IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/chf/rpseri/rp1937.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

ICO Investors

Author

Listed:
  • Rüdiger Fahlenbrach

    (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne; Swiss Finance Institute)

  • Marc Frattaroli

    (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne; Swiss Finance Institute)

Abstract

We conduct a detailed analysis of investors in successful initial coin offerings (ICOs). The average ICO has 4,700 contributors. The median participant contributes small amounts and many investors sell their tokens before the underlying product is developed. Large presale investors obtain tokens at a discount and flip part of their allocation shortly after the ICO. ICO contributors lack the protections traditionally afforded to investors in early stage financing. Nevertheless, returns nine months after the ICO are positive on average, driven mostly by an increase in the value of the Ethereum cryptocurrency.

Suggested Citation

  • Rüdiger Fahlenbrach & Marc Frattaroli, 2019. "ICO Investors," Swiss Finance Institute Research Paper Series 19-37, Swiss Finance Institute.
    • Handle: RePEc:chf:rpseri:rp1937
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3419944
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Paul P Momtaz, 2020. "Initial Coin Offerings," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(5), pages 1-30, May.
    2. William N. Goetzmann & Alok Kumar, 2008. "Equity Portfolio Diversification," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 12(3), pages 433-463.
    3. Hellmann, Thomas & Schure, Paul & Vo, Dan H., 2021. "Angels and venture capitalists: Substitutes or complements?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(2), pages 454-478.
    4. Steven N. Kaplan & Per Strömberg, 2003. "Financial Contracting Theory Meets the Real World: An Empirical Analysis of Venture Capital Contracts," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 70(2), pages 281-315.
    5. G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), 2013. "Handbook of the Economics of Finance," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, Elsevier, volume 2, number 2-b.
    6. Mollick, Ethan, 2014. "The dynamics of crowdfunding: An exploratory study," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 1-16.
    7. G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), 2013. "Handbook of the Economics of Finance," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, Elsevier, volume 2, number 2-a.
    8. Owen A. Lamont & Richard H. Thaler, 2003. "Can the Market Add and Subtract? Mispricing in Tech Stock Carve-outs," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 111(2), pages 227-268, April.
    9. Michael Sockin & Wei Xiong, 2020. "A Model of Cryptocurrencies," NBER Working Papers 26816, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Alon Brav & Paul A. Gompers, 2003. "The Role of Lockups in Initial Public Offerings," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 16(1), pages 1-29.
    11. Eli Ofek & Matthew Richardson, 2003. "DotCom Mania: The Rise and Fall of Internet Stock Prices," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(3), pages 1113-1137, June.
    12. Gandal, Neil & Hamrick, JT & Moore, Tyler & Oberman, Tali, 2018. "Price manipulation in the Bitcoin ecosystem," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 86-96.
    13. Alok Kumar, 2009. "Who Gambles in the Stock Market?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(4), pages 1889-1933, August.
    14. Xiaohui Gao & Tse-Chun Lin, 2015. "Do Individual Investors Treat Trading as a Fun and Exciting Gambling Activity? Evidence from Repeated Natural Experiments," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 28(7), pages 2128-2166.
    15. Eli Ofek & Matthew Richardson, 2003. "DotCom Mania: The Rise and Fall of Internet Stock Prices," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(3), pages 1113-1138, June.
    16. Laura Casares Field & Gordon Hanka, 2001. "The Expiration of IPO Share Lockups," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(2), pages 471-500, April.
    17. Adhami, Saman & Giudici, Giancarlo & Martinazzi, Stefano, 2018. "Why do businesses go crypto? An empirical analysis of initial coin offerings," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 64-75.
    18. Fisch, Christian, 2019. "Initial coin offerings (ICOs) to finance new ventures," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 1-22.
    19. Michael J. Cooper & Orlin Dimitrov & P. Raghavendra Rau, 2001. "A Rose.com by Any Other Name," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(6), pages 2371-2388, December.
    20. William Greene, 2004. "Fixed Effects and Bias Due to the Incidental Parameters Problem in the Tobit Model," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(2), pages 125-147.
    21. Brad M. Barber & Terrance Odean, 2000. "Trading Is Hazardous to Your Wealth: The Common Stock Investment Performance of Individual Investors," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(2), pages 773-806, April.
    22. Lin William Cong & Ye Li & Neng Wang, 2021. "Tokenomics: Dynamic Adoption and Valuation [The demand of liquid assets with uncertain lumpy expenditures]," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 34(3), pages 1105-1155.
    23. John M. Griffin & Jeffrey H. Harris & Tao Shu & Selim Topaloglu, 2011. "Who Drove and Burst the Tech Bubble?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 66(4), pages 1251-1290, August.
