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I just joined an ICO, is there any possibilities that I will be scammed. They have just collected $5-10 million.

Some are from the get go, but others just fail for other reasons. Try to research about it as much as you can. It's a case by case issue.

I have the same question. But if they wew scams then so many ICOs would be out in the market. Would like to hear from senior members.

I just joined electroneum. Please someone, can anyone judge it for me. What can you say?

Some are, some aren't. You just have to pick the few good ones. We're talking about investing here; so make sure to do a lot of research before sending up your bitcoin or ethereum to the ICO's address. I won't list the things what you need to find in an ICO to minimize the risks of being scammed because I've posted it in these boards a numerous times already. Read through past similar threads to find decent answers.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1478633.0
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1717726.0



There are actually so much ICOs right now. And the number are still increasing.

The answer is no, ICOs are not scam. ICOs are associated with scams because many projects offering new tokens or coins ended up scams. Some others may not be scams but it failed miserably. Some other devs of projects also ran away whatever gathered through ICOs.

Not all icos are scams, depending which Ico ofcourse there are alot of projects that are scams, alot that are good but just not good enough but surely there are icos which are good, btc is not the only coin that is having a function, look at pay/tenx,  omg, qtum and neo these are working products and some of them have more than bitcoin in the form of a physical product.

I have came to think most of them are scams, and the new way to get money from users. Of course there will be exceptions.

But not long ago, whenever someone created a coin with some premine, even if it was just 10% premine... people will cry SCAM!

Now there are ICOS everywhere, when you pay in advance for tokens (that are nothing but premined coins) ... and for the most part, none says nothing. Just because they show a roadmap or innovative idea to get the dollars in.

Seems rather funny to me.

I don't think that all ICOs are scam. Maybe there are some ICO that completely disappeared after the end, but you cannot justify all of them are. There are lots of altcoins nowadays that are successful and they all started with ICO. Just be mindful of the offerings that new ICOs give, if the payouts is too much to be true then better watchout. Just do research when you intend to join one, especially if you want to invest. If you want to have bigger assurance, just look for campaign managers who have run ICOs that paid.

Worrry more about jail seeing they are illegal.

If I may know, what ICO do you follow?
Usually, the cheat ico is when he disappears when ico has finished.

Although there are a lot of ICO's popping up all over the place, it does not mean that there are a lot of scams.

It is also noting that just because and ICO fails even after raising capital, it might not be a scam, maybe the project just failed.

When it comes to investing into ICO's it is like any other investment, research is key. Things that i look for in an ICO are:-

- Strong white paper - This is a must as it will show where the company is going and why they need a cryptocurrency in their system.
- Strong team - Not just a development team, but also marketers and a CEO. Does not matter how good the concept is, it will crumble with a poor team.
- Finite supply - you need to have a certain supply of the token.
- good website and strong social media - shows they are putting money and wanting to connect with investors.
- concept - Do they need a cryptocurrency?

Once these are in place, then you can decide if you like the project.

No, at least that’s not the main idea of ICO. However, it can be extremely easy to cause a fraud or to fall for it unless you do a proper research on the project. If you are willing to back any campaign, you need to pay attention to its details and the project's description written in whitepaper.

Not all of them are scams but there aren't a lot of genuine ico's either. I advise you to do a lot of research before you invest into an ico. Keep in mind that by investing in an ico you are essentially investing in a company that hasn't even started yet. You are just investing in a concept. 90% of business will eventually fail, that makes the reward risk reward ratio even thighter.

It really depends.....definitely we can never say that all ICOs are fake and we can never say that all of them are legitimate

The important question now is: Did you do your own due diligence before taking the decision to join that ICO?

I am pretty sure that there are a lot of ICOs that are just scam. Most people trying to take your money, but there a still a few nice projects that will have some nice movements to the moon :) Just have to do enough research, before you invest in an ICO!

Some are definitely scams, but there are plenty who honestly believe in what they are doing. Do your research, that is the most important thing. What are they selling? Is it just an ERC20 or WAVES token? What purpose does it serve? If it is a scam it should be pretty obvious that it doesn't actually serve any purpose at all.

Really, look for the technology behind what you are looking at. There are tokens that are based on real tech that will be around for a long time. Look at IOTA, Tangle is super cool and eventually their token will be worth good money because of it. Another one is DragonChain, I think their ICO is coming up sometime soon, they are another great example of real innovative technology, not just some token that plans on "changing the way you do blah blah blah".

Well recently there have been some ICO that turns to be scam after raising funds from inveators but generally ICO is not scam and a really good investment opportunity which should be good for both project devs and investors if they succeed. Unfornately, there are really lots of scammer in this world who use ICO in their own benifits and steal money of investor

So far, ico now has too many of them, and sometimes you will get confused in which them are really potentials, but of course still you need to be careful anyway on choosing ico. Maybe that's one of the reason why China banned the ico to their country.

There are some ICO that turned to scam once they have accumulated funds but there are also legit ICO. You need to do some research first before investing on ICO. Look for their developers, whitepaper, roadmap and any other things related to their future plans on their coin. Be wise on investing and invest only what you can afford to lose.

Thats true but China not banned the ICO´s they try to find regulations for this. On the one side it is good that there is be a regulation on ICO (because of scamming) but on the other side it´s bad for investors :) I say all adult people in this scene should know what to do. Others should leave there hands from such things.

Yup.  ;D

actually no fakes are scam at all,
i think You should invest in community coffers, which are less scarmed than other coins,

Gaining as much info as I can from different perspectives.

What are community coffers?

Not all ICO's are scam. Infast some of the best ICO that you can think of investing are - kyber, hazza, dragoncoin etc.
With the ICO regulations comng in, all the scam ICO's will cease to exist, and this was a much needed step. I am happy and positive about ICO future.

There are certainly some good ICOs out there with innovative ideas and technologies that really do need the money to get up and running.  There are also plenty of scams, and they can be hard to spot.  Always do your research, including looking up the team members' social media pages to see if they are legit.  And of course, never spend more money than you can afford to lose, even if it isn't a scam and simply flops.

