The Rise and Fall of CoinList: From ICO Darling to Forgotten Platform

Once a financing star, CoinList has now faded. From AngelList, founded by Naval Ravikant, to the crypto world, CoinList has witnessed the craziest era of the crypto market and is now experiencing the most ruthless winter.

Golden Era: One coin can make you rich

The years 2020-2021 were the peak moments for CoinList. At that time, as long as you could get into a project, it basically meant making money:

SOL (Solana): Launched publicly on CoinList in February 2020 at a price of $0.25, it peaked at $260, yielding a return of 1180 times.

NEAR: Raised in the price range of $0.29-0.4, historical high point $20.6, yield 60 times+.

FLOW: Started at a price of $0.1, peaked at $35.6, returns 356 times (some people made a fortune by using multiple accounts).

CELO: The Dutch auction price of $1 surged to $10.95, yielding 10x+.

During that period, projects like MINA, Casper, and GAL also saw increases of over 10 times. The problem is—these are all history now.

What now? It's all blood and tears.

Almost all projects launched after the end of 2021 have failed:

NYM: Fundraising price $0.25-0.5, created a record of 1.19 million participants in CoinList history, now dropped below $0.2, nearly halved.

GAL (Galxe): $1.5 raised, briefly surged to $17, now back to $1.8, essentially equivalent to treading water.

CYBER: After going live, it once exceeded $17, now it's over $7, with a return of only 3.8 times.

ARCH: Raised $0.2, dropped to a minimum of $0.05, and is still hovering around $0.18, in a broken issue state.

AXELAR: $1 fundraising price, still hasn't broken even.

ONDO: $0.055 raised, it is the project with the most funding in 2022 (backed by Goldman Sachs), and the current return is still less than 6 times.

In summary: the timeline is very important. Projects raised after the end of 2021 have almost all not survived.

Why is this happening?

Market cycles are killers. Projects that raise funds at the end of a bear market or during a downturn are stepping onto the knife's edge as soon as they launch. Even with top-tier VC endorsements (Polychain, a16z, Coinbase Ventures have all invested), they cannot escape the iron fist of the market.

KYC suppression is also a hidden danger. CoinList has extremely strict compliance requirements, restricting users from many countries from participating. In 2023, they were fined $1.2 million due to OFAC sanctions. While this protects the brand, it also keeps many potential users out.

The projects themselves have differences. NEON revived at the end of 2023, rising from $0.1 to $3.8 (38 times), and now at $1.4 it's still a profit. Chainflip has also stabilized at $5. This shows that not all projects are bad; the key lies in the fundamentals and market timing.

Is there still hope for CoinList in 2024?

There are movements. Recently launched Nibiru (L1 public chain) and Meson Network (DePIN concept), both launched in February. The fundraising prices for these two projects are not high (respectively $0.05 and $1.75), it seems that CoinList has learned to price during a bear market.

But the problem is: users have already learned their lesson. Over the past three years from 2021 to now, participants have witnessed too many tragic instances of fundraising projects launching only to plummet in value. This trust cannot be restored by just two projects.

The "CoinList effect" (making money immediately upon listing) has completely collapsed. Now it is like an ordinary financing platform, maintaining its brand image through strict compliance, but it is no longer the "wealth code."

This may be the most brutal reality: the decline of a platform is not due to its own problems, but because the market can no longer return to that crazy era.