The impact of CEOs' characteristics on pricing at initial coin offerings

The present study investigates the impact of chief executive officers' (CEOs) demographic, psychological, and facial traits on the valuation of initial coin offerings (ICOs). To collect data on the CEOs' traits, we processed textual data from websites, their personal pages on social networks, interviews, and other sources. We applied an artificial intelligence approach to quantify the facial characteristics of CEOs from their photos. We used the ICO Drops and CoinMarketCap databases to retrieve ICOs during the COVID-19 period. We then applied regression analysis to test hypotheses regarding their association with ICO valuation. The findings indicate significant results for tenure and dominance, while lacking predictive power for age, gender, human capital, extraversion, and facial parameters during the crisis period. The results, in the form of formulated CEO profiles during the crisis period, may provide implications for both investors and ventures to appropriately assess CEOs' signals during the ICO launching process.