Now a days there are many ICO's are there. There is a risk of failure or scammed. self study before invest is must

All ICO's are not scam.. lot of good projects with great team..

i hope that they are not since i am going to invest in one of them.  ;D

I think that it is case by case issue, some of them can scam you,some  are legit.
In essence it is same as with StartUps , they can fail or go broke intentionally .
Good example is Juicero.

some icos are pure scam but some icos really good project and they will be good in the future.

The PBOC has announced the banned if that was a temporary until the regulators will be finding a way to make such a regulation to the icos, There are so many scammers in these days that gives the mandatory for them to protect their civilian or even the investors to not get scammed by the scammers.

Most are legit projects that will fail, some are full out scams. There's not one size

Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) are not scam. Why ? because ICOs are the one which proposes campaigns here in Bitcoin. ICOs are really best in investment and it will bring good to the projects and investors also if they succeed. But as of now, you should be careful because there are lot of selfish people who is trying to use ICO as a scam for their own benefits.

Good step, ICO can not be separated from crypto world. this is the way to make it easy to create crypto based projects. The biggest mistake is we do not know the potential ICO.
and how to differentiate it while the ICO is overwhelming. Obviously this is worrying. China is the leading country that is concerned with this condition.
ICO requires special regulation so that everyone feels safe to invest.

Would you care to mention the ICO you have just taken part of? I hope you did some checking of the project and their credentials before you did your investment. That was very necessary especially when talking about ICOs. But I think it was legit since they collected a huge amount.

No no All ICOs are not a scam, China make some rules and regulations due to this ICOs will change the criteria according to those rules and regulations but it's not for all over the world its only for chines.

Do you have any proofs of defending that china is regularizing ICO? China do shit like this to show their power. There is no other reason for china doing all this shit.

Not all ICOs are scam. To avoid ending up a loser when joining ICO, I look up to Bounty and campaign managers. There are many reputable  people who manage the project well. Some are just making and ICO for personal interest. And I agree mostly are not scam but most ICOs end up unsuccessful.

There are many things that can happen with an ICO. For example, an ICO might be so much successful that it will just make you rich within the night time. There could be possibility that an ICO may not raise enough funds to give their token or coin a good price tag which means it will take long time to hit the break even of your investment or you may not reach the break line. This might not look like a scam but it's going to be your loss. And there will be some intruders who are opening the ICO just to scam people in first place. They will raise any kind of funds small or big and later might not get listed on exchanger so theoretically there won't be any way to exchange your tokens which is just shit contract that they made. Must be careful about them. There is no proper way to look after good and bad ICO.

Do some proper due diligence when investing in an ICO:

https://picoloresearch.com/
https://www.verifiedicos.com/
https://crushcrypto.com/ico-analysis/

Many good ones out there, but also many crap ones. The above sites will help expose the shit-coins.

Not all ICOs are scam. If you study the project and read white paper of any ICO and check the project is viable and can produce the earning as prescribed in the white paper.

If i were you, I wouldn't go as far as saying all ICOs are scams. While some of them really do, while others don't succeed because of various reasons., some of them really are legit and become successful slowly and others fast.

But whatever the case being scammed is still the fault of the one scammed. Because there would be no scammers if there are no one to scam. If only people like you do a lot of research and analyze the matters properly before jumping in, scammers would be gone from this world.

There is always a chance, but you need to do enough research before you buy so that you have confidence in the coin and that it is a good and legitimate project. But if you have already bought in, then this is just advice for next time!

Not all mate but most provably that's why you need to be careful on which ICO you are going to invest since there are so many plenty of them and we don't know on which is scam and which is not. And I advise that you should hold those coins for long time since Im sure that you will became a bag holder nor a loser if your impatience for waiting for the next hype coming the coin you've bought from the ICO.

it depends the project i think. we cant call all ICOs are scam but yeah there are some.so before invest any ico investors should check more about team aand their projects.sometimes its easy to understand ''scammy'' project sometimes really hard.

Right. Investing in icos surely is a risky thing to do. Since there's no legitimate way to get your money back if you invested in it and it turned out to be a scam (the best that can be done is negative trust for forum members promoting it), it is all up to you to decide, whether it is really worth it. Yet I believe some projects are not scam and people really get rich with them. I mean, look at waves. It was the first ico released coin. Nobody's saying now that it's a scam, right?

It was electroneum. Can someone say their thoughts about it? I have more funds to spare and im finding answers to invest more. They seems to be very legit.

a lot of them turn out to be. Like this, make a coin, pre-mine a ton of it, make a campaign, hype it up, spend some money in website, designs, web hosts,etc... and after a while, when people are buying on presale, they can either take that money and run away or wait for the coin to hit the exchange then dump all of their pre mined coins and then run away.. That's why I don't trust ICOs tbh.

ICO is not a scam the survey proves that 80% of the services of the project companies they build are not scam because there is indeed a project company that they build but 20% are just people who have made the forgery project in ICO

The majority of ICO are legit but you can't deny that there are existing scam ICO that looks legit at the first site. It is good to buy on ICO because you can avail bonuses but always be safe on choosing the right one.

The risk goes up depending on the country that the team members are from:

https://www.transparency.org/news/feature/corruption_perceptions_index_2016

any ICO can become scam project. or maybe dev dont want scam but project failed. :D so we need invest carefully

I think the question should be are all ICO scam? Definitely some are scam right from the intention of the originators who are only interested in raising fund and share among themselves. But they are other ICOs that are real with intention of raising fund to build a solid enterprise. The evil ones will raise the fund and at the end claim that they did not meet the soft or hard cap whatever that means i do not know. They will claim to refund money to their investors after making double what they received. Let take for instance a dubious ICO that sold token when BTC was around $2500 and claim the ICO was unsuccessful and return what was sent to buy their token when the BTC price is now $3500 making gain of $1000 .

Just hope that the ICO where you joined goes successfully. Because once the ICO failed, you wont receive any payment. Though it seems similar to scams, because you've work for them without payment, I still do not see it as scams, because you both failed. For me, scam is where the manager/developer achieved success while you failed achieving your's through their campaign. And failure is part of success I believe, so we cannot avoid it. So still, I think there is no scam ICO's but failed ICO's.

