Social media sentiment analysis and initial coin offerings (ICOs)

Initial coin offerings (ICOs) have emerged as a novel mechanism for financing entrepreneurial ventures. This relatively new application of blockchain technology allows a venture to raise money directly from the crowd by creating and selling its own coin or 'utility token'; in exchange for future use of this coin to purchase the services and products the venture is aiming to create. Raising capital through the crowd is structural component for initial coin offerings (ICOs). Social media is widely used by ICO ventures to promote their project by sending signals related to their project. Social media reflects public opinions and sentiments and analysing this information would present insights related to public behaviour. The crowd, including potential investors interested in ICOs, frequently engage in social media discussions related to these projects. Using a sample of 265 ICOs issued in 2019, in this empirical study we analyse textual description of tweets from the sentimental aspect by employing text mining.