Crypto Sell-Off Can’t Put Dent in Initial Coin Offerings

This year’s sell-off in virtual currencies has done little to dent investor enthusiasm for initial coin offerings, which attracted a record $12 billion in the first half, according to Autonomous Research LLP. That’s up from $7 billion for the whole of 2017 and a more than 50-fold jump from 2016. Investors piled in even as Bitcoin fell as much as 70 percent from its December peak and many smaller tokens lost nearly all their value. A great deal of the enthusiasm centered around two big offerings: EOS, a platform for open-source projects, and Telegram, a messaging service.