Bitcoin Forum

Can you name the biggest ICO scams of the past?
Of course details of the scams are welcome!

The biggest concurrent scams are "IOU" tokens like Maidsafe (started in 2006 before Bitcoin) - you buy vaporware and there's no legal obligation for these token providers to release a product.  There's a lot of IOU tokens in the top 30 and Japan, which has exceeded China in Bitcoin volume, has banned them under the new BitLicense.

The biggest early outright scam, as in not vaporware and exiting after ICO was over, was that Visa coin and whatever that project with the Czech guy in 2016.

Then we had some marketing coins with little substance behind them - Maza coin was a great idea but clearly it was started by some guy in a basement looking for a quick pay day (this was very common in 2013 - 2016 and still happens with obscure new projects).

There are hundreds of biggest scam here most prominent I can remember are ebitz and Opair and Massnetwork ,I consider Massnetwork on top of my list I purchase huge amount from a friend but now I cannot even sell it,in the market because it's a useless token.

Isn't maidsafe a real thing?  Or is it a scam?  I've seen so many in the altcoin section in the past two years, and I don't know which were the biggest. 

Cloakcoin comes to mind, as does Candlecoin.  Those turned out to be scams, correct? 

IMO, any new crypto that comes out is a scam to make the developers rich.  Give me a break.  There's absolutely no reason why most of what's on the market right now should exist.

The one I remember the most is Opair. Also, I recall many people getting scammed by DeClouds.

The big scam ICO such as OPAIR, DeCloud, MassNetwork, But i will try to give another BIGGEST scam ever such as the DAO (Dev's fault caused by make a buggy code) It's about hundreds millions of dollars flow to the hacker.

Those project as you mention correctly but I heard that if those project had a same person,they bought Bitcointalk account from someone and tried to make interesting project to scam people. yeah that i know so far with a huge $,

Also Lithium project but the amount just about 22 BTC

Actually you can't say directly that which ICO is scam Because most of the ICO came in the altcoin launching after a long years gap ( I am indicating here for the yes coin)
Here the most known scam was of ebitz and massnetwork , I am not sure whether these were big scam or small but I myself Invested about 100$ ( my 4 month earning) and lost all because no response after token sell .
Well here I will say that never go for any ICO Investment , if you want Invest some money then make every detail study with that ICO then thing twice .

The latest one's going to be Humaniq. Screenshot this.

I remember LetItRide, it was very bad experience, the scammers stole about $500k from investors.

As you can predit the future, can you tell me about ethereum price after two months.

I am interested in setting up a review board for ICOs.  It will start small, but the intent is to establish some standard procedure rules and parameters of evaluation for ICOs.  Applicants would pay a fee in X-coin and board members would be rewarded a small some per share.  PM if any interest.

why youre underestame about ico project, not all ico project is bad
the biggest succes in ico selling is monero, monero ico price only 40k satoshi, this now monero price is fantastic, volume transaction is big too
and now monero the big coin

I think you are a bit confused because XMR Monero never had an ICO or something else, dev team worked for free for a very long time and the surge in price and usage of Monero happened only because good development. That's why you should never invest in any ICO because 99% of them are just a way for some random scammers to steal money.

That must be speaking well of Monero which is now included in the top 10 digital currencies in many exchanges. I do not have any Monero coin but I believe it really does have a good future. A coin can have a future if there are real people behind the coin and they are working in one direction and one goal to make the coin get into the ground and take off with flying colors. I am supposed to be investing in Humaniq ICO but I am now doubting because of the discussions above. LOL. :)

I think DAO can be considered as big Scam, millions of dollar was involved in their crowdfund but they fail to deliver secure token which lead to Eth fork. In all this panic, the one who have invested in DAO with big hopes lost so much.

letitride was a huge scam. dont forget to add in gamebets with let it ride...same scammers

thedao was a disaster

I bought gambleo tokens worth 0.01btc at coinexchange during the ICO, after the ICO the dev locked and abandoned the project because of the death treats by the bounty hunters,like WTF, https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1822444.msg18311089#msg18311089 . I don't know how much Bitcoin was raised after they gone. And what kind of reason that they will abandon the project because they're threatened of not paying the bounties.

Altcoins are being created now and most of the developers just use ICO to make money. So if you don't want to suffer from scamming then you better join only the bounty campaigns to receive tokens after the event. There's so many investors has been already scammed but still they join again.

