In a new report, CoinDesk, a leading digital media company focused on digital assets and blockchain, has said that digital assets have outperformed traditional assets by nearly twenty times in this quarter.

The 2017 Q2 edition of The State of Blockchain Report highlights that year-over-year returns on global real estate (3.2%), gold (7.7%), US equities (9.2%), and global equities (14.7%) pale in comparison to returns on bitcoin (150.6%) and all digital assets (445%).

The 115-page report contains a breakdown of the historic surge in cryptocurrency across April, May, and June, including statistics on transaction numbers, fees, ICOs, token value propositions, enterprise adoption, research and development, regulation, and industry challenges. It also details a number of industry records:

• Q2 2017 saw the largest amount of combined blockchain transactions ever at over half a million per day
• Bitcoin’s total market capitalization doubled
• Global digital asset exchanges reported record trading volumes during the quarter
• Returns for several ICO tokens since inception were historic – Augur (4,583% returns), Golem (4,700% returns), ICONOMI (2,862% returns), Melonport (1,136% returns), First Blood (2,667% returns), Digix (2,393% returns), and SingularDTV (1,033% returns).

“This quarter’s State of Blockchain Report is remarkably eye-opening. Blockchain and digital assets are already solving real-world problems in business, government, technology, and finance, and its impact on markets has been extraordinary. At the end of Q1, the total cryptocurrency market cap was valued at $23 billion USD, and largely due to ICOs, the total market cap for digital assets hit $109 billion USD by the end of Q2,” CoinDesk Director of Research Nolan Bauerle said.

The report also underscored a number of challenges the industry faces in the second quarter:

• Due to Bitcoin’s heavily publicized network congestion issues, transaction fees quadrupled from 62 cents in Q1 to $2.40 in Q2, while Ethereum’s transaction fees rose by 918% within the same period.
• In a blockchain sentiment survey, over 72% of the sample audience indicated bitcoin mining is too centralized, while 95% indicated ICO issuers should not convert funds raised into fiat currency.

Consensus: Invest

In response to the unprecedented rise of cryptocurrency in Q2 and rapidly growing interest from wealth managers across the globe, CoinDesk is launching Consensus: Invest, a first of its kind event tailored to the growing number of wealth managers interested in cryptocurrency. The event, to be held at the New York Marriott Marquis on November 28, will serve as the bridge between high growth digital asset classes, institutions and professional investors across the globe. It will also include a presentation on the next State of Blockchain Report.

“CoinDesk is excited to host, connect, and inform over 600 institutional investors, hedge funds, money managers, high net worth individuals, banks, and elite family offices on the revolutionary digital asset industry. Consensus: Invest attendees will learn more about how to invest, trade, and store digital assets, as well as receive advisory from cryptocurrency experts, early institutional investors, exchange traded funds (ETFs) and derivatives platforms leads, and specialists in digital asset tax compliance. Ultimately, attendees will walk away with a richer idea of where the digital asset market is headed in 2018,” CoinDesk CEO Kevin Worth said.

Furthermore, CoinDesk has also added as a new service, the ICO tracker that tracks the amount of money raised each month.

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