    24. Laurie Krigman & Wayne H. Shaw & Kent L. Womack, 1999. "The Persistence of IPO Mispricing and the Predictive Power of Flipping," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(3), pages 1015-1044, June.
    25. Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W, 1997. "The Limits of Arbitrage," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 35-55, March.
    26. Christian Catalini & Joshua S. Gans, 2018. "Initial Coin Offerings and the Value of Crypto Tokens," NBER Working Papers 24418, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    27. Barber, Brad M. & Odean, Terrance, 2013. "The Behavior of Individual Investors," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1533-1570, Elsevier.
    28. Brad M. Barber & Yi-Tsung Lee & Yu-Jane Liu & Terrance Odean, 2009. "Just How Much Do Individual Investors Lose by Trading?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(2), pages 609-632, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Tsai, Chia-Fen & Chang, Jung-Hsien & Tsai, Feng-Tse, 2021. "Lottery preferences and retail short selling," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    2. ÅžimÅŸek, Alp, 2021. "The Macroeconomics of Financial Speculation," CEPR Discussion Papers 15733, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Harrison Hong & José Scheinkman & Wei Xiong, 2006. "Asset Float and Speculative Bubbles," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(3), pages 1073-1117, June.
    4. Wei Xiong, 2013. "Bubbles, Crises, and Heterogeneous Beliefs," NBER Working Papers 18905, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Harrison Hong & Jose Scheinkman & Wei Xiong, 2005. "Asset Float and Speculative Bubbles," Levine's Bibliography 122247000000000861, UCLA Department of Economics.
    6. Bellofatto, Anthony & Broihanne, Marie-Hélène & D'Hondt, Catherine, 2019. "Appetite for information and trading behavior," LIDAM Discussion Papers LFIN 2019002, Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain Finance (LFIN).
    7. Peress, Joel & Schmidt, Daniel, 2021. "Noise traders incarnate: Describing a realistic noise trading process," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    8. Tanya Gulati & S. K. Bose & Supriyo Roy, 2017. "Short selling restrictions in 2005–2009 in Indian market and underpricing of initial public offerings," Journal of Economics and Finance, Springer;Academy of Economics and Finance, vol. 41(1), pages 116-135, January.
    9. Anton Miglo, 2022. "Choice between IEO and ICO: Speed vs. Liquidity vs. Risk," FinTech, MDPI, vol. 1(3), pages 1-18, September.
    10. Utz Weitzel & Christoph Huber & Jürgen Huber & Michael Kirchler & Florian Lindner & Julia Rose & Lauren Cohen, 2020. "Bubbles and Financial Professionals," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 33(6), pages 2659-2696.
    11. Sarantis Tsiaplias & Qi Zeng & Guay Lim, 2021. "Retail investor expectations and trading preferences," Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series wp2021n27, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne.
    12. Ravi Dhar & William Goetzmann, 2005. "Bubble Investors: What Were They Thinking?," Yale School of Management Working Papers ysm446, Yale School of Management, revised 01 Aug 2006.
    13. Merkle, Christoph, 2017. "Financial overconfidence over time: Foresight, hindsight, and insight of investors," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 68-87.
    14. Michael M. Moedl, 2021. "Two’s a company, three’s a crowd: Deal breaker terms in equity crowdfunding for prospective venture capital," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 57(2), pages 927-952, August.
    15. Baig, Ahmed S. & Blau, Benjamin M. & Butt, Hassan A. & Yasin, Awaid, 2022. "Do retail traders destabilize financial markets? An investigation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    16. Liu, Hongqi & Peng, Cameron & Xiong, Wei A. & Xiong, Wei, 2022. "Taming the bias zoo," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(2), pages 716-741.
    17. Fjesme, Sturla Lyngnes & Lv, Jin Roc & Shekhar, Chander, 2023. "The world cup in football and the US IPO market," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    18. Kreppmeier, Julia & Laschinger, Ralf & Steininger, Bertram & Dorfleitner, Gregor, 2023. "Real Estate Security Token Offerings and the Secondary Market: Driven by Crypto Hype or Fundamentals?," Working Paper Series 23/6, Royal Institute of Technology, Department of Real Estate and Construction Management & Banking and Finance.
    19. Chin‐Ho Chen, 2021. "Investor sentiment, misreaction, and the skewness‐return relationship," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 41(9), pages 1427-1455, September.
    20. Anton Miglo, 2022. "Theories of Crowdfunding and Token Issues: A Review," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 15(5), pages 1-28, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Initial Coin Offering; FinTech; Individual Investors;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading
    • G24 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Investment Banking; Venture Capital; Brokerage
    • H31 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - Household

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:chf:rpseri:rp1937. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Ridima Mittal (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/fameech.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.