Accounting giant EY: Vast majority of ICOs trade below offering price, many worthless

Nearly one-third of cryptocurrencies financed through coin offerings have lost "substantially all value," per accounting giant Ernst & Young in a report published today. EY examined 141 of last year's initial coin offerings and discovered a whopping 86% of them are trading below their offering price. More than 70% of projects have yet to deliver a working product; EY claims this is worse than traditional venture-backed firms. Calling the quality of ICO projects "much much worse" than the late 1990s dot-com boom, EY's Paul Brody, who helps lead the firms blockchain efforts, said, "At least from Pets.com you could get pets food. They had an actual working business, they had a product.”

Of course, even public stock offerings don't always offer all that stellar returns and in just six months during 2000, dot-coms lost a whopping $1.7 trillion in value.

(Source: Bloomberg)

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