The Crypto Issue

How’s That ICO Working Out?

Breaking down the biggest ICOs from the past few years.

Illustration: Louisa Gagliardi for Bloomberg Businessweek

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By Olga Kharif

December 14, 2018 at 10:00 AM UTC

This article is for subscribers only.

This article is part of the December 17, 2018 issue of businessweek.

Hdac Technology AG is a new, mostly unknown company, with no commercial products to speak of and no paying customers. But earlier this year, the Swiss startup joined Adidas, Nike, PepsiCo, and other global giants as an advertiser during broadcasts of the 2018 FIFA World Cup.

This followed a frenzy of excitement over initial coin offerings, or ICOs. Startups created and then sold their own digital tokens, raising $6.58 billion in 2017, according to CoinSchedule Ltd., which analyzes the category. Investors in Hdac bought tokens, which the company said could be used in its product in the future, hoping for the kind of huge returns Bitcoin delivered to those who got in early. In 2017 some 6,200 individual investors paid 16,786 Bitcoins for the company’s tokens, worth more than $300 million at Bitcoin’s peak price that December. Hdac’s was the richest ICO of 2017, according to CoinSchedule’s data.