Long Run Return and Survival Factors of ICO

The cryptocurrency market is young and booming. The growth of this market is to a large extent associated with an increase in the number of initial coin offerings, also known as ICOs, as well as the volume of funds raised during the placement of new cryptocurrencies. In this article, we consider the relationship between the returns of cryptocurrencies emerged through ICOs and traded on specialized exchanges and various market factors as well as we examine the risk factors associated with the failure of cryptocurrency projects expressed in the delisting of their tokens or in a critical drop in their value. As part of the regression analysis, we showed that, in full accordance with the available literature, the returns of cryptocurrencies are not related to traditional factors of the financial market. However, sentiments in the cryptocurrency market itself, proxied by Bitcoin's returns, have a significant impact on long-term profitability, as well as sentiment in the market of Internet companies stocks. Moreover, the latter play an important role in relation to new tokens entering the market. We also showed that sentiment in the cryptocurrency market is important for the survival of cryptocurrencies. The token entering the market during periods of rising Bitcoin and increasing number of ICOs significantly reduces the chances of its survival. The results of this article are also relevant for the Russian market, since Russian companies together occupy the fourth place in the world in the number of ICOs conducted.