The ICO (Initial Coin Offering) market changed dramatically in Q3 2018. The research shows that monthly ICO activity is down 90% from January 2018, with just $279 million raised in September 2018 from retail investors — the lowest amount in a year. data from Autonomous Next The current state of the ICO market Investors became more interested in buying equity in companies rather than utility tokens. In August 2018 alone, about $1.6 billion was raised by blockchain projects from venture capitalists, which demonstrates the shift from individual investors to institutional ones. Ethereum price going down scares ICO founders , another possible reason for the ICO market downturn is the Ethereum price going down ( ). The likely explanations are the introduction of a , which allows traders to shorten the price of ETH, about unresolved scaling issues and insecure smart contracts, and changing market cycles as the initial hype has passed. According to CryptoSlate 65% decrease from June 1st to October 23rd 2018 new BitMEX — ETH’s perpetual swap contract technical concerns Regardless of the reason, the declining price of ETH may have caused panic on the ICO market for blockchain-based project founders, who mostly raised funds in ether worth millions of dollars. They started to cash it out shorty in order to get favorable prices, causing a downturn in the whole market. This led to ICOs failing to collect even a soft cap nowadays. The more time passes after the ICO, the less profits there are to gain Another , which provides the analysis of 131 coins on Binance and 24 coins on Bitfinex, states that the share of ICO projects showing positive returns significantly declines the more time passes after the ICO (from 44% to 35% for Binance and from 46% to 21% for Bitfinex in six weeks). The reasons are lack of traction, disappointing product advancements, scams, difficulties in execution, no demand from the market, or poor marketing strategies. research prepared by GreySpark Partners Not all ICOs are dead, but it’s hard to find the survivors Although the ICO market is in the downturn, there are still good projects worth investing in. There were in August and September 2018 that managed to raise over $100,000, and 15 of them got over $25 million in funding. Despite the existence of a vast number of fraudulent projects and profit reduction, the market is developing and maturing in anticipation of positive changes. However, regular crypto investors don’t have the necessary expertise to separate the — identifying high-potential projects and getting access to them. They need experts able to source the best investment opportunities — just as VCs do in traditional markets. And these venture capital-style groups, sort of early VCs in the crypto world, are already here — called ICO pools. 104 ICOs wheat from the chaff Are ICO pools still relevant in this market? In order to understand if ICO pools are the best way for investors to get into the market, we decided to take a look at how ICO pools are dealing with current market conditions. ICO pools bring together individual investors who are willing to participate in ICO private sales (available only to certain people) and pre-sales (public, but it’s only available for those who are whitelisted) with more favorable terms. Each pool participant contributes to a smart contract, and the funds are sent to projects once the hard cap is reached or the ICO has ended. The tokens are then received and distributed to the investors with respect to how much they contributed (minus a small commision for the pool’s services). ICO pools provide unique opportunities for investors to access those deals that would otherwise be unapproachable at very good terms. The market is competitive and the newer pools have to offer new services and advantages to expand their communities. We conducted an analysis to understand the progress made by the pools, the dynamics of their development, and the benefits they could offer to investors. The data used comes from ICO pools aggregators including ICOPOOLS.io and ICO Pool World , as well as Bitcointalk forums and our own research. An up-to-date list of active ICO pools (sorted by their creation date) The ICO market was booming at the end of 2017, and the pools started to enter it massively. Many of them were quite successful at the beginning, however, most are lagging now as the market has become more competitive and newer pools have appeared. Q3-Q4 2018 pools — assertive newcomers Q3 and Q4 (so far) have seen a rapid decline of ICO pools founded, which was likely caused by the scam pools established earlier in 2018 — as mentioned earlier, those failed to deliver promised returns to the investors and resulted in bursting the bubble in the second half of the year. The overall market downturn negatively contributed to the development of the pools market, further cutting investor gains. Still, several communities were created in Q3-Q4 2018. Though they are at an early stage and haven’t proved their business models yet, the fact that these pools were established under the unfavourable market conditions means that they must have a well-thought-out strategy for future growth. 