2018 has been a turbulent year in the crypto industry. Some projects succeeded magnificently during and after their Token Generation Events (TGEs), while others failed miserably. In all of this, there has been one group that has stood out for other reasons. Specifically, we're talking about the projects that announced their TGEs and then abruptly chose to postpone them. Some of them even started their TGEs and then suddenly decided to cancel them, leaving their investors in the dark.
An example of one such project is Peer Mountain (PMTN), the cross-chain identity trust platform which postponed their TGE in September. They are hardly alone in this. Other projects include Trecento Blockchain Capital (TOT), a decentralized investment solution boasting four investment funds, which also postponed its ICO in November.
They are joined by Lightstreams (PHT), the award-winning blockchain protocol for sharing and distributing private and protected content. Brickchain Investments Ltd. (B1x), a corporation with an aim of creating a bridge between the emerging blockchain technology and the real estate market, announced in October it was postponing its ICO until the end of November, but it hasn't published the new ICO dates yet.
Let's not forget DeepCloud AI (DEEP), an AI-driven decentralized cloud computing platform for running decentralized apps, which announced its own sad news in September, and Trade Pharma Network (TXP), a tech-driven brokerage platform and a marketplace for medicines, that postponed its pre-sale ICO/STO to Q1 2019 in order to make sure they are in compliance with the Belgian and the European regulations.
HELIX Orange (HIX) is also on this list, as this blockchain-based ICO campaigns planning platform postponed its main token sale in September. Vernam (VRN), the world's first 0% commission insurance on the blockchain, said it was postponing its crowdsale in June, but we still haven't been informed about a new date.
After announcing the postponement of its ICO in August, Storeplex (PLEX), a decentralized crypto marketplace, announced its closure in December. The list of projects postponing or even cancelling their TGEs goes on, and includes Clash & GO (CGO) (which already got their funds due to their game's incredible success), Sparkster (SPRK), MapCoin (MAP), Zerobank (ZB), Rise (RISE), Tokenaire (AIRE), MonetaHawk (MNH), One+1 (CHEK), Health FX (HFX), FoodNation (FOOD), dBounce (DB), and BFEX (BFEX).
What is behind such a large number of postponements?
A lot of the projects that delayed their TGEs claim that this is "due to market conditions". But which conditions exactly are we talking about? Here are a few ideas.
1. Lack of regulatory certainty – The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and other regulatory authorities have directed all their attention to crypto projects, looking to punish anyone who is not sticking to the letter of the law (or at least their interpretation of it). They have issued more than 400 subpoenas to token issuers.
The SEC has also focused on the celebrities and YouTubers promoting or "shilling" projects, fining them for failing to disclose the number of payments received from those projects. Due to such strict regulation in the US, its investor pool is off limits to a lot of projects.
Some might argue that the laws that the SEC sticks to so fervently are outdated and even irrelevant to digital assets, but this is the situation on the ground right now and a lot of the projects have delayed their TGEs because of the fear from the SEC's long reach, until the situation is clearer and they have figured out what to do.
2. Not being good enough – Unfortunately, sometimes projects have the face the cold, hard truth – they are not good enough to survive on the market. Whether their idea is not original enough, their team is not professional enough and does not have a huge portfolio, the competitive environment is too brutal, a lot of the ICOs will fail.
Although sometimes the reasons for these postponements are totally beyond our control, (for example, the health issues within the dBounce team), the majority of other projects have either gone ahead of themselves, not seeking proper legal counsel when dealing with regulatory authorities of various countries, or they are just not good enough to withstand the competitive climate in the crypto world and are waiting for better times. And while postponing TGE is not necessarily bad news for some, others might be facing an uncertain future.