Bitcoin Forum

As we know, new coins is born almost every week. ICO is inviting peoples to invest on their project with the promise of big return.
But we have seen many of them disappeared without a trace after hold fund from investors. This make a decrease in the level of trust to invest on new project from new developer.
How do we know if some project is going to be scam? What factors make it different with "good future" project?

I will tell you the truth. If the scam is good enough you won't be able to spot it that easily. There are however some clear indicators that we are dealing with fraudulent developers:

1. Unrealistic or hyper optimistic goals.
2. Stolen, copied whitepaper or paper without technical details.
3. No transparency, no real names behind the coin, no social media accounts, or fake LinkedIn profiles.
4. Self Moderated thread is usually slightly suspicious too, but that is rather minor fact, might be a way to deter idiots and trolls.
5. No real purpose, or project overly similar to already existing ones.

They are all scams. Why do they need to attach a new coin with no use in their platforms? Why not use Bitcoin from the start? The result is still the same. The people who invest in them still dump those coins in an exchange and hold Bitcoin including the founders.

This are helpful tips but I would like to add somethings. During an ICO always check the total number of coins in the circulation if its more than 20 million coins the possibility that when it hits the market a huge dump will happen. Check also if the distributed coins exceeds 40% since that coin possibly made without huge backup funds and was created solely for the developer to earn money. It will just disappear even before hitting the market.

A lot of what Slark said, but reputation can also be a big thing. If it is a group that has made something before and they're putting out a new one, then there is a relatively high chance that, assuming their last one was successful and/or respectful for their clients, then expect for them to do again. A first-time ICO should have a lot of what Slark said; transparency, profiles and information.

Not all , you cannot say or justifying like that pal
As long as it provide a reasonable profit percentage and run under reliable forum member
I think there is a lot of chance for an ICO become a seripus and legitimate project
You just need to do your own research and make a decision on it!

but you're joking, right?

In 2017 ICO means scam. Don't be fooled. Plenty of people know how to make money off of scams and you may too. But don't fool yourself that the replacement Bitcoin, Ethereum or Monero are going to be born this year.

I would say that transparency would be the best basis for me regarding on selecting a particular ICO and also you should know the Devs,Active community and Roadmap because these things i usually check it first before choosing and so far i didnt experienced of getting scam on this field.

You will never know 100%, because people with a good reputation can still change and they might get greedy or they were building on a long con. < You make a legitimate site and build a trust, and then you go for the big scam in your next project. >

The rule says, "If it is to good to be true, then it most probably is"

That's correct, the team behind the ICO can always make a good presentation to make the project look good, the intention is to attract more investors to fund the project, but do we have control on what they will do. Everything is a gamble, if we feel we can trust the developers then we put our money on the project, now, it depends on their effort then as we might profit or lose. The least we can do is just to diversify our investment, don't trust with just one ICO.

These are good suggestions but at the same time some of us are too lazy to check all those things you mentioned for example white paper even the one for bitcoin, I have not read as those things just bore me because of the technicals that are embedded in it.

With all other suggestions even some doing more by going to the extent of appointing reputable members of the forum as escrows or manager and the likes still end up scamming people of their resources.

For me, all the suggestions are only precautions and not a determinant. But some though are red flags

One simple rule that I follow is to track down the authenticity and history of the team members of the project.

Are they wanna use the reputable escrow to keep his investor's money.  And that's become the a critical element in crowdfunding. Too many the copycat project but IMO a lot of the scam project isn't use escrow or use escrow without the escrow keep the investor's money for directly.

Not all coins are scams. Yes, Coins are made by the dev. to get profit only and very few of them are for lifetime or long term.
Considering on how to check if ICO is scam or real, just see if ICO is properly escrowed than it will not be a scam . Do not invest in any ICO which is not backed up by escrow.

No you are wrong, they are not all scam, you should remove that BTC google.

The first thing is the team composition, if the developer's information is not in public domain is likely to be scam
How real is the idea, if the idea is to build castle in the air, run!
The quality of individuals used as Escrows, they must be trusted and reputable people, to protect you when the developers want to run away with your BTC.

Funding is the fundamental method to find a legit project. Following which the popularity and the news regarding the project getting published in popular websites and news portal gives the legitimacy of the projects. Among the recent days project, Qtum is a trusted project.

Well, unique logo, design and etc means something good but if we look, nowdays many hypes are doing this to blind people. To my mind it's better to check who are behind the project, how was their past and how seriously are they working on their project because there is less risk if group of developers are experienced people, also active staff is very good. You can't 100% analyze if ICO project is going to scam but these will help you.

well it should be checked before placing any investment, as we knew its always hard to say whether project will be a good one or will turned into scam, and that's the advantage of this forum you will be able to justify alts with the opinion of more experienced members and as time goes a long its always the developers reputations will take place if he is for real or he just wanted to collect funds and skip away.