1. Krypto Pool Krypto Pool is a new ICO pooling group bringing its members deals on exclusive ICOs. No active ICOs since July 2018. 2. Howtotoken pool The team of experts from the VC market with proven experience in technology, which is why they collect only 1% of all projects that are interesting and viable for the long term, based on pool’s research. As an example, for the last two months there were assessed over 800 new ICOs and picked just two of them. That’s a 0.5% pass rate for the projects that have the highest chances for success. 3. Cryptoloyds Cryptoloyds is an analytical channel for Russian-speaking users that prepares detailed reviews of ICO projects for its members, informs them of ICO pre-sales, and allows them to get allocations in exclusive projects with varying pool fees. 4. Umbrella Pool Umbrella Pool is a crypto-buying pool that has exclusive access to private ICOs deals. A new but active community, new deals are posted regularly with evaluations from the team. 5. Promo Factory PF is a place where users can receive guaranteed allocation and/or free token airdrops for participating in promotions. The team partners up with top projects that investors won’t get in easily. 6. ICO Pool Fundraiser ICO Pool Fundraiser aims to help the average investors get higher bonuses with the capital they are willing to contribute. The pool aims to work with the ICOs directly to ensure that the investors’ contributions are safe. 7. stealth_fund stealth_fund helps participants in private sales sell their allocations anonymously. However, both deals initiated (DxChain and Aergo) were cancelled due to low interest. 8. CBTS Pool CBTS is a group of 100 professionals who select projects and assist them to raise funds. The pool allows investors to get access to these ICOs with discounts and earn ETH through a referral option. 9. Fellowship of the Pool Fellowship of the Pool is a new pool for US accredited investors only (verified through KYC). The team carries out its own due diligence on ICOs before they personally invest and they do not charge a membership fee of any kind. 10. Crypto Eastern Wizards Crypto Eastern Wizards is a new community operating as a forum with insider info, crypto discussions, stock market information, education materials, etc. Early (Q1-Q2) 2018 pools — Scammers are coming In the first half of 2018, several new deals were brought to the market because of tight competition. A huge number of pools were created back then with February being the most “productive” month, as can be seen from the list below. We have excluded quite a lot of ICO pools with very small communities, almost no deals, and no activity during the last few months from the list, so the number of pools set up was, in fact, even higher than our analysis shows. However, many of them were scammers — the success of earlier pools attracted them to enter the market. These scam groups run by non-experts failed to deliver substantial returns to their participants. Still, some good pools can be found from that time that pay special attention to the selectivity of the projects and offer in-depth analyses. These pools can also appeal to investors due to the high ICO bonuses and gamification advantages. 11. ICO Hunter ICO Hunter is a resource for obtaining unbiased information on current and upcoming ICOs. The team hand picks and audits every ICO they feature on the website. 12. Omega Block Omega Block is quite large and friendly community of investors. The pool gives access to exclusive deals and a good choice of ICOs to invest in. 13. Smart ICO Investor Smart ICO Investor is group and a blog run by an options trader that provides useful information and analytics on ICO projects. 14. AstroPool AstroPool gives any investor the opportunity to invest in private sales without limitations. 15. Crypto Round Table Crypto Round Table is a transparent cryptocurrency community that produces regular research reports and video content. The content also provides additional exposure to the projects Crypto Round Table is working with. 16. Apollo ICO Pool Apollo ICO Pool is an ICO pool for pre-sales with quite a solid community. 17. Liu Cryptos Syndicate Liu Cryptos is a cryptocurrency investor and influencer. His group is very organized and well-structured with ICO ratings, trackers, and more. 18. Blockmotion Capital Blockmotion Capital is a transparent, fair, and community-minded collaborative investment group that participates in ICO’s and pre-sales. 19. Crypto Lammer Crypto Lammer is a channel that shares ICO Alerts, relevant blockchain and crypto news, ICO Reports, coin analyses, etc. 20. TMT ICO TMT ICO is an asian-based community. 21. “R&R” ICO POOL “R&R” ICO POOL is a pool with a solid community (especially Russian) and quite a long track record. 22. ICO Investor ICO Investor is a Russian channel that provides ICO project analyses and ratings, and participates in pools. 