If you haven’t kept obsessively checking the price of bitcoin over the past year, don’t worry. You’re normal. For the rest of us, the price movement of the leading cryptocurrency has been somewhat staid.

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A year ago, bitcoin about $6,500. Today’s it’s worth about $8,100. That isn’t much movement. In between a year ago and today, however, bitcoin has set prices from as low as the $3,000 to and as high as $13,000. Bitcoin is still bitcoin, even if its former, regular value appreciation appears to have slowed.

But price is only one vital sign for bitcoin and its friends. There are others. Let’s examine two key indicators that we track to see where things are past the headline price.

Vital Signs

When I want to get a handle on the health of the crypto markets, I check (), , and, when I have time, the , the smaller, less-well-known cryptos that have yet to find a mainstream audience.

The logic behind the metric selections I hope is somewhat simple. Bitcoin transaction volume, while correlated to the price of the substance, helps paint a picture of how close bitcoin is to paying for itself. The more transactions that occur, the larger that miners can accrete. Since there is a time in the future when bitcoin miners won’t be paid in new bitcoin, it’s nice to know how much people are paying to use bitcoin. And, of course, companies like , so more volume can be viewed as bullish for startups in the sector.

Regarding decentralized apps, or “dapps,” I like to keep tabs on new dapp creation. Or, the pace at which new dapps are released. It’s a proxy of modest value to understand how many shots are being taken on the goal towards finding a great use case for Ethereum blockchain. Finally, market cap is something you can track here; it’s self-explanatory.

So, what do our first two indicators tell us?

• After a slump, bitcoin transaction volume has recovered from its 2018 lows and is high by historical norms. That’s bullish for bitcoin itself and the cryptocurrency market as a whole.
• And that new dapp releases are down sharply from their 2018 highs, but have matched the pace (roughly) set in late 2017. So, after a boom, about 60 new dapps are rolling out monthly. This is less bullish than our first indicator, while also showing that dapp activity is a multiple of where it was in 2016.

When I set out this morning to get a rough feel for the state of cryptocurrencies, I expected to find negative signals. Instead, bitcoin’s transaction volume recovery was stronger than I expected, and more dapps are being released than I anticipated.

The ICO boom is far behind us (), as are the heady days of 2017. But there’s still plenty going on over in crypto-land, even if bitcoin is still worth far less than it once was.

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Late this week, two pieces of news involving bad actors in the crypto space came to light that are worth discussing.

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First, the with, and I kid you not,�� and for “unlawfully touting coin offerings.” In other words, two celebrities just got dinged for ICO-related shenanigans. And, the FBI arrested��Jared Rice, who raised $4 million in what appears to be an ICO based on fictitious premises.

My first question is why go after these three individuals first? After all, if celebrities are going to get in trouble for repping various token sales, there are more to go through. And, Mr. Rice’s AriseCoin ICO never made my radar; surely there are bigger targets waiting in the wings.

Regardless, the punishments range from financial to dozens of years in prison. In the case of the boxer and the DJ:

And, , the ICO founder in question is even more trouble, having been “charged with three counts of securities fraud and three counts of wire fraud.” He could get over 100 years in prison. That’s life.

All this is to underscore that after the Great ICO Boom (now somewhat over), there’s a lot of loose ends left untied. I would expect to see even more of this sort of legal action in the coming months.

Which isn’t bullish for crypto as a whole, and must be especially tough news for the crypto space and its various constituents who are under steep price pressure in recent weeks. But, like with any boom times, rising levels of fraud are a sign of the top. And here we’re seeing the fraud shake out after the peak.

Top Image Credit: .

But despite over $900 million in recorded venture funding in 2017, and over $375 million in known venture funding for the first two months of 2018 so far, traditional VC rounds – convertible notes seed, angel, Series A, Series B, etc. – now pale in comparison to ICOs in terms of dollar volume.

Chances are that if you’re reading this, you’ve at least heard about initial coin offerings (better known by their initialism as “ICOs”). Even if you’re not a traditional VC, you may have invested in one.

The and most of its many descendendants was to up-end a monetary system reliant on central banks and trusted third parties. It’s no small wonder that crypto-enthusiasts have devised a way to circumvent the old process of raising capital to fund new projects, which traditionally is deeply embedded in old-school banking culture and trust.

Today, we’ll take a look at just how quickly ICOs came to dominate blockchain startup funding and get an idea of the scale of capital inflows into this new funding instrument.

ICOs: Fewer Deals, But Bigger Deals Than VC

For all of 2017 and the first two months of 2018 at time of writing, Crunchbase data has captured a total of 527 venture capital rounds and ICOs raised by companies in its , , , , and categories.

The chart below shows how that population of rounds breaks down between traditional VC and initial coin offerings.