Not all ICO are scam because lot of us earned in signature & bounty campaign because of this sponsored ICO if not of these legit ICO we are all will just depend on investing and trading. Not at all are scam that is why this forum suggest that we should screen it out and research well the better and good ICO before we choose.

there is always have risk in every investing

especially on ico, even it more being popular, but still, there is possibility it could be stuck or unacceptable in market

Most are indeed scams, but a select few will always be legit.
After all, common sense dictates that if a team initiating an ICO succeeds to collect enough funds, it is in their best interest to invest the funds as per what their white paper suggests in order to boost the value of the altcoin further as well as end up with a successful organisation...  

it will not be right if we say any unsuccessful or ineffective ICO as a scam. Yes there are so many scam project looks like an ICO at first sight but there have been quite smart and respected projects and ICOs until now and it will be although the number is few.

I feel like the word scam is throw around a lot, and of course there are scams but not to the level that everyone thinks there are.

Just because a company raises a few million, does not mean it will survive.

ICO's are a new concept for raising money and so they are a little misunderstood. The best way to avoid any negatives from ICO's is to research the startup you want to invest in. If they have a good whitepaper, solid concept, great team and a good marketing strategy then it could be worthwhile.

Currently, ICO projects appear more and more and gradually become one of the ways to make a good profit. Besides the advantages, it is also unavoidable disadvantages such as scam, project unsuccessful, underdeveloped. To avoid that, you should find out thoroughly about the ICO project you want to invest, read the white paper of ICO, see how they work and refer from people. However, all ICO projects are not fraudulent, there have been many successful ICO projects and still growing in the future.

what ico did you joined with? maybe a lot of people can give you hints as well if that a good ico or not. anyway, as what everyone else said, you need and have to research about the certain ico, know more their backgrounds and the people behind this project. cause if you do this then im sure that you you;re self can assess is this are just a scam ico or really a good one.

Not all ICOs are scams but there are certainly a lot of them that are.
Do your research before you part with your hard-earned money! Read their whitepapers. Ask questions.
See who the developers are. What is their history. It helps to have some communication with the team.
Certainly many businesses are launching ICOs because it's a fast way to crowd fund, but like a lot of business ventures they fail for various reasons. It's not always about taking the money and run but a poor business plan from the beginning. It happens.

Before joining the ICO you have to investigate that product, does that product useful for community, what kind of team are staying under that the product
Have team already  created some prototype or it just collecting the money.

There are less chances that the ICO that raised in millions would be a scam. But still by checking the track record, everyday many fake ICO comes. We investors need to be cautious and read and understand the project well before investing.

Regarding your investment, you better disclose the name of the ICO in which you invested. So that we can help you better.

There will be scams in there somewhere, there has to be with the amount of ICOs that are popping up almost daily, many you can tell from the start but the clever ones will hook you right up until the launch.

As long as you have done your own research and looked at all the angles you should be okay, but nothing is every guaranteed in this world.

Spamming ICOs, that's what they are. There are so many members who are posting about it. You'll never know whether which one is real or just a scam. You need to study the ICO first before you join, that's your job anyway.

ICOs with copy concept, fake teams , and hiring spammers to bump their thread are most likely scam.
Infact 4 out of 10 ICOs on bitcointalk are scam.

most of them are scams but there are ICO which are legit projects and what the hell that you do have doubts if that coin collected 5-10m usd. It would be successful for sure some ICO do only have $1m softcap and the hard cap varies on each project. For now checking on electronium i do see that you do hit the right spot.

You know what bro, you shouldn't say something like ICOs are scam. Because obviously, since ICOs are made by human beings, some of ICOs are also good while others are bad. Just like us humans. So it wouldn't be fair to call every ICO a scam. Just as it wouldn't be fair for women to say all men are cheaters.

And regarding the possibility of your invested coin being a scam would only be clarified by yourself. Do your own research about the coin for goodness sake! Did you even bother to read the white oaper and checked the backgrounds of the developers before you invested? That is a major mistake in investing bro. Better change your ways if you don't wanna end up losing a lot on your investments.

Despite the fact that there are so many scam ICO out there, one cannot completely roll out the fact that there are still some legitimate ICO out there too. But how to identified them is the major problem that so many investors has when trying to invest in a project during the ICO. However, I may not be able val for the project you asking about for I don't know much about them.

There are some seriously anti-ICO users around here, that will try to accuse anything ICO-related in crypto. I don't suppose that's right though, since many successful big projects in crypto started with ICOs. These kind of posts criticizing ICOs are among the oldest posts around here, existing since the ethereum <$1 era, predicting that ETH is a scam, it will fail, and you will lose the cents you spent to buy it.

Should you pay attention to those? I leave that to you.

99% of ICOs is scum. You should be seriosly in researching every ICO.

join for what ? can be further explained. not all ico will succeed, and not all ico cheats, many options for ico now. need to research and look for integritas from the ico.

Some are some arent, when a bunch of teenager raises millions for a little whitepaper, you understand we are deep in a bubble...

To me most ICOs are scam. They ask you to invest in ideas in the air and ask you for money, seldom they will fulfill their promises once they get the money.

ICO's could be scams because they hardly ever have to show you something upfront. That's why when I invest I look for working prototypes, interesting collabs with big corporations, stuff like that to ensure the team actually can build what they claim they'll build

At this point in time I'd say most of them could be classified as scams.

Considering their main goal is collecting huge amounts of money upfront, with nothing or very little to back up their claims.

We have yet to see a real world working solution come out of any ICO project so far. Mostly over hyped claims or shitty beta testing software with no chance of ever going mainstream.

And another thing, concerning the promotions most of them employ to sell their tokens... seeing all the signature campaigns, social media posts and the countless and endless spamming here on the BCT forum, how can anyone even consider "investing" in these ICOs?  ::)

I bought BMC Ico and it feels like a scam for sure, I can buy it cheaper now on trades than ICO price  >:(

ICO's are not scam, the one who doing it are those people behind it but ICO itself are legal. But because of rise of cryptos, people tend to become cautious on what ICO they will invest since there are lot of cases regarding ICO scams just like what happening in china whose reason behind the ban on trading cryptos and bitcoins. But there are many legit ICO but not all are successful.

 it is very difficult to determine if the ico is a scam project or not, so it should be analyzed in advance about the ico project, from whitepaper, road map, to team profile

you can read the ann thread or the white paper of the ICO. Through that, you will able to read about the project that they created. Check also the official website if they are aiming for something or not. You can easily determine if an ICO is legir or not. Have some senses that will help you to discover better ICO's, Goodluck!