23. ICO Pulls ICO Pulls is a small Russian-speaking group investing in ICO projects. The number of deals conducted and the amounts raised is limited, though their track record is pretty good. 24. CP ICO Buy Club CP ICO Buy Club is a pool providing access to the top 1% of ICO pre-sale deals. CP ICO Buy Club has changed its owners — as of now, it is run by a few admins on a voluntary basis. 25. Crypto Vision Crypto Vision is a relatively small but friendly organized community of crypto investors. Most allocations are filled, although the choice of projects is limited. 26. Omega Pool Omega Pool was formed for those who wanted to contribute to ICOs during private sales and it has turned into a full-fledged pool since then. Omega Pool provides a lot of good deals for its members, as well as useful analytics. 27. Crypto 99 Crypto 99 is a community of cryptocurrency investors and enthusiasts, which provides its members access to market updates, analysis, and ICO pools to master nodes. 28. The Krypto Factor The Krypto Factor is a group for ICO discussions, cryptocurrencies, and pooling funds to participate in ICOs. 29. ICO 100 ICO 100 is a Russian-speaking group looking for top ICOs and provides insights for self-investment, as well as pools for its members. 30. Italian Crypto Club A large Italian community, communications is mostly done in Italian. 31. Whale Capital Whale Capital is an emerging digital asset VC and consulting firm focused exclusively on blockchain projects, which advises clients on fundraising and offers community management services. 32. ICO Participation Capital ICO PC is a pool that offers good terms on exclusive projects to its participants as well as large allocations, which usually get filled fast. 33. ICO Search Party ICO Search Party is a dedicated group for seeking out and researching new ICOs and for organizing smart-contract based pools. 34. Moon Syndicate Moon Syndicate is a huge community targeting participation in the best ICO projects. They usually receive solid allocations and provide good terms for the members, as well as good deal analytics. 35. PRICO POOLS This pool hasn’t been active since July 2018. 36. Hades Capital Hades Capital is an ICO syndicate group created to participate in private sales. Hades Capital does not have many pools running, but they make sure they are of high quality and with a good chance on positive ROI. 37. ICO Whale ICO Whale is a pool dedicated to giving its members access to the best pre-sales ICOs with higher bonuses. The group has become private and now requires KYC authentication to join. 38. ICO DOG ICO Dog is one of the most socially active pools. Their main feature is the website with a ranking-user rating system, in which users with a higher rating have access to the best pools. 39. La French Pool La French Pool is an experienced and large community that negotiates private pre-sales and the best bonuses when hosting the pools from PrimaBlock. 40. Private Investors Club Private Investors Club is a small private investment club that specializes in crypto ICOs and investments. 41. SERVAMPS SERVAMPS is a project accelerator offering a variety of services not specific to the blockchain but focused on the digital asset market to help tier-1 projects craft strategies that help cement them at the top. 42. CryptoMedics CryptoMedics provides cryptocurrency education with real value and in depth-research: crypto signals, insider info, ICO evaluation, hidden gems, paid newsletters, portfolio consultancy, etc. 43. ICO Pool Club ICO Pool Club is an ICO pool that puts detailed information about ICOs in its announcement channel, though there is still a lack of analytics on ICOs prepared by founders. 44. CryptoArnie CryptoArnie is a large and very socially active community for experienced and intelligent ICO participants and traders. 45. Inflow-Crypto Inflow-Crypto Club is a one-stop shop for cryptocurrency investments. Along with expert opinions, they provide basic and advanced short-term and long-term investment strategies, organized ICO investment pools, and useful crypto-related resources. 46. Moonetize ICO club Moonetize ICO Club is focused on sharing ICO metrics in a more efficient way, trying to organize small pools for their small community. 47. Oly245 Crypto Chat Oly245 Crypto Chat is a chat and an announcement channel to discuss ICOs, airdrops, etc. 48. The Chickens Pool The pool is on hold starting from August 2018. 49. Wmarket Pools Wmarket Pools selects and analyzes projects, providing the opportunity to invest an unlimited amount of funds, while avoiding difficult registration and KYC procedures. 50. Antares Capital The Antares Capital fund consolidates the capital of physical persons and legal entities for the purpose of participation in the Telegram messenger’s pre-ICO. 51. ICO Investors Hub ICO Investor Hub is a large, organized, and structured pool that publishes deals in great detail on the announcement page. They also provide AMA sessions with ICO founders. 