I think there are a few crypto currencies that will probably survive over the longer term because they have a good ecosystem and a critical mass of adopters. The three I think most likely to survive are bitcoin, ethereum and ripple. I am afraid for the rest it is way too late and some of the so called initial coin offerings (ico) are basically “me too” scams where I would expect “investors to lose virtually all their money. Initial coin offering have this year raised over $1.3 billion so far in 2017 but some of them seem like scams to me:

Look at eos.io which raised $200 million in an ico talk about its coins which”do not have any rights, uses, purpose, attributes, functionalities or features, express or implied, including, without limitation, any uses, purpose, attributes, functionalities or features on the EOS platform”

Then there is the Tezos.com coin which has raised over $208 million it states “Bitcoin, Ethereum and Tezos are all decentralized ledgers powered by a blockchain. Bitcoin was the first public blockchain and introduced the first truly decentralized form of electronic cash. Ethereum followed suit by including smart-contracts in its platform, allowing a greater range of application to be developed. Tezos takes this concept one step further by letting participants directly control the rules of the network. It is designed to evolve, so that the next generation of ideas doesn’t have to start over as a new blockchain.” What the hell does that mean and is it enough to raise so much money ???

This kind of thing reminds me of the infamous netj.com initial public offering of 1999: “netJ.com conducts no substantial activity of any description” and the company “has no plans to conduct any substantial business activity of any description in the foreseeable future.”

There is a nice report on the ICO craze from autonomous that I recommend for a read. I see the main threat to the top 3 coins (bitcoin, ethereum and ripple) being a company like google or amazon or even microsoft getting into the game. They have a big user base that I think is critical to getting a currency adopted by a critical mass and people have confidence in such companies. The other threat is when central banks decide to launch crypto currencies either as parallel currencies to their own national currencies or as replacement – central banks and government have to power to make such currencies legal tender it could be a great way to relieve pressure on public finances as they (the government) could decide to keep say, 20% of the coins for themselves.

There are new coins arriving every day as anyone can launch their own coin – the best way to keep up with prices is to go to Coinmarketcap.com. There is also a nice Bloomberg story on the crypto coin market here. Below is a list of 56 initial coin offering so far this year.