If you want to join in ICO just read first their Campaign and observe. Many people saying ICO is a scam. You can see their manager if it is always active and approachable one then if yes, I'm sure that is not a scam. But I think here in this forum there are few scam.

Theres also a big difference in scam ICO's and unsuccesful ICO's. Sometimes the devs are doing everything they can, but the product still doesn't live up to the heights

Most of them are over valued, if you tried getting those sorts of sums from a bank they'd laugh u out the door

according to my scam no, but the possibility of his project failed to get investment targets or they could run away, outside there are many clear ICO with a professional team, just choose in ICO where you want to get involved

ICOs are not actually bad. They may provide fair and lawful investment opportunities. You as an investor should be cautious in considering an investment in certain token. You should exercise due diligence before investing in ICO. The best way to protect yourself from being victim of a fraudulent ICO is to investigate as thoroughly as possible before you enter in a fundraising project.

There are many ICOs that are considerably scams. Just ask people if it is legitimate or not. Also read their whitepaper. I think only 1-5% of all ICOs are legit so pick the right choice to not waste your time and effort.

There are some ico that are good anyway, especially if the campaign manager who will manage it has a good reputation in this industry like Sylon, Aviruness, Jamalaezaz, Irpan, Yahoo, and woshib those ico that they managed always became successful most of the time.

when i invest my money to any ICOs , i will read whitepage and research project , important is dev team behind  .
 
then i will invest 20% first exchange .

if the sales when ICO reaches the target may be ICO will be successful and will not be scam.
but if ICO is not successful it might be off and scam.

What does it mean 'they disappear'? How could it be possible?

Maybe they are referring on developers leaving their tokens for good. Take their money then leave the coin. I've been seeing 1 satoshi shitcoin values in YoBit and maybe those are the coins that are dead for good. No devs, no community with investors money stocked in a 1 satoshi coin that they can never recover unless some whales started pumping that shit.

Ok, I see... So to avoid this situation you need to do very deep research on people who are launch this ICO, their product, their industry

I can not give you an accurate explanation of the ICO you follow, but sometimes you also have to consider many things before you follow ICO. like what projects they run, how they view and who the team is doing. I think those three things are one of the success factors of ICO. with that you will not get scam anymore.

Unfortunately we are seing more and more scams each day. This is a great economy with so much profit potential so it's normal to see scams. To avoid them you need to be careful while chosing one to invest. Analyze them deeply before making your investment in an ICO.

I do not thing that ICOs are scam. So far i never heard that some one has been scammed. But it would be wise to do a bit of research before investing in anything. I think there are some really good ICOs out there, it is only up to you to find what you want and which is best for you. At the end, i guess the only question is will it succeed or not. Chose wisely.

Uncontrolled speculation is the basis of every ICO, they only offer projects that may not have been all-time-tested. The risks are huge but all can be overcome by escrow participation in their sales. This year many ico are responsible, if they do not touch the soft cap then the funds will be refunded back to investors. I never thought about the possibility of scam because I just think of it as a lottery.

I heard that there are some ICO scam but of course there are a lot of legit ICO. Some of the coins just fail for some reason. The best thing to do is always research who released the coins. Check what are their plans in the future and how will they differ from the other coins in the market.

Some ICO's were not totally scam they just failed in reaching even their soft cap, they indeed return the investor investment. Sometimes those potential project that are much interesting failed due to the high requirements on getting their cap ans too many ICO to decide where we can invest.

Some ICOs really pure scam but some ICOs are legit. You should check their advisor and team member.

There's still scams around, a project that doesn't intend to show the profile of their team often turning out to be a scam. better to avoid this one.
and also, check their whitepaper, If the whitepaper is not just pile of nonsense words, pretty sure that it's worth investment, otherwise, big no.

i like 5-10 milloin hardcap ICO's the big project doesnt't give profit to their participants in the short term but lower the 10 million hardcap ICO's can be 2x 5x 10x easily

We can't say icos are scam but most of it seems scam these days. Ico means initial coin offering so every project that related to blockchain technology can make their own ico. That doesn't necessarily mean ico will be a scam. There are a lot of legit icos.

Well SEC charged two ICOs for defrauding the investor today.

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/sec-charged-two-initial-coin-003107769.html

I couldn't find any Ann thread of those ICOs so wondering if someone from this community invested in it.

Yes it is true, and the fact that I experienced was a large profit when I invest ICO. I'm so glad because invest when ICO being the easiest way to get a huge profit. For example is when the Pre-ICO Populous World I invest around 10 ETH and if sold now I can get up to 350 ETH.

The posibility is quite low depending on the reputation of the team, the project behind the ICO and many other factors.

Yes there are a lot of scams but there are good ones too, you have to research deeply and figure out which is real and which is fake.

Their are alot of scams in the ico's but for me not all the ico's are scam, we just need to be careful in what we are joining ico's, and i believe that if we have research and know our doing we can prevent from being a victim of scam, so we just need to be alert and careful. And also we just need to deeply figure out what is real or fake.

There is always a possibility that it may be a scam. You just have to be more vigilant when choosing an ICO to invest on these days. But not all of the ICOs are scams, most of them are still legit.

Don't know about this. Sorry!

also a failed ico isn't a scam, a scam is where they raise money for a nonexistent product

is there any ico that uses escrow for investor funds invested in their project? can you give me excample where is that ico ? of course it will reduce a little risk on ICO investment right ? I just found out if there are ico using escrow services to store their crowdfunding. but what if escrow also do scam lol?

All ICO not scam. I participate in a new ICO car-taxi (CTX) which is just completed its pre-ico and I already received this month dividend in my ether wallet and ico sale will start after 2-3 days. If you do proper study and make due diligence and proper study, you get good profit from any ICO.

Everyone has to research before investing into an ICO. The team and their background, the ideas and roadmap and lastly the quality of whitepaper and website. Its not that hard to find a scammy ICO.