At least according to Crunchbase data, the number of ICOs raised in the past fourteen months is smaller – by a factor of almost half – than the number of venture capital rounds announced by blockchain and blockchain-related companies.

But despite the smaller number of ICOs, these funding events – on average – attract much more capital than the average venture funding round. The chart below shows the breakdown of capital raised between VC rounds and ICOs with known amounts of capital.

Over the past fourteen months, blockchain and related startups have raised nearly $1.3 billion in traditional venture capital rounds worldwide. But for the ICOs Crunchbase has captured, nearly $4.5 billion was raised via ICOs.

For more on the ICO data presented above, see the note at the end of this article.

For First Rounds, ICOs Look More Like Late-Stage Funding Events

It’s often the case that blockchain startups raise their first outside rounds as ICOs, but size-wise these funding events look less like seed rounds and more like super late-stage technology growth rounds. According to Crunchbase data, here are a few of the largest ICOs closed in 2017:

• ICO raised $257 million.
• raised .
• raised .
• raised .
• raised .

And in 2018, there will no doubt be even larger ICOs raised. For now, all eyes turn to Telegram’s ICO, the target size of which may be as large as $2 billion according to two sources who wish to remain unnamed.

Fanaticism, Unbelievability, and Delusion?

Although the USD-denominated price of Bitcoin (BTC) and many other cryptocurrencies have pulled back significantly from 2017 highs, the ICO market continues to chug along like the little financial engine that could.

But there are some uncomfortable facts the market has to reckon with. Bitcoin news site Bitcoin.com which found that out of 902 companies that sought to raise an ICO, 142 failed before closing funding, and 276 failed after fundraising. It also found an additional 113 projects it classified as “semi-failed” after “their team has stopped communicating on social media, or because their community is so small as to mean the project has no chance of success.” The ultimate conclusion of that survey is stark: “59% of last year’s crowdsales are either confirmed failures or failures-in-the-making.”

The cryptocurrency community can treat any skepticism as mere “fear, uncertainty, and doubt,” or FUD. But although it’s likely that years down the road there will probably be successful, sustainable ventures funded by this new way of raising cash, entrepreneurs and investors alike should be wary of fanaticism, unbelievability, and delusion – a different kind of FUD – clouding their judgment.

A Small Note On Data

At time of writing, Crunchbase’s dataset of traditional venture capital deals (angel, seed, convertible notes, Series A, Series B, etc.) is far more robust than . There are a number of competing lists of ICOs out there, and each reports significantly different statistics from one to the next.

Due to reporting delays and a certain inherent opacity to the market, Crunchbase likely undercounts the actual number of ICOs, but reported numbers will likely rise over time as new data is continuously added to its platform.

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, a privacy-centered messaging application, is planning a massive initial coin offering (ICO) that appears to be drawing similar investor and media attention. Indeed, coverage of the ICO has been thick in the tech media this year. And as the coverage has swirled, so too have the sums in question.

Precisely how much money Telegram’s ICO will try to collect through a pre-sale (the real ICO, if you will), and then a public token offering after the smart money has gotten in, is slightly hard to track.

For example, here’s TechCrunch, , discussing the ICO:

Telegram is understood to be considering raising as much as $500 million in the pre-ICO sale at a potential total token value in the range of $3 billion to $5 billion.

And here’s TechCrunch, , discussing the same topic:

The company plans to raise a staggering $1.2 billion in total, starting with a $600 million pre-sale that’s strictly for traditional venture capital backers and those inside its executive’s close circles.

This isn’t to pick on �ձ𳦳����ܲԳ���.��When an event such as an ICO, or even a standard IPO, is being reported on, it’s not uncommon for the news to read differently week-by-week as new facts and figures emerge.

On that point, here’s :

Telegram is seeking $850 million in a private sale of tokens to large investors this month and $1.15 billion in a subsequent public ICO in March, said the people, who held negotiations with the company and asked not to be identified.

The same report goes on to confirm that the $1.2 billion ICO figure was correct at one point.

Today, the narrative comes full circle. Here’s ��on where the ICO may wind up:

Brand-name VC firms like Benchmark have (quietly) signed on to what����a $500 million offering, after which Telegram would sell between $3 billion and $5 billion of tokens to develop its own blockchain platform and native cryptocurrency.

And here we land back at where we were in early January, according to TechCrunch’s reporting.

So how big is the Telegram offering? I doubt anyone knows what the final number will be. But it does seem clear that the Telegram ICO will set records, and it will ensure that 2018’s ICO result will be comparable with 2017’s.

From The��:

• , a provider of warehousing for cloud-based data, has raised $263 million in growth funding at a $1.5 billion pre-money valuation. Iconiq Capital, Altimeter Capital, and Sequoia Capital led the round, with participation from other existing investors.