52. ICO Pool (Decentralized Fund) ICO Pool (Decentralized Fund) is aimed to get ICOs which are generally out of the public reach. The system is very transparent, and admin personalities are known. However, the group hasn’t been active for some time now. 53. Crypto Society Crypto Society is a pre-ICO pool with quite a solid community and good deals. 54. GAINS GAINS’ goal is to be a trustworthy pool — the founders are transparent and show real IDs. They not only make pools but they also negotiate the best deals and private bonuses and offer multiple services for ICO companies. 55. GEM CLUB | ICO Community GEM CLUB is a small community driven group with a diverse team of ICO enthusiasts/investors discussing undervalued projects. 56. MMG Crowd MMG Crowd is a large international community of crypto investors. One of their main targets is providing pools in hot projects with attractive conditions. The pool became totally private. 57. Premium Pools Premium Pools is looking for premium ICOs only that could bring the most profit. 58. TCS TCS pool hasn’t been active since May 2018. 59. ICO Lab Syndicate The ICO Lab is a private group researching and approaching the best ICO projects before the crowdsale phase with significant buying power. They became totally private. Not active. No any successful investments found. 60. Cryptostars.Club Cryptostars.Club’s key goals are to choose trustworthy ICOs that will grow and to avoid scam ones. 61. Rocket Pool Rocket Pool is a decentralized Ethereum PoS pool that allows individuals and businesses to earn interest on their ether and offers a full third-party API for businesses looking for PoS services. 62. Concentrate Pool Concentrate Pool — ICO TGE is a Russian-speaking pool providing pre-sale ICO projects on Primablock. They are focused on due diligence and have a strict selection criteria for ICO projects. 63. DXB Crypto Pool DXB Crypto Pool is a very small group of crypto enthusiasts who form funding pools for upcoming ICOs. The admin does not take any commission and encourages everyone in the group to do their own due diligence. There has been no activity in the group for some time. 64. Erwin&Friends Erwin&Friends is an ICO pre-sale pool. They have a VIP channel that gives members access to ICOs selected by experts, discrete professional support, personal assistance, bonuses, insider information, etc. 65. Watchbro Watchbro is a channel that shares insights about the ICO market. 66. Get On Crypto — ICO Pool The G.O.C team consists of a small group of dedicated crypto adopters and enthusiasts. The team uses Primablock to create public pools and has resources to enter into new projects with the big investors. 67. ICO Pool ICO Pools is a small group that allows investors to get into private sales and pre-sales for ICOs. 68. Crypto-ICO Masterminds The group is run by Crypto Kyle and a team of enthusiasts and is focused on selecting the best deals by carrying out careful research. However, it hasn’t been active for some time now. 69. Cryptocaine Pool Group The Cryptocaine Pool Group channel provides educational posts (portfolio management tips, trading strategies, etc.), signals, weekly round-ups, and negotiated ICOs. 70. Key Coin Assets Key Coin Assets is a small community resource for obtaining current information on upcoming ICOs. The team claims to invest personally in projects selected. The group hasn’t been active for some time. 71. Pramod’s crypto community Pramod’s crypto is a small but qualitative community, founded by an experienced analyst. The pool offers its members participation in promising projects with selectivity being the main goal. 72. Whalio Whalio is a public community which unites investors and profitable ICOs. The funds of pools participants are transferred to the account on the website and the team is investing directly with no subpools. 73. Black Dragon Pool Black Dragon is a huge and ambitious pool quickly growing in numbers. A deep analysis on a large number of ICOs has been provided by the team. 74. HouseCrypto The pool hasn’t been active since July 2018. 75. The Bitcoin Party The Bitcoin Party, which is very active in social media, selects the top ICOs recommended by different reviewers and shares useful information with their members. 76. Avalon Capital Avalon Capital is a pool run on Discord that gets access to good ICO deals, uses Primablock for transparency, and also does subpooling in some cases. 77. Etheredge ICO Pool Etheredge ICO Pool’s objective is to get access to pre-sale ICOs at better conditions, being transparent, cost effective, and accountable. The group is a regulated investment business in the UK. 78. Crypto Gurus Crypto Gurus is a group established to find the best upcoming ICOs and discuss market news. 79. Gagarin This is a Russian-speaking channel with a solid community looking for good ICO deals. 80. Galaxy Pool Galaxy Foundation is a private venture capital fund focused on cryptocurrency, blockchain related technology, and digital assets. 