There are a lot of scams out there so you better watch out. You need to read alot whitepaper, team backgrounds so you can make decision but nothing is guaranteed

Not all ICOs are scam but large number of ICOs are scam that was one of the main reason why China banned ICOs.The number if ICOs which are good and not fake is very very less so it better to watch where you are going to invest as you would regret if it were a scam.The real ICOs works very hard but these scam ICOs has really gave bad reputation to all ICOs.But if you are experienced and has a good knowledge about ICOs and stuff then it is very profit in short term I think.

There are many ICOs scams out there in the market currently due to its lack of due diligence during the process. However no doubt, there are many good ICOs with very brilliant ideas available in the market too. Need to identify which are the ones that are worth and trustworthy enough to buy, look through their white paper, look into forums, telegram chat discussion. The thing is, today if i set up an ICO, after the period ended, if i run away with the money, due to the decentralized nature of crypto, nothing much can be done.

In my opinion, now on the market really are a lot of crooks, but that's okay. The cryptocurrency market is too young and ICO especially. A huge number of fraudsters is not surprising, and will continue until the market starts to adjust.

many of them yes,I never invest in ICO ;)

This is depend on the presentation of the upcoming ICOs. Primarily ICO should have the following to call it legit: 1. Reputable and respectable people behind the projects 2. Official website 3. Whitepaper or technical papers that would explain the broad operation of products being launched. Finally a prototype GitHub directory where in developments are in progress.

Not all of them. First of all you have to understand the idea of the project. Is it profitable or not. And of course whitepaper.
If everything is okay. It's not a scam

It depends on your way to choose the ICO.. I agree that there a lot of scam.. If u don't sure about project invest a little sum

Of course not all of them but you should be careful before investing. Always check the whitepaper carefully and the development team.

not all of them. It will be not fair calling all ICOs as a scam.
There have been so many successful projects and ICOs and still there.

Not all ICOs are scam and there are some genuine ICOs too but to identify them you need to do a great level of research and you should also see the team behind the project.

So if most ico's had a market cap of just a few thousand dollars. Would the government still care?
They don't care about scams, they care about taxing people's money.

not all ico is a scam, i myself often join ico. before you join ico, you should first check carefully how ico works, and you should read their white paper first.

There are many brilliant ICO's among the crappy ones. The key things in my opinion are:
* solid team with experience and connections
* support from other people with experience (executives from large businesses like bill gates or founders of blockchain based companies like vitalik)
* a long, realistic roadmap with both the risks and advantages
* great marketing on a lot of different media (youtube ads, facebook ads, online articles, news reports, ...)
* personal activity and interaction on social media, fora, conventions, ...
* good website
* transparancy

my personal favorites right now are Datum and Change

CarTaxi got a 2.9 out of 10 rating:  https://hacked.com/ico-analysis-cartaxi/  I’m scratching my head trying to figure out why a blockchain is needed to tow cars.

In order for an entity, like CarTaxi, to pay dividends before it is making profit, let alone in operation, then it is a ponzi scheme.


Augur had Vitalik Buterin on their team. Vitalik is the best person in the entire crypto industry that you can add to your team. After raising millions and after two and a half years, all they’ve released is a simple beta that is barely usable.

There are a number ICOs, that haven’t raised anything yet and they already have more software built. Enjin, Funfair and Stockbet already have much more than Augur’s beta.

If anyone understands blockchains, they would know that the Datum team consists of idiots.

Bitcoin is already having scaling issues with its 120+GB blockchain and it’s only storing small numbers for each transaction. Ethereum’s blockchain shot past Bitcoin’s and is approx. 200GB. Scaling is Ethereum’s biggest issue. It stores only smart contracts.

Datum is like ARToken, which wants to store TONS and TONS of data on a blockchain. Good luck with that. Its blockchain will need to be hundreds of Terabytes. Who is going to run its full node? You?

Change-Bank is way too late to the party. Monaco, TenX and Centra are doing debit cards as well.

Also, nobody is going to put their coins in a bank or any centralized place, for the reasons that Andreas Antonopoulos cited. You are creating a honey-pot for hackers and employees to steal.

Also, they lie about their team. Their “Blockchain Expert” worked as an Inside Sales Rep until 1.5 months prior. Their “Blockchain Developer” never developed a blockchain before.

Also, banking and insurance are very complicated businesses.  Nobody on Change-Bank's team has any experience in banking or insurance.

The easiest way to filter out the shit and scams is to use 3 filters:

1)  HAS THE TEAM BUILT ANYTHING THAT WE CAN USE TODAY?  If not, ignore.  Everything else is useless.  There have been many projects with impressive teams, fancy pretentious titles, detailed roadmaps, cool videos and lots of social media activity that have raised millions and still have not released any software.  Let me know if you want examples.

2)  IS THE TEAM FROM A CORRUPT COUNTRY?  If so, ignore.

https://www.transparency.org/news/feature/corruption_perceptions_index_2016

3)  RESEARCH THE PROJECT and don't be suckered by the fancy animations and videos.

And don't be scammed by comments from users who are interested in pumping and dumping.

I agree with the others. There are many scammy icos out there, but there are many legit ones too. You need to do your research and proceed with caution. This is a high risk high reward scenario and you are gambling with your money. Take care.

If we take your opinion into account Ethereum should've been ignored as an ICO.

Datum isn't going to store tons and tons of data on the blockchain instantly. It's gonna grow, just like bitcoin and ethereum did. Nobody is instantly gonna jump on the datum project, it'll take time. Also, its not gonna store all data, just the data that's gonna be sold. Facebook is storing massive amounts of data and sells that data to advertisers. Are you saying Facebook is more technologically advanced than Blockchain?

Change isn't too late for the party. Are you saying centra, monaco and tenx are gonna supply the entire world of cards? I don't think so. Plus, Change is based in Estonia, which is the most digital country in the world, giving it quite a good start. About the centralisation, that's just not true. You say we need to research projects but you didn't research Change, or you're invested in either one of the three others you mentioned.

About their team, they actually do have experience, but even if they didn't that's no guarantee for failure. One of my best friends has never had a job, yet he's the CFO of 2 LLC's and 1 VC he started, all of which are succesful.