You have to check if the ICO project has hired any escrow and not anyone but one of some popular escrows that are here in forum.

Even if it has escrow we should check if the money that is being invested there is moving to escrow address(es) and not like the ASC which turned into scam recently even though there were 3 escrows.

While you are choosing a coin with an ICO, you need to check whether the coin has an unique features from others and also you need to find whether coin has an innovative thought with stream line road map. You also need to consider the coin with development phase first and later ICO.

there are two risks involved with ICOs and investing in them, one of them is the owners running away and disappearing after they get the funds. and the other once which most people forget is the fact that their projects are often failing, so it doesn't matter if they don't run away, the price of that altcoin because it failed will be lower than what you paid for ICO.

And 99% of the time the altcoin's value will get lower than what you have paid for.
I believe analyzing an ICO project is not that hard. If the technical details are valid and perfect then it is most likely to understand that it is good. Even most of the new projects won't be having a social media profiles, I dunno how they are gonna survive with that.  :-\

In my opinion the best way to judge if it will be a scam or go nowhere is to look at the people running it, the devs.  whats their past and have they got good reputation in crypto scene.  ;D

your only chance is checking the project out yourself.
if you have an ICO project in mind then go find their announcement topic and start reading what the project is all about, if they had a website go there and check it out.
it is also preferred if you can check their source code if you can to see if it is just a copy paste or is there actually some work being done on it. you can see based on number of commits, contributions, and lots of other factors.
also check to see if the developers team is a good team or not.

and in the end it is an investment with its risks and rewards which you have to weigh against each other.

I consider it as an innovation. What can change that Along with the view that digital development team medal. There is much more reliable.

and every answer is very nice and useful to me.

well, the project may be stopped on the way, and his admin started to disappear. we can only know the project scam, when sites are no longer accessible, or his admin disappear. we can also predict failure or failure of a project of the goal.

Good answer tips here. This can be use to analyze ICO and being indicator to trust to invest or not on some ICO.
I usually see they website design, logo design, and how attract they write their's work programs.

There is no single good recipe as in a cookbook to identify altcoin/cryptocurrency/ICO scams. What you need is common sense and a healthy perception of the markets, as well as some inside knowledge of how the markets work and which people and forces are at play. Now all of this is dynamic and changes constantly, so you have to do your research and/or participate in the research and the stream of opinions that are openly shared in this forum.

Usually a good ico will attract interest from a lot of people who know what to look for, so go after that projects for a start

I found this to be the most reliable information to avoid scam, most of the suggestion are what is well understood by scammers that they can go about it and still scam. Track record of some reliable project managers can keep one at rest. A lot of them had left traces everywhere that make it hard for them to run.

6. do not trust "SOON" words, if dev say it too much
7. Dev not answer many critical question
8. Dev delete some post without reason

Unresponsive and staying away from those hard questions by the devs is one of the best basis. In most of the cases, there are questions being unanswered even lots of bumps have been done to that question. We can see that in some of the ICO threads.

If a certain ICO have a goal of being a fraud one, we cannot see that honestly since for investors to make such thing as investment in that ICO, all ICO related thing including website design must be properly and professionally made. So a formal site and introduction is a must for ICO devs so that investors will think that they are quiet serious even for an outside look.

That's how risky investing in an ICO is.

I would ask Spoetnik for advice

Easy. Dont buy scammy ICO premines... Keep bitcoin and litecoin..

Everything else, STAY AWAY LIKE THE PLAGUE!! (eth, ripple, dash, whatever other crap is out there)

Monero & Etc I dont know whether they are scams yet.

If we're not support new coins there will be no development on this crypto currency technology. They come with new work programs and interesting plan work.
It's good for bitcoin to have comparator. It's good on the outside they are scamming or not.

It is a meaningful question, I have my own conditions:

1. dev team should be famous, or at least they publish their real identities. Anonymous team can be OK, but be cautious to invest.
2. always choose ICO with escrow, read the terms, otherwise Ascendancy scam cheated escrows with 75 btc fund will be repeated.
3. project is innovative, for example, waves, stratis, purevidz and so forth.
4. not overvalued ICO will be profitable, you see stratis is 8X of ICO price, purevidz is 7X.

Apply some common sense and know what you are trying to achieve.

Use your brain and learn to filter what you read.

Ok then prove your point. Please post an ICO project that does not have a ponzi scheme in it. Which ICO do you think can "become a serious and legitimate project" for you?

For your final sentence, since you have done your due diligence and researched on them, tell us what the best ICO project there is and why it is not a scam. I hope you will say it is Ethereum.