It really depends on the project, there are some extremely popular ICO's even during 2018, shilled by so called "whales" and some social media personalities with huge networks

of influence. In fact, the term whale perhaps only applies correctly to ICO investments. What happens for these projects is that usually ICO reaches hardcap within a couple of

days, if not hours of the announcement. If the hardcap is also on the lower end like 10 million USD, the exchange price might never come back to the ICO levels, and just take

off. In other less popular projects with more risky teams, etc. you can usually get it cheaper on the exchange during these bearish markets.