Study suggests more than half of the ICOs 'fail within four months' of launch

The surprising amount of numbers should be taken lightly as there also stays some room for ICOs to survive beyond the 120-day time slot, as indicated by the data.

Further analysing the data, the paper suggests that it would be safe for those ICOs that manage to list on the exchanges after the token launch.

The paper said, "Breaking it down by category, 83% of the 694 ICOs that don't report capital and don't list on an exchange are inactive after 120 days. For the 420 ICOs that raise some capital but don't list, this figure falls to 52%, and for the 440 ICOs that list on an exchange, only 16% are inactive in the fifth month."

In their study, the team found that "in contrast to IPOs, crypto-tokens continue to generate abnormal positive average returns after the ICO," with token values continuing to increase for six months post its launch.

According to the paper, "We find evidence of significant ICO underpricing, with average returns of 179% from the ICO price to the first day's opening market price, over a holding period that averages just 16 days. Even after imputing returns of -100% to ICOs that don't list their tokens within 60 days and adjusting for the returns of the asset class, the representative ICO investor earns 82%."

The paper concluded that though there is a risk of investing as the figures indicate bubbles, these figures also indicate high rewards for investors who are willing to take risk  and invest in "unproven pre-revenue platforms through unregulated offerings."