This year has been the breakout year for blockchain-focused startups. With massive gains on the top 100 cryptocurrencies, early investors within the community are re-investing in projects of all kinds.
This year specifically hundreds of blockchain entrepreneurs have set out to disrupt industries of all sizes. From traditional industries like education with AcademyCoin to modern file storage with FileCoin, there are exciting projects launching every month.
These are the top eight largest ICOs of 2017 (so far)
1. Tezos is a new a blockchain that fixes the governance issues that blockchains like bitcoin face. They're bringing a self-governance mechanism built into the protocol and recently launched a $50M fund for developers. The Tezos ICO ended in 14-days and they raised $222 million.
2. Filecoin is pioneering file storage on the blockchain. Despite having technical issues during the ICO, they raised $200 million from US accredited investors in under 60 minutes. Some notable investors include Silicon Valley investors like Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and Union Square Ventures.
3. EOS is building a blockchain specifically for businesses and corporations. It plans to provide blockchain solutions that offer efficiency, security and data integrity. They launched their ICO in June 2017 and raised $183 million.
4. BANCOR is trying to build a decentralized exchange ecosystem that will allow investors to trade peer-to-peer with little risk to the security of their assets. An interesting goal of theirs is to support any token that is issued regardless of the number of users. Backed by amazing investors like Tim Draper they raised $153 million in June 2017.
5. STATUS is essentially going to be the WeChat of the blockchain. They are a browser, wallet, messenger app, and a gateway to dApps (decentralized applications) that built on Ethereum. They took the mobile first approach and the team raised $95 million in June 2017.
6. TENX is building a cryptocurrency debit card and developed a protocol called COMIT that enables every blockchain in the world to connect to TenX. Currently, the platform supports Bitcoin, Ethereum, ERC20 tokens, and Dash. In June they raised $80 million in 7 minutes.
7. MOBILEGO is a mobile gambling platform and app store for in-game purchases. With hundreds of mobile games already available on the platform, they set themselves apart from many “pre-product” ICOs. The MobileGo team raised $53 million during their ICO in April 2017.
8. BRAVE is a browser competing head to head with Google Chrome. Often called the ANTI-CHROME, in many cases, the browser has sped search times up by 7x to 10x. In June they raised $35 million in under 30 seconds from many elite Silicon Valley funds and investors.
Overall, blockchain startups will continue to rapidly change industries in the coming years with the fuel of many high growth cryptocurrencies. As the market capitalization continues to grow, investors will continue to re-invest in ICOs making the crypto-space a powerhouse for exciting innovation.