It's insane that there are so many ICOs out there. I'm struggling to understand where all of the money and hype is coming from. Do all of these ICOs really have merit, or are a lot of outside investors just throwing money at the first blockchain opportunity that comes across their desk?
One thing I've learned recently: Blockchain startups are very good at sounding more important than they are. There are a lot of tokens even in the top 50 that basically make a small update to the original bitcoin code, fork it, and say "Look at us! We're changing the world forever with the power of technology."
IDK... at this point I would be very wary of any new ICOs that aren't backed by real blockchain experience. The market won't reward this much greed forever.
I kinda see three categories into which most fit:
Legit projects with excellent teams, sound ideas, solid foundations & strategies to build them out. i.e. Ethereum, Iota, EOS, the majority of ConsenSys’ ventures.
Well-intentioned projects with average or sub-par teams, aiming to ride the hype wave and bring blockchain to some application with a reasonable-sounding concept, though not enough detailed foresight and planning to see their grand hopes through to fruition and long-term success.
Scams, quick-grabs, all-hype, little-to-no-substance.
The majority will fail. In the end, it’ll likely be a good thing as the shit will get squeezed out and bar raised. In the meantime, yeah, there are a lot of ill-informed investors just throwing money in trying to cash in on the trend without understanding the fundamentals.