Key Takeaways
- Token sales have shown a strong rally over the years, hitting thousands of ROI for investors.
- Despite 46% of token sales in 2017 never surviving, many crypto tokens have gone on to produce incredible returns.
- Ethereum, NEO, IOTA, ADA, BNB, and others have produced wild ROI returns for investors from token sales.
The crypto space has witnessed many narratives in the last few years, from DeFi, NFTs, and memecoins to AI tokens, with new crypto narratives generating much buzz in the market. Despite such a trend, the ICO (Initial Coin Offerings) has dominated the cryptocurrency space since 2017 as crypto investors and traders continue to look for high-potential altcoins with exponential prospects.
Token sales or ICOs since 2017-2018 have been great successes for many crypto projects. This has helped many build strong communities, raise funds for crypto growth and expansion, and gain good entry points for traders and investors.
Although ICOS or token sales have provided a strong entry point for investors, many crowdfunded crypto projects never made it out, leading to huge losses for investors. Others struggled because their team members lacked experience.
Let us discuss the top 10 token sales in crypto history with a high success rate, setting a precedent for other upcoming crypto projects participating in token sales.
Top 10 Token Sales in Crypto History
The year 2017 marked a significant year for the crypto community, with many crypto assets making a grand entrance through token sales, generating quite a buzz for the community. Over 46% of initiated token sales never made it to the mainstream digital assets crashed. Although these numbers remain worrying, the other part that made it a great success remains the benchmark of many altcoins today. Let us discuss them.
1. NXT – ROI: 128,571x
NXT was launched in 2013 as one of the oldest blockchains in the crypto space, with its token sale announcement on the BitcoinTalk forum. NXT was described as the next Bitcoin to solve the many architectural designs faced by BTC, allowing it to be more scalable and eco-friendly.
Despite gaining a significant price rally from its token sale, this crypto token has struggled to challenge many other crypto projects as the market continues to evolve with new trends.
2. Ethereum – ROI: 14,026x
Since its token sale, the price of Ethereum has rallied astronomically in the last few years as an open-source project, leading to the emergence of new crypto narratives such as DeFi and other crypto assets.
Although Ethereum has struggled with scalability and congestion over the years, the emergence of Solana and other layer-1 and layer-2 projects building on the Ethereum network has produced a strong community in the crypto space while leveraging Ethereum’s security.
3. IOTA – ROI: 13,110x
IOTA was derived from the Internet of Things (IoT), allowing technology to build a future of blockchain technologies in which many things, such as applications, automated services, and even cars, can interoperate and communicate with one another.
With the help of a unique technology, Tangle, IOTA technology allows transactions to be performed at reduced cost and high speed, allowing for better scalability. This technology has led to price rallies of over 13,100x in the past few years since its token sale.
4. Binance Coin – ROI: 4,600x
Binance coin (BNB) is an exchange-based token that has gained much dominance since it migrated to the Binance Smart Chain network, allowing for better scalability as its price has gone parabolic, hitting over 4,600x in the last few years.
Binance coin has contributed to the growing DeFi ecosystem due to its cheap and fast transactions, becoming one of the top 10 crypto assets by market capitalization. This crypto asset has more upside potential.
5. NEO – ROI: 6,100x
NEO is a Chinese open-source blockchain project that was known as Antshares. It has gained much attention due to its technology, which was referred to as China Ethereum back then. NEO’s technology incorporates decentralized commerce, digital assets, and identification into its architecture.
NEO sold over 17.5 million tokens in its token sale, raising over half a million for its project. Later in the year, the team also raised $4.5 million by selling 22.5 million tokens. During the bull market of 2018, the price of NEO rallied to $30, raising over 600,000x for investors.
6. Alias – ROI: 6,700x
Alias, previously known as Spectrecoin, focused on blockchain privacy. It debuted in November 2016, with its native token transferred and received globally with complete anonymity. Despite being a strong crypto project with a unique architecture, Alias failed to make it mainstream.
During its token sale, which lasted from November 2016 to January 2017, Alias saw over 19 million tokens sold out, raising over $15,000, leading to a price drop at some point. However, it saw a significant rally in the bull run of 2017, with investors seeing over 670,000%, but later crashed to 180x for investors.
7. Cardano – ROI: 1,020x
Cardano (ADA) has remained a revolutionary project in the crypto space that has survived several bear cycles. Charles Hoskinson, a former Ethereum team member, is firmly behind this project as its founder. It aims to solve the functionality and scalability issues faced by BTC.
Similar to other top crypto founders, the Cardano team has gained the trust of the crypto space over the years. In late 2017, after its token sale, Cardano experienced a massive price rally three months later, from a price of $0.0024 to a high of $1.2, which is quite impressive for investors.
In the bull market of 2021, the price of Cardano increased by over 54,000%, hitting a key ROI value of over 1,000x for its early adopters.
8. Ark – ROI: 1,000x
Ark is a blockchain infrastructure that captured the hearts of traders and investors in 2017 due to its design and use case. It allows users to deploy blockchain structures with just a push of a button, creating a seamless user experience. Its token sales, around $0.01, saw much traction as the price of Ark rallied to $9.99, hitting 100,000% for a crypto token in 2017.
9. Stratis – ROI: 3,200x
Stratis has existed for some time now, attracting influential institutions in the tech space, but has struggled over the years despite a successful token sale in 2016, when the price of Stratis rallied to a high of $22 in the bull market in 2017. Over the years, the price of Stratis has struggled to show strong price action to the upside.
10. Lisk – ROI: 517x
Lisk was an innovative project in 2016, giving developers much liberty as the first modular blockchain-based platform hosting its native token, LSK, and offering different sidechains, enabling developers to tap into the infrastructure of different mainchains.
Following a successful token sale, the price of LSK rallied to $39 from a region of $0.0072 but has struggled to replicate such price action for investors as the price crashed to low points, unable to rally high above double-digits.
Conclusion
Crypto investors who have invested in cutting-edge technology with real use cases have realized huge returns on investment. These tokens have survived over the years despite the severe crypto bearish market.
