Wealth Manager Canaccord: ICOs Could Become Commonplace

Initial coin offerings (ICOs) could one day come to be seen as similar to initial public offerings (IPOs), according to a new report from financial services firm Canaccord Genuity.

Canaccord's fourth-quarter "Crypto Quarterly," published on Nov. 14, provides a broad overview of the cryptocurrency space, the highest-capitalized coins and the trends expected to shape the ecosystem in the months ahead.

On the subject of token sales – or offers of custom cryptocurrencies used to bootstrap new blockchain networks – the company, which reported more than $54 billion in assets under management earlier this month, said that today's comparatively high-risk environment could become more normalized within the next 20 years.

That is, of course, if the overall cryptocurrency market becomes more ubiquitous and major players from the current financial services sector become involved.

Canaccord's analysts wrote:

"If, over the next [one to two] decades, the coin market evolves to a more mature state such that one day most coins are attached to well-established companies and trade with sufficient liquidity so as to reduce risk, we believe the gap between ICOs and IPOs will look fairly small. We are obviously not there yet, so in our opinion, while ICOs may hold a great deal of promise, they have to be viewed as extremely risky."

Whether that process plays out remains to be seen, but recent data from CoinDesk's ICO Tracker details the interest thus far around the blockchain funding model.

In September, for example, nearly $490 million was raised through ICOs, with the all-time cumulative amount collected coming in at more than $3.3 billion to date.

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