Last, being born in a corrupt country doesn't make you corrupt yourself. This market doesn't depend on its country of origin, but like I said with Estonia, being based in a good country definitely has its advantages, but it's no necessity. Look at where Vitalik comes from, one of the most corrupt countries in the world.

Most of them are. Like big names presenting a white paper that is just a farce and funding big bucks with it, just because they have a reputation.
And then there's also the regular golddiggers who want to get rich to easily. These are all people who give Ico's a bad name. So, be aware and make sure not to fall into their traps.

There are a few differences between when Ethereum had its ICO and today:

• There are far more ICOs today than back then, so you can be much choosier
• Vitalik was co-founder of Bitcoin Magazine in 2011. This means that he was already a leader in the field, when he started Ethereum in 2014.  Most of the ICOs today are not started by leaders in this field.  Some of them have only been exposed to cryptocurrencies for a few months.
• Vitalik grew up in Canada and Ethereum started in Switzerland. Today, you have many ICOs coming from corrupt countries around the world:  https://www.transparency.org/news/feature/corruption_perceptions_index_2016  In 2014, you didn't.

Datum only needs to be a fraction of the popularity of Bitcoin or Ethereum, and it will have a bigger blockchain and have scaling problems.

Facebook, or any company, can process more data than the blockchain, because their databases are centralized. Centralized databases can process much more. That’s one of the reasons that Visa can process way more and faster than the blockchain.

I’m not invested in any coin bank for the reasons I cited:

Nobody is going to put their coins in a bank or any centralized place, for the reasons that Andreas Antonopoulos cited. You are creating a honey-pot for hackers and employees to steal.

I would not invest in Change-Bank because they lie about their team. Their “Blockchain Expert” worked as an Inside Sales Rep until 1.5 months prior. Their “Blockchain Developer” never developed a blockchain before.

Also, banking and insurance are very complicated businesses. None of the people on Change-Bank's team have experience in banking or insurance.

There will be scams from North America or Western Europe and there will be successful projects from corrupt countries. But when you invest, you have to factor in probability. The probability of scams coming from corrupt countries is higher. If you get a phishing email, it's likely from a corrupt country. It's not just scams. The probability of projects that are not well thought out, that do not fully understand the complexities of business, blockchain or technology, that will exaggerate, will be higher from corrupt countries as well.

You can not say them Scam.
Maybe they become unsuccessful to fulfill their words after the ICO.
That doesn't mean Ico's are scam.
There are lot's of legit ICO are available
We just need few calculation to choose the right one.

Most of ICOs are not scam, but claims and possibilities/skills of teams are not consistent with each other. Such investments are ventures, so diversify your assets and be happy  :)

I appreciate the way you explain yourself, it's clear you're intelligent and you definitely know what you're talking about. I agree with a number of things you say, but what you don't factor in is that technology is always advancing, now faster than it ever has, and slower than it ever will in the future. About Datum, I understand and agree with what you say, except for the fact that technology, more specifically data processing, is one of the fastest growing industries in the world. Fog computing isn't sci fi anymore, and localized cloud computing is more than capable of dealing with the amount of data that will be stored and traded on the datum network, because it simply won't come close to what facebook and other media will have to deal with, at least not at first.
The way those crypto 'banks' work isn't with centralisation of our money and finances, it's the centralisation of decentralised services, which makes it not more hackable than any other bank afaik. Also, Change is based in Estonia, which isn't a corrupt country by any standards, at least not more than other countries. Datum is based in HK, which also fights to get rid of corruption. Whether or not that claim is in fact true remains to be seen.

We both know we could discuss this topic endlessly. I have my vision and you have yours, which I respect. The fact of the matter is only time can tell. I believe in every project i've invested in and it has paid off really well. I've therefore decided to participate in both ICO's becuase I felt I could take a little more risk to potentially gain a little more profit. Like I said, time will tell.

Of course not, we have a lot of genuine ICO out there.

I think the first best way to make an impression about an ICO if it is scam or not, is reading the white paper... if it is well written, with lots of details and the ICO goal is explained very clear in it. Try to do research on the Team members to see if they exist or if they were made up.

Did you do your own research regarding the company? Personally I haven't joined any ICOs yet since I don't have much time to read their whitepaper and everything but before you invest you should really learn about the company first. Its plans and the people behind it if you think they are responsible enough to run the company after ICO. Only invest in an ICO if you really trust the company and everything about it because by that you won't be blaming someone else if in case your investment fails.

I decided to do something about spam on this forum, and to give my contribution in fight against spam. This forum can be a better place, I believe that we can make better organization of our comments. Let`s try to create a system that we will follow in every section of this forum, to make easier for each of us to find good and valuable informations. This is my first try, have respect for that!
Let`s have 1 thread about this topic, not as many as we have now. We will keep track of one thread easier then  10 different threads with same headline, and hundreds of same or similar comments.
First of all let`s choose a topic where we will discuss about specific question or matter, we need to avoid new threads that newbies are making each day with same problems and same questions, avoid them or if you wish to comment something point that newbie where to find thread about it and stop there.
Everyone is entitled to his/her own opinion, everyone can change opinion, add new information`s. What I wish we to do is to stick with facts all the time, with verified informations, and after that to give our opinion on that.
Point is: LETS ACT AS CONNECTED COMMUNITY, NOT AS INDIVIDUALS.

System I have in mind is very easy to follow, I will give first example and I ask others to follow me in this!!!


Question is clear: Are ICO`s a scam?!

YES:
NO:
NOT ALL OF THEM: 1  Vote for this option.

Before 1 and a half year I had chance to invest in bitcoins and some alt-coins (in that time icos), I spent bitcoins other things, I missed my chance
to invest on time part cause I like more to gamble and I didn`t know much about trading, and part is cause many threads in that time and comments from all kind of members new and reputable ones were suggesting that this icos are scam. I missed my chance back then, now I try to have alt-coins that have future in my opinion and to invest in some new icos. That is my experience!

NOW PAY ATTENTION PLEASE- EVERY NEXT PERSON SHOULD DO THE NEXT:

-First copy/paste my poll and give your vote, and my vote stays the same, or if you vote for same just wrote next number.
-Second give your opinion and describe your experience if you have any.
-Third and not necessary if you think that I make any mistake in my comment, or I`m wrong with something please correct me.