81. Sharks Capital ICO Sharks Pool is quite a large pool that closed many hyped ICOs like Orchid Protocol, Hashgraph, etc., and has gone totally private. 82. ICOVISIONS GROUP ICOVISIONS is a crowdfunding agency for blockchain projects catering to investors. 83. The Pool Propellant The Pool Propellant is a small community that searches for the latest big projects and invests together to get the best deals possible. Hasn’t been very active recently. 84. DCI Pools In September 2018, the admin of DCI Pools informed its members that due to bad market conditions, no good ICOs, and a saturated ICO market, the group sees no reason to invest in new ICOs, however, they will be looking for alternatives like STO. 85. League of ICOs LOI is an ICO research and development group who offer private pools for highly anticipated projects. 86. CryptoSeedPartners CryptoSeedPartners initially made donations to ICO projects, but they are now more focused on other aspects of crypto such as trading and ICO discussions. The group also shifted towards being more private. 87. CryptoSurfPeople The pool became totally private. 88. DD ICO Top Traders DD ICO Top Traders is a pool formed by a large Russian-speaking community dedicated to the crypto currency. Primablock usage guarantees security, although the choice of ICO is quite small. 89. Oxford Capital ICO Pool Oxford Capital ICO Pool has a well organized Discord channel and is gaining entry through pre-sales and private sales with discounts and bonuses. 90. PresalePool Presale Pool negotiates for special hard-to-access pre-sale ICO deals for investors, with reserved allocations of tokens and bonuses just for Presale Pool members. 91. Enron: ICO Pre-Sale Group Buys The group hasn’t been active since August 2018. 92. Cryptoboom Pools The group hasn’t been active since July 2018. 93. Moon Mafia Moon Mafia is a large community of investors that offers good accessibility and ICO conditions, although allocations can be small and discounts low sometimes. 94. 1035 Club ICO Pool The 1035 Club is a limited-member investment club with a particular focus on evaluating ICO pre-sale allocations. The club adheres to any applicable KYC requirements. 95. Block Brains ICO Pools Block Brains ICO Pools’ goal is to share knowledge, discuss trends and market analyses, and combine forces to set up shared masternodes and get early access to fund interesting projects. 96. Mike Michaels VIP ICO GROUP Mike Michaels VIP ICO GROUP is a large pool offering new opportunities regularly, with a high success rate. 97. ZeroSum Crypto ZeroSum Crypto is offering Primablock pools for private deals. Any project they post is a project that the team personally invests in. The group has also entered the trading market to “save the community,” as declared by the admins. 98. Angels Main ICO Pool The Angels ICO Group has analyzed hundreds of ICOs and only offers the projects with the greatest potential that have met their investment criteria — these are projects the team invests in themselves. 99. APEX Cripto A Spanish-speaking-only pool operating in Discord. 100. The Court The Court is a friendly syndicate that donates to ICOs that need money. 101. ICO Analytics ICO Analytics is a large Russian- and English-speaking community providing news, analysis, reviews of ICO projects, as well as early deals. 102. Royal Blockchain Investment Group Royal Blockchain Investment Group was founded to invest in ICOs during pre-sales without worrying about excessive fees or commission. By filling out the RBIG icebreaker, the community will have access to a members-only directory. 103. ICO Syndicated ICO Syndicated negotiates exclusive deals on ICOs private/presale to get members up to 100% ICO token bonuses and no lock-up from the top-tier blockchain projects. These deals are usually reserved for wealthy investors. 104. ICO Whales — CHAT & INVEST ICO Whales’ goal is to create a community where everyone can express themselves and their thoughts. The project reviews are prepared by the team of analysts and go through a three-stage audit. 105. MKK Pool MKK is one of the biggest Hungarian crypto communities and operator of the MKK Pool on Discord. 106. MyICOPool MyICOPool is a fully transparent and secure pool compliant with all government agencies for crowdsourcing projects. 107. Pools ICO BOG Pools ICO BOG is an international large and active community offering good ICO deals. 108. CryptoCompass CryptoCompass provides extensive research and private sales on selected projects. The group is serving operational due diligence with more than 150 criteria on the selected projects. 109. Invest Together Invest Together is a Russian-speaking ICO pool and blog with useful information like interviews, articles, etc. 110. Crypto Whales Pool (portuguese / en) Crypto Whales Pool is a small Portuguese-speaking community of investors expanded to an English-speaking audience, which achieved some success by participating in several good projects. 111. CryptoSid’s ICO Pool CryptoSid’s ICO Pool is a community with a solid number of users that allows them to join for free and get group ICO discounts and bonuses. 