceptance, retail investors continue to take part in initial investments for blockchain projects through a variety of methods.

In particular, projects that were more confident in their fundraising ability increasingly sought a greater proportion of investment from institutional investors or dedicated crypto VCs instead of through public sales.

There is a large gap between the role that many projects had hoped individual investors would play during the ICO, and the reality that they have been faced with afterwards.

Individual investors in blockchain projects ultimately failed to provide much help to the projects in many cases.

In addition to this, few of the individual investors who took part in ICOs for blockchain projects actually used the tokens they received for the intended purpose once the dapp or platform was released.

From the perspective of project teams, it seems more efficient to manage a small number of professional investors rather than have to communicate and provide explanations to a community of individual investors who constantly ask about the price and listing on exchanges, especially during the launch stage when the team is naturally spending most of its energy on development.

In many cases, institutional investors have provided practical assistance to help grow the project by playing an advisory role to entrepreneurs or recruiting team members during the early stages.

These investors can provide support in a number of ways, including building local communities in key locations, hosting hackathons to connect developers to the project, or acting as a liaison with major media channels.

Because there is a longer lock-up period in private rounds than in public rounds, institutional investors have no choice but to believe in the mid-to-long-term growth of the project and offer assistance where they can.

Even if initial investors are given bonuses as a reward for financial contributions, the calculation and payment of the bonus could take place at a later date once it has been proved that the individual has reached a certain level of use on the project's sapp or made a contribution to PR activities though a method defined by the protocol.