IS IT HARD?!?! EVERY NEXT PERSON THAT COMMENT THIS THREAD SHOULD FOLLOW ME!
I will come back to see what is happening, I don`t wish to threat with giving negative trust to all who just post to be paid without reading anything!!! But if I see some very stupid comment after mine I will do that.

For me personally i do say that some ICOs are scam and some just failed to reach tjier specific target. Always remember that the true value of an ICO token takes month after the launch nor years. Invest wisely mate.

The fact that ICO has got all the neg reputation is all because of the recent increased number of scam on the forum campaigns as well as after the project launch. The ICO used to be best investment opportunity a year ago but it's not now but that's not completely ignorant as well. There are many people who are trying to get into real business deal and they are very rare that's why we can't see them in the bunch of scam ICO. The better way to odd them out is by researching more in that particular ICO by means of reading whitepaper or looking after the real news about the project launch. You can also checkout the engagement of the project socially which actually defines the power of communication and hence altogether the legitimacy of the project.

Not all of them. But one should do their due diligence before investing in any ICO to make sure it's not a scam.

Did you read their whitepaper? Or at least visited their website? If you did that and you decided that the project is a legitimate one, then perhaps the ICO that you invested on is good. You will have returns in the next months depending on their roadmap development. And they collected a big amount.

No.Not all.Remove that from your mind and select a good and promising ICO and invest in it. ICO's are the opportunity for a potential project to get on the road.They just raise fund and start building the project.So invest in a good ICO which has long-term benefits.To know about the ICO read their white paper and roadmap and to know well about their team.

i don't believe that all icos is scam. Most of them  are Scam or without promising future .

Most ICO's that are doing good have launched somewhere beyond Bitcointalk and they also participate in this website as well. Being around many websites with the project does mean something if it's legit.

If ICO does not reach the minimum target (hard cap), I think its name is not a scam, but project failed.
Provided they return the money that has been entered into the investor, or continue ICO in the presence of ICO part2 or something like that

Before joining to an ICO make sure, you checked it's background and researched more articles about it. If you have joined and feel that it is scam, so leave immediately. There are lots of ICOs scam anyway.

Read:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2243157

It looks like a scam, I can not access links that have been distributed by the areicos party. In this case need vigilance who is willing to invest, if not smart, we enter the scam
Although the language and structural in ico look positive but not a guarantee ico it will land successfully

that's a cool thread, I'd recommend it

If a project can not collect fund with hardcap target,  that mean the project failed but not scam,  maybe they will return investor's money.  Many ICO now that legit and has big potential but to looking for that we need more time because so many ICO this periode.  But very important before jump and invest in ICO is always read their white paper to understant aim of the project.

Despite there are scammers increasing, majority of the ICOs are still safe and still. just make sure that you check team before you get into that ICO.

Well, from my point of view, a great deal of ICOs are questionable. I'm not saying that they are a scam, but they look shady nonetheless.
It's relatively easy to distinguish a SCAM ICO from the rest if you have a trained eye and some experience. Shady team, lack of information in the whitepaper, even the website itself can tell you to stay away from that ICO.

On the other hand, a great deal of ICOs performs rather poorly. Only a few of them manage to raise sufficient funds or even reach 100% of their intended goal. Maybe it boils down to marketing, and which ICO sparked the most hype.

I even made a super simple infographic after looking at this week's data, take a look:
https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*K8v7PIIODOroddCz75KzGA.jpeg

From this chart, only 1 managed to raise most of its funds.
5 of them performed really poorly
and 6 of them didn't even bother to provide information on how much they've raised, so they might be scam, perhaps.

I go through almost 40-50 ICOs every month to choose best for investment prospect. What I have found so far is that only 10-20% are fake. Most of them go unsuccessful and aren't fake which accounts for almost 50-60% . Only the left 20-30% go successful and that is why we usually consider those all unsuccessful ICOs as scam projects. That is why we see a big number of scam accusations. But in reality so is not the case. Not all ICOs are scam.

How could be a trained eye shows? Anyway,I'm not particular with ICO but I know that this isn't a scam because if you try to look on things,several people are into ICO. This means ICO has a beneficial effect towards investors or other entrepreneurs using this altcoin in cryptocurrency. We are already aware of scammers but it's difficult still to pint out which one/ones. Consequently,ICO is not a scam but try to contribute an evidence if you have experienced a scammer of ICO.

before you joined an ICO you should find information about ICO which you can get in ANN Thread and from its website, from that information you can make decision. can minimize the existence of a scam ICO

I think every ico is a potential fraud. people started doing this job just to make money.
you can not trust anyone,my friend

true, but the team and their experience and transparancy can show a lot of credibility

   Everything new is a potential fraud. ICO`s are new for most of us, and scammers are
using that. They using people greediness, they promise huge profits to those who invest
in early stages, they promise well designed future with many pictures and documents that
prove their story. We need to be smart when we choose in which ICO we wish to invest.
   I invested in casino ICO`s, I believe there is something in that. Before I invested I
checked who is behind this projects, their road map for the future. Unlike others ICO`s
casino ICO`s are easy to understand, well designed casino with more games and more people
will earn good money and that will be good for all investors. They have plans for new games,
promotions, and I believe that bitcoin gambling have a good future.
   Some ICO`s are more technical, and I mostly relay on information`s from others. To know
how to spot good ICO of that kind you need to have huge knowledge about technology.

Not all of the are scam. Yes, they are made to make the devs rich but don't let it discourage you in investing. There are still many ICO that have good innovations and the team seems capable. You should check out those things first so you don't get scammed.

Maybe yes maybe not since you do not give the name of the ico you invested we can only guess, if we knew in what ico you invested we could dig deeper, however one thing you need to understand that even if there are a lot of scams round the forum, sometimes a coin can fail for things other than a scam, in that case you were not scammed simply your investment did not gave to you the earnings you were looking for.

Make my words 99% of ICO's are scams and actually when they end the coin go nowhere expect the people who created the ICO's walk away with free Bitcoin, its a suckers heaven. If you read my post , there is a eastern European gang on this forum using bots to post hundreds of ico's per month. Newbies keep putting into these ICo's thinking it will make them rich as they said: A fool and his money are soon parted.
China Banned ICO's for good reasons. Too bad bitcointalk is not preventing bots from flooding posts with ICO's.