112. Lambo Global Pool Lambo Global Pool is a large pool with exclusive deals only open to participants of past pools. 113. Privatesale Pool Hasn’t been active since July 2018. 114. Digital Assets Pool Digital Assets Currency was established in August 2017 with the vision to be the largest, most honest, and transparent cryptocurrency fund in Australia. Currently, Digital Assets manages a multi-million dollar fund. 115. Global Pool Syndicate The Global Pool Syndicate is a fundraising entity that operates with the purpose of acquiring early community access to the upcoming projects in the blockchain ecosystem. 116. TWW ICO Research Together We Win provides a user-friendly interface for a community that votes on ICOs of interest. TWW initiates a dialogue with the winners in order to obtain the details of the private sale and benefits. 117. ICO Oracles ICO Oracles offers its users the opportunity to be part of the best private and pre-sale ICOs and does not worry about gas wars, missing crowdsales, or website crashes. 118. Rocket Syndicate Rocket Syndicate is a group of private ICO investors who invest in smart and visionary founders, solving actual problems in the blockchain space. 119. Crypto Inner Circle Syndicate The Crypto Syndicate Group team is made up of accredited investors who are able to partake in pre-sale and private sale offerings. Members get access to carefully researched, expert information about upcoming ICOs. 120. HIMALAYAN Private Sales Pool HIMALAYAN Private Sales Pool creates a diversified platform for investors with no or little gap between larger and smaller ones. The team consists of several analysts who work to forecast how ICOs might behave to environmental forces. 121. Investor Prime Pool Investor Prime Pool is a small community that allows ICO pre-sales on Primablock. 122. Zeno Block Pool Zeno Block Capital’s vision is to bring the blockchain to the masses. A team of experts in the fields of research, in-depth analytics, and negotiations use these skills to source ICO’s before obtaining pre-sale and private bonuses. 123. CRYPTOLOGISTE CRYPTOLOGISTE is a small French-speaking community. 124. Alphablock Indonesia Alphablock is a community group that aims to educate the Indonesian crypto enthusiasts through discussion, informations, and conferences (meetups). 125. Conexus Pool Conexus Pool is a hub for upcoming social media marketing agencies around the world. Services offered include pool services, bounty management, and all ICO-related services. 126. ICO Experts Network ICO Experts Network is a channel of crypto specialists and enthusiasts. The team analyzes hundreds of ICOs, with their analysis algorithm, comparing both the technical metrics and market sentiment. 127. Skyline Capital Group Skyline Capital Group is an active investment group offering regular pre-sale and private ICO deals for its members. 128. Keith’s Crypto Pools Keith’s Crypto Pools is run by Keith Wareing. The chat was created to share information about hot cryptos, technical analyses, and ICO discussions. 129. WavePool.io WavePool.io is a small but active community providing access to early ICO opportunities. 130. Icopicker.io ICO Picker from Elite Club is the first online platform where ICO selection, grading, and analyses are generated through crowdsourcing. 131. ICO Pool Miami ICO Pool Miami offers users the opportunity to participate in private/pre-sale ICOs. Users can discuss, contribute, and exchanges ideas about upcoming pre-sale ICOs in the group. 132. ACTION POOL ACTION POOL is a very active community with a successful track record of early ICO investments. 133. Crypto Luna Crypto Luna is a small community to discuss interesting ICO projects. 134. K&D Capital K&D Capital is a small group offering private OTC and pools, as well as cryptocurrency news. 135. Moon Pool Moon Pool is investing in the most promising ICO projects and has a Telegram bot for operations. 136. Epic Token The Epic team ensures that good-quality projects’ pre-sale amounts are given to community members and that every member receives the maximum amount in accordance to Epic’s platform guidelines. 137. CryptoCreeps ICO Pool CryptoCreeps ICO Pool is an ICO pooling service using unique contacts to secure great pre-sale deals and discounts. Hasn’t been active since July 2018 and the community is very small. 138. Diesel ICO Pool For sale currently. 139. Permian Syndicate Community Permian Syndicate is an ICO private sale community. Every deal comes with the team’s humble opinion and with the scores of other ICO ratings agencies if applicable. A KYC form is needed to join. 140. EAST ICO FUND A channel hasn’t been active since July 2018. 141. Crypto Club Community Crypto Club Community is an exclusive community of cryptocurrency investors sharing their strategies, trades, and analyses. 142. Coinstelegram Club Coinstelegram Club is an investment crypto community that allows one to invest in the best ICO projects through pools and Coinstelegram’s Private Club for exclusive deals (for members passing KYC and AML). 