Once I was with the lithium project which was much active at that time but after few days this become a big scam. Many members were there but i dont know the actual reason why they become scam.

This would be the best thing to do I will think to do as well.
Just receive bounties and not risk any investment or your bitcoin with the ones who do turn out to be a scam.

GMB raised about 15 BTC and the dev was continuously spamming another project which looked shady on his part. Now he just stopped accessing the forum but he has many alts here that were caught by other members. He did not leave because of bounty payments but because the price crashed on coinexchange.


Currently, many ICOs are turning scam and this was not the case earlier when everyone used to benefit from these projects. Many projects operate without an ICO as well but then the dev just abandons the project leaving the miners undergo losses.

DeOS
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1564499.0 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1564499.0)

How to know if the project is scam or not? Is there some reliable way?

Crave, Paycoin, Aurora, and those Blocknet associated coins.
Money wise Paycoin pocket the most money.

Indeed, Paycoin is the most deceiving and made the dev richer more than he could ever imagine.

Those ways are already been busted nowadays on which ICO scam attempts doest work anymore because of past experiences.I would like to say the same thing which i know in the past regarding scam ico like opair and there are lots to mention actually.

For me, The most big scam on 2017 was Lithium and Ascendancy ICO, lithium has take away 22 BTC while on ascendancy even if the investment are being refunded but it was still a shocking since the escrows are all DT from this forum, I never thought that the devs will waste their time for this shit ICO. But i'm very glad that investment was being refunded, Thanks to all DT escrow that invest time and effort even though they got nothing from there job.

Yea I heard about Paycoin, that it was once the darling of the space just like Dash is today, also that the team once sponsored Bitcoin conference before, there must be alot of money in the hands of developers to do that. Thanks the likelihood of scam is reducing

Paycoin once worth almost $300,000,000 in around Dec. 2015 when Bitcoin price is around $250 each. In today price of Bitcoin the coin is worth over $1billion. I'm sure the guy still have stash of his Bitcoin hidden some where worth hundred of millions now.

GAW? No way, he is sued and he is looking to get a jail time under 10 years if he is lucky.

Regularly the White collar crimes are not looked bad on USA but he has done some shady stuff with bitcoin not dollars so they do not see him as White collar anymore. He needs every single penny he can find in order to defend himself and pay whatever he needs to pay to get out of that jail.

No Nxt nor IOTA? LOL, BitcoinTrashTalk is becoming too softcore...

Josh Garza deserves what has happened to him. It's a clear scam, so he needs to keep using his savings to delay justice.

Latest scam is Particl - from the creators of ShadowCash.... more info here : https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1863861.0

This is why most of the experienced guys here dont wanna invest in ICO schemes. They will scam people or we may say that the developers are making those to scam people. Paycoin is one of those where I and my friends had invested and soon it went rogue. Now we are not even looking for one as we dont have any trust in these.

Thanks for sharing your story mate. This one makes me don't really don't want to invest in any ICO because of the scam accusations. And your story already proves what I have in mind. Will not put my money in them but I'm not closing doors though. I think there's still some legit ICO out there. Just need to investigate and find out who is trusted.

Yes, GAW, this guy have hundred of millions. Crypto still have no clear policy/rule, I'm sure he could get away with no scratch. Money can buy anything.

CURRENT biggest scam ... BCC ... BitConnect

DAO has to be the biggest scam it almost destroyed ETH

He is right, bitconnect is a huge ponzi scheme. Everyone with a little bit of brain stays faaaar away from that one

http://ico.scam.network/

Here you go, a draft, open to edit for a while, since the community will probably want to rearrange everything and I don't want to deal with invitations at this point. I have made a copy and please make your own after done editing in case we have scam cleaning guest.

1. Please don't remove someone's data, rather use notes and comments. Adding data and rearranging is fine.
2. When adding data, choose and reserve a color to show how much work you've done. Mine is black :1
3. After few days I will close editing and turn open-commenting only.
4. Future editors will have to have community trust.
5. Once the spreadsheet fills with basic data, I will prepare it for syncing with WP database so that there will be a nice website with custom posts, advanced filters, search and everything.

This is non-profit, community-driven project for now. If it evolves well, strong and organised, then.. we will see. Some have more money, some have more time, some have skills...

I imagine few scenarios for future but I definitely want to keep all gathered info open to public and searchable. Lets do this one first as it is most needed to have an open database helping community and market stay healthy.