University of Twente Student Theses
Revisiting the Reliability of Initial Coin Offering Intermediaries' ratings : Assessing the Current State of Affairs of ICO Ratings, Social Media and Regulation in the Highly Dynamic World of Cryptocurrencies
Hesselman, Jeroen G.J. (2021) Revisiting the Reliability of Initial Coin Offering Intermediaries' ratings : Assessing the Current State of Affairs of ICO Ratings, Social Media and Regulation in the Highly Dynamic World of Cryptocurrencies.
|
PDF
1MB |
| Abstract: | This thesis examines the relationships between ICO ratings and the effects of social media on ICO success, and the effectiveness of ICO regulation in preventing scams are examined. In the young and highly dynamic industry of cryptocurrencies, change is constant and academically related works are aging fast. This goal of this study is to address the gap in the literature that has been created since ICOBench went offline in the beginning of 2020. Most of the studies are based on this source and therefore, this study aims to analyse the relationship between the rating of the current four most popular ICO rating websites ICOHolder, ICOMarks, Cryptototem and FoundICO and ICO success. Another goal is to find what social media factors are related to ICO success and if ICO regulation is effective at preventing the problematic amount of so called ICO exit-scams. To reach these goals, regression analyses and independent samples t-tests are conducted. The results show that the four websites significantly predict how much an ICO raises and increases by 3.1x for every one standard deviation increase in the rating. However, it does not predict whether a coin becomes actively traded or if the ICO will reach the soft- or hardcap. Another finding is that ICO success is partially explained by social media presence of the ICO on Twitter, presence on Bitcointalk and the amount of Reddit members of the ICO group. Lastly, ICO regulation is found not to be able to significantly reduce the amount of scams and there is no moderating effect of ICO regulation on the relationship between ICO ratings and ICO success. |
| Item Type: | Essay (Master) |
| Faculty: | BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences |
| Subject: | 85 business administration, organizational science |
| Programme: | Business Administration MSc (60644) |
| Link to this item: | https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/88415 |
| Export this item as: | BibTeX EndNote HTML Citation Reference Manager |
Show download statistics for this publication
Show download statistics for this publicationRepository Staff Only: item control page