143. Satoshi Pool Satoshi Pool is aimed at bringing together all those who wish to invest in promising ICOs in early stages with the best offers and bonuses. The pool is very active, although deals are mostly unsuccessful as of now. 144. Friends&Funds Friends&Funds is a Russian-speaking pool with an experienced team of analysts and its own ICO evaluation technique. The whole investment process is automated, from chat-bot to signals. 145. Beyond FOMO BeyondFOMO is committed to identifying the highest quality projects and negotiating the best sales terms. They encourage everyone to have discussions related to crypto and to pay special attention to trust issues. 146. ICO POOL Corporation Ico Pool Corporation is a Discord and Telegram group that aims to allow everyone to participate in a presale of different ICOs. The pool activity, however, is very limited now. 147. Crypto Excellence Crypto Excellence is a transparent cryptocurrency organization with a core team of accredited investors. The team has connections with notable individuals in the crypto space, big VCs, crypto funds, influencers, etc. 148. Platinum ICO Club Platinum ICO Club is an international cryptocurrency community for experienced ICO participants, traders, and researchers. The team has a wide range of insights and a good understanding of space on the micro and macro level. 149. Wall Street Trader ICO Pool Wall Street Trader ICO Pool is a channel that contains information about ICO Pools and ICO News. Launched for the members of Wall Street Trader School. 150. Incognito Investors Group Incognito Investors Group is a pool focused on trust and safety with only two Primablock admins both using real profile pictures and real names as nicknames. 151. ICO_POOLS_ALERTS ICO_POOLS_ALERTS is a channel aggregating information about pools and active ICO offerings. 152. Uniton Uniton.io provides news, independent analytics, articles, and trade recommendations, as well as access to ICO pre-sales. 153. Pro ICO Pool Proico.asia is a resource created by investors for investors that combines information about current projects of ICO, ITO, and investment pools. 154. Kepler Collective Kepler Collective presents a user-friendly way to support next-generation token projects. The team provides direct and transparent access to the information needed to choose the right projects to support. 155. ICO POOL BULL ICO POOL BULL is a private group and an advisory firm for ICO and crypto discussion. 156. CryptoSenseICO CryptoSenseICO is a team of analysts offering a pool to give users access to exclusive private ICO sales. The team is focused on analysis and trust management. 157. Singularity Alliance Singularity Alliance has connections with VCs to get deals with good bonuses and without a minimum cap. However, there has been no activity in the group since August 2018. 158. Crypto Pro Crypto Pro is a hub of information for the crypto community in relation to cryptocurrency investment and blockchain technology. 2017 pools — First mover advantage The “cryptocurrency year,” 2017 brought a significant number of ICO pools. Some of the large established pools currently active were set up back then. These ICO pools have been regularly offering ICO opportunities for their members, with many already filled allocations due to high interest. Because of the fact that 2017 pools have a good track record and are financially stable, they are likely to have the means to comply with regulators in the future, which makes them a good choice for risk-averse investors. 159. Ocean Pool Ocean Pool picks the most promising blockchain projects and offers them a community seed pre-sale contribution, receiving exclusive investment terms in return. 160. Pool108 Pool108 is a small pool that gives its members access to private deals. 161. iClub iClub is an international pool with a Russian audience prevailing in it. The group offers a variety of deals, although it provides little analytics for its members. 162. ICO D.A.CH ICO Dach is an experienced community created by a group of German crypto enthusiasts. A large pool concluding exclusive deals and filling solid allocations. 163. Bitnews POOL Club Bitnews POOL Club was created to attract like-minded people for profitable collaborative investment. All projects are posted after they’ve been thoroughly analysed and verified by analysts and experts. 164. ONEX Capital ONEX Capital is a cryptocurrency chat community of 5,000+ traders, researchers, entrepreneurs, and enthusiasts that discusses and shares technical analyses, industry news, and information about upcoming ICOs. 165. Crypto Capital Crypto Capital is one the oldest and experienced groups. The pool fills large allocations and offers achievable individual caps to its investors while taking reasonable fee from them. 166. D.VA Crypto Investment Group D.VA Crypto Investment Group is a large blockchain community in South Korea. Provides market analysis and project evaluation for members and promotion services for projects. 