Public token sales raised just $58M in Q2 2026, down from $1.1B a year earlier. IEOs, ICOs, and IDOs all saw steep declines, CryptoRank said.
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Crypto public token sales are on track for their weakest quarter in half a decade. Just $58 million was raised across Initial Exchange Offerings, Initial Coin Offerings, and Initial DEX Offerings in the second quarter of 2026, according to a report from CryptoRank.
That figure is a fraction of the $1.1 billion raised in the same period last year. The quarterly run rate has collapsed even compared with Q1 2026, which saw $175 million in public token sales. Q2 2026 is on pace to be the lowest quarterly total since at least 2021.
Public token sales – where retail investors buy newly issued tokens at a set price before exchange listing – were a dominant fundraising channel during the last bull run. The model has frayed as investors soured on early-stage token allocations. Many projects that raised through IEOs and IDOs in 2024 and early 2025 either listed at a discount or delivered negative returns for buyers who held past the first trading day.
The CORE token sale, which raised $33 million through an IEO on a major exchange, accounts for more than half of Q2's total. Excluding that single deal leaves roughly $25 million spread across ICOs and IDOs – a figure that underscores the broader drought.
CryptoRank's data shows that month-over-month activity has declined through the quarter. April recorded roughly $24 million in public sales. May slipped to $18 million. June, with partial data available, is tracking near $16 million. If the trend holds, Q2 will be the first sub-$100 million quarter since late 2021.
The downturn has hit IDOs hardest. Decentralized exchange token sales, once a preferred route for smaller projects, accounted for only $12 million in Q2 – a steep drop from $210 million in Q2 2025. ICOs fared better but still shrank to roughly $28 million, down from $420 million a year earlier.
Projects that still attempt public sales are pricing them lower and capping allocations more tightly, yet demand remains tepid. Several IEOs scheduled for June were canceled outright after failing to attract sufficient interest from the exchange's user base, the report said.
Bitcoin (BTC) has traded in a range between $85,000 and $92,000 during Q2, and broader market direction has influenced sentiment toward new token issuance. When spot prices are range-bound rather than trending higher, speculative appetite for untested tokens tends to evaporate.
A recovery in public token sales typically follows sustained upside in benchmark crypto prices. Until BTC breaks its range to the upside and retail sentiment shifts from risk-off to risk-on, the pipeline for IEOs, ICOs, and IDOs is unlikely to refill quickly which suggests Q3 will also start slow.
Prepared with AlphaScala research tooling and grounded in primary market data: live prices, fundamentals, SEC filings, hedge-fund holdings, and insider activity. Each story is checked against AlphaScala publishing rules before release. Educational coverage, not personalized advice.