Every few years someone publishes a tidy table: buy the public sale, hold for years, enjoy a compound annual growth rate that would embarrass a pension fund. Ethereum, early exchange tokens, a handful of layer-ones — the names are familiar because they survived. Compound annual growth rate (CAGR) maths on those survivors can look spectacular; that is what survivor bias looks like in a spreadsheet.
Most initial coin offerings (ICOs) from the 2017–2018 wave did not mint generational wealth. Many tokens went to zero, traded illiquid, or were never delivered. Even among names still listed, merely being “above the ICO price” is not the same as a high annualised return once you count the years. Tables that only show the winners are marketing, whether they appear in a research blog or a Telegram VIP room.
If a promoter uses old ICO unicorns to sell a new private sale, “guaranteed listing”, or signal club, ask what happened to the rest of that cohort — and who can seize your wallet if the story fails. Past outliers are not a due-diligence file. For anything that already took a deposit on the strength of a nostalgia chart, use the help routes below rather than doubling down.
Start at Get help if a sale already went wrong. Paid “token recovery” after a dead ICO is usually Fake recovery.
This article is for general information only. It is not legal or financial advice. Details change. If you have lost money, contact your bank or card issuer and use the routes on the help pages.