167. ICO Review ICO Review is a Russian-speaking channel with quite a solid community publishing news and reviews of ICO projects. 168. Iconizers Iconizers is one of the oldest pools on the market. It offers decent projects for pooling to participants and allocations given to them are almost always filled. 169. ICOWhale ICOWhale provides private ICO deals that allow users to save up to 70% on 100s of tokens and coins. Focused on negotiating the best price for the group after doing due diligence. 170. Ask Me Crypto Ask Me Crypto is a crypto trading community that allows members to follow the latest ICOs on the market. 171. Tokenator Tokenator is a large international pool which offers a variety of projects to participate in. They accept contributions via their website, they take no fees from participants, and claim to have a strong analytics team. 172. CryptoAngels CryptoAngels is a closed community of cryptocurrency investors that provides recommendations for investing in projects which will yield an assured profit. Claims that the accuracy of recommendations closed is not less than 82%. 173. ITuber ITuber is a large pool whose main goal and feature is the selection of projects of exceptional quality. 174. Elcap Elcap provides in-depth information on a select set of pre-sale ICO’s and exclusive cryptocurrencies and builds a strategic partnership by connecting startups with marketing services. 175. Bulk Bulk is a Russian-speaking channel and community following the best ICOs on the market, which also allows its members to take part in ICO pre-sales. 176. Brotherhood Pool, News and Hints Brotherhood Pool, News and Hints offers a signals and a news channel, as well as ICO pre-sales and airdrops, to a small community. 177. ICO Circle ICO Circle is an active ICO pooling community providing good ICO deals for its members. It became totally private. 178. BitcoinGarant BitcoinGarant is a Russian-speaking community of investors for public and private pools. 179. Kryptsu Kryptsu has a channel in Telegram to provide the latest signals, news, research, insider tips, and ICOs. The pool has become totally private. 180. BlackCoffee Capital The pool is private. 181. DiddyCarterICO DiddyCarterICO is an established and very transparent pool that relies on detailed analyses and the selection of quality projects for investment. 182. GreenWick Group GreenWick Group is a private ICO pool with a private research team to discuss/suggest projects. 183. Glushkov Pool Glushkov Pool is one of the most experienced Russian-speaking communities of investors. The pool has its own Telegram bot with details of the deals history as well as ongoing pools. 184. Bitcoinfox Bitcoinfox is a Russian cryptocurrency resource that also runs ICO pools. It has extensive experience in participating in various ICO projects since the end of 2017. 185. Crypto Genuine Crypto Genuine is a channel that is following news, analyzing coins, and giving signals respectively. Hasn’t been active since July 2018. 186. ICO Presales (Azure Black) Azure Black is an international group passionate about creating real-world value from crypto wealth, which helps to launch and grow successful crypto businesses. 187. Crypto Daily ICO Pool Crypto Daily ICO Pool is a small community for ICO discussions and collaborative investments. Hasn’t been active for some time now and the admin rarely answers participant questions. 188. TLG Ventures TLG Ventures is a VC firm founded by three crypto entrepreneurs. The team is very selective about the companies to invest in and applies a proprietary method to evaluating these projects. 189. ICO Syndicate ICO Syndicate is a massive community which often gets the same or better prices and access to ICOs as institutional buyers. They work directly with ICOs to get exclusive deals. 190. CryptoWise CryptoWise helps people to learn about cryptocurrency trading. 191. Crypto Plus Crypto Plus is a very small community that has a Telegram channel to publish market news and analysis. Should you still consider joining an ICO pool at the end of 2018? As can be seen from the data, The share of pools with active deals is just 18% now, and many have been silent since Summer 2018. The reasons, as already said, may be unfavorable market conditions and lack of investor interest caused by scammers massively entering the market early on. Investors willing to join ICO pools now have to be very selective in order to avoid being scammed and they have to choose only the credible communities that have the relevant team experience. the majority of pools on the market were founded in the first half of 2018, with the number of newcomers declining rapidly after that. We’ll continue to monitor the market and keep the list updated, so we welcome any addition to our research. In case you want to add something, please highlight it in the text or leave a comment, so that we can implement it after review. About the author: — Founder of Geekforge.io and Howtotoken.com. 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