These exits had the biggest bang for the buck

• When it comes to delivering significant returns on invested capital, it’s often lower-profile companies that come out on top. A Crunchbase News analysis of top-performing exits for the past year found several examples of tech and biotech companies reaching multi-billion dollar valuations on investments $100 million or less.

• Seattle-based Privateer Holdings, one of the largest investors in the legal cannabis industry, has raised $100 million for its fund, which backs cannabis startups. The fundraising follows several years of��rising venture investment��in the cannabis space.

• , the latest graduate of Alphabet’s moonshot program, has launched as a standalone company aimed at building a cybersecurity intelligence platform for organizations to better manage and understand their own data.

In recent days, the aggregate value of crypto assets — currencies, tokens, and the like — spiked to over $300 billion before retreating. Given that��massive boom in value and consumer interest in bitcoin, ether, and other popular crypto��products, you might presume that the ICO market must also be booming.

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It’s not. An ICO, or initial coin offering, is a method through which entrepreneurs collect liquid cryptos and regular currency in exchange for new tokens on often yet-to-be-built networks that will apply blockchain tech to something new, like bodega cats, or false teeth.

(General 2017 maxim: If you can put the word in front of “blockchain,” it must be better with blockchain. Trust me; I read the white paper.)

According to CoinSchedule, completed ICOs in November are down sharply from preceding months. I expect the November result to perk up at least some, but ��to work with:

To be clear, ICOs are not over. While there is a lot of crypto paper gains to be spent, those owners will be on the hunt for the next big return. After all, if you just enjoyed the crypto bull market of 2017, you aren’t going to turn around and be content to collect pedestrian��returns from slow-moving things like “stocks” or “bonds” or “general asset diversification for the mitigation of short-term risk while allowing for long-term growth.”

Of course not.

So as long as there are new things to blockchain, the ICO market will rub along somehow. Perhaps in the stunted form��that we see above.

All this is to say that the boom in the value of the most popular blockchains and tokens (bitcoin, ethereum, et al.) isn’t dragging the ICO market up with it—at least right now. That might prevent a few people from losing their shirts.

From The��:

VR and AR funding rebounds

Consumer uptake of virtual and augmented reality may be slower than boosters hoped, but venture investment hasn’t slackened. After a slow start in the first quarter,��funding for VR and AR startups in 2017��is now roughly on par with 2016 levels, a Crunchbase News analysis finds. Exits are also picking up a bit.

Y Combinator seeks $1B for new fund

Sources say Silicon Valley startup accelerator����is raising up to $1 billion for a new venture fund, Axios��. The planned fund would be YC’s second Continuity Fund, the first of which was a $700 million vehicle for backing follow-on rounds of companies it incubated. However, the new fund would reportedly be for both early and later-stage deals.

Uptake raises $117M for industry analytics

, a provider of predictive analytics technology for industrial companies, has raised $117 million in a Series D funding round led by Baillie Gifford and joined by Revolution Growth and GreatPoint Ventures. The new financing values Chicago-based Uptake at $2.3 billion.

iStockPhoto / Jane_Kelly

As IPOs,��unicorn chaos, and Amazon’s draw attention in the tech world, bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have fallen out of the news cycle.

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There’s a between the price change of bitcoin, and the amount of interest around the topic. So as bitcoin sleeps around $4,000, it isn’t a surprise that the media and the public are waiting for new movement.

But initial coin offerings (ICOs), sales for new tokens on top of the popular blockchains, are back and nearly better than ever. As we reported previously, the summer ICO boom looked like it was tapering off just two months ago. It seemed that August was bringing the correction.

August did end up being a local minimum, but the descent was short-lived. Here’s the new chart of ICO revenue over time, inclusive of September (we gave it a few days in case new numbers needed to trickle into the dataset), :

September puts us nearly back to where we were over the summer. Throw in a fresh Nasdaq Composite ��alongside the booming global VC market, and the good times are still in full swing.

Just don’t look down.

From the��:

Top VCs add female partners

• Women are making more inroads in VC. The percentage of female investment partners at the top 100 venture firms��rose 17 percent��in the past year-and-a-half, with women now holding 8 percent of those positions, Crunchbase reports. Women also now hold 15 percent of the partner roles at accelerators and corporate venture firms, a 25 percent improvement in 18 months.

Dialog Semiconductor to acquire Silego

• Amid continuing consolidation in the semiconductor space, Germany’s Dialog Semiconductor said it is acquiring Silicon Valley-based��, a venture-backed developer of configurable chips, for up to $306 million, Reuters��.

Navient buys Earnest for $155M

• Student loan servicing giant Navient announced that it is acquiring��, an online lender focused on student loans, for $155 million in cash. San Francisco-based Earnest, founded in 2013, previously raised $119 million in venture funding and about $200 million in debt financing.
• Crunchbase is publishing a series of stories highlighting investment trends and funding totals for the third quarter of 2017. You can find all our Q3 articles��here.