Depends on how you define SCAM. Some are not outright scam in a sense that they are trying to swindle you out of your money by making a fake promise. However, they can still be a waste of your time and money in the long run because they are run by an incompetent team with poor ideas.

If Dev is still active and the ICO web is still accessible the possibility of scam is still very small.
try to check again how much soft cap ico I think $ 5-10 million has met the target than other ICO.

https://img11.hostingpics.net/pics/214864icoscam.jpg (https://www.hostingpics.net/viewer.php?id=214864icoscam.jpg)

The problem is even a 5 year old can start an ICO scam. It cost nothing and its easy to set up, i could set up one right now and have a coin by tomorrow and some ads pop up on targeted sites, after that  me and the dev would split the total Bitcoins received from the ICO 50/50.

Crypto newbies are the ones who fall victims to this, most veterans will never invest in an ICO's or they will take extreme measure before putting one cent into it. The problems a lot of newbies think ICO's is easy money the reality they are the opposite a majority are just there to suck the BTC out of newbies. Ignorance is the reasons these ICOS keep popping by the hundreds. ::)

Well maybe China banned ICO because of this rampant fraud, as they just protecting their people in this illegal fund raising.
Yeah at first I'm actually didn't agree with China but later on as fraudulent is widespread I just understand their two cents.

Investing ICO is a great investment for short term but what's happening right now many are afraid to invest and loss their money instantly. As this ICO is like rotten tomato that mix in the fresh one's so its hard to tell what's fresh and what's not.

You can't say that an ICO is scam or not unless the project starts. ICO (Initial Coins Offering) is the first step of these companies who want to offer their product to people. During that time, they are trying to evaluate how people patronize their project/coin/offers. If there are a lot of people joining the ICO, then the tendency is that the project will be successful. On the other hand, some ICO don't succeed, thus, forcing the company to close after some time. But still, you need to take risk to become successful, too. No one gain without any risk. That's what cryptocurrency world is all about.

Many ico look scam in my opinion

We need a regolator company which check all ICO and make a licence for them. We all want to clear everything. Scams are not good.

Holy shitballs :D this is exactly what I've been talking about actually, so many of my friends keep sending me websites and stuff for new ICO's yet they don't even bother to check if the team is actually doing anything. The process you describe in that picture would honestly barely take 1 day, and you can literally make half a million dollar in 1 week doing this Most people won't fall into your trap, but some would. It's like sending out an email about being a nigerian prince and wanting to share your millions with them, provided they pay you 10K to cover expenses. if you send it to 100.000 email addresses, I'm sure 50 of them will send you the money, and boom you just made half a million bucks

You need to be diligent enough to check on the ICO and the team. you can't just base on the collected sales to justify if they are real or scam. So do your homework to protect yourself.

Check the team, if they have experience, are transparent, are active, are responsive, have a good roadmap consisting of risks, potential gains and flaws as well as realistic goals, its most likely not a scam

I will just add something here. I have backread this thread and your concern here is pretty much answered and explained by the posts. Try to go over the team's responses to negative comments. Try to look at how they react to these. A lot of scams do not spend time entertaining them or even deleting them or banning or blocking those people raising the concerns. Instead of properly addressing them, they avoid and cover them up.

That last thing, exactly. I once invested some money in a project I will not disclose. During the development stage, some evidence came up surrounding a possible scam, which simply was ignored. Not only that, communication in general drastically went down. Now, another project I firmly believe in, Change bank, was criticized for setting a very high hardcap, almost unreachable. It didn't take long before they released an official statement addressing this critique and returning trust to the project. The difference this small act makes is really incredible.

Even on bitcointalk there are many scam altcoin announcements :(
But I hope the one you invested in is a good one. So wish you good luck and high profits!)

Check the team and its experience, the product, problem it solves, why it will have value, why they need your money. If everything is OK, invest as much as you can afford to lose.

Not all, it just so happens that the one you have joined is a good project that it garnered enough support in the few days it has announced the project. It is undeniable though that there are many scam ico's right now--dunno about those exxx shitcoins...seems scammy to me :D

ICO's are certainly not scams, but they are high risk investments and deserve diligence as such. Generally, you are buying into a seed company in a rapidly changing space. There will be winners as there were in the .com era, but many ICO's lack significant backing and are vulnerable to collapse. Kudos, ICO'ing Nov 1, has my attention for this reason. They have a very strong dev team and advising board which positions them well to succeed.

not all ICOs scam. you must do a reseach first on project what you want to invest.
I think important to check The team and Read their whitepaper.

There is lot of scams , but there are lot of good ICOs . From my perspective all are good because I only work in signature campaigns and it is my source of money for investing. From perspective of investor everything is risky. So you should inform your self about everything before investing. If they gathered big amount of money that is probably good ICO, but it's not decisive. There are lot of good ideas and ICO's that collect small amount of money..

Great article!

https://blockgeeks.com/guides/why-most-icos-will-fail/

if you're unsure about the coin, better ask here on the forums before starting anything and hope for the best later on. A lot of to be good coins are shadowed by some scam coins with "better" offerings.

all are not scam

you have to find the real one

its not easy but you can

EX

01 read whitepaper

02 search CEO and members background  

03 search past projects of that CEO and crew

04 whales comments for that project

05 Twitter updates and bitcointalk updates

then you fill that this is not a scam then invest .





 

Those with strong teams, real operational plans, experience at building similar platforms or technologies, and reasonable valuations can be considered. Since the tokens eventually have liquidity on exchanges and ICOs require more technical knowledge to participate, ICOs with the right set of characteristics can offer significant upside opportunities.

ICOs are not scam. ICO is a new way to raise funds for successful companies, startups, and motivated teams. Traditionally you have to spend millions dollars on IPO, for ICO you need only smart contract.

i think we should not say scam for all because we should search personally  before investing in each and every but still we there are sum cheaters also which make questions arise on good coins also so search before investing 

In the current time it is a usual assumptions that the ICOs project are scam only but in actual this is not a truth , Because most of the ICOs are more profitable for all investors but only few of them only scam ( example of indocoin that I'd told by my one of the friend , Because site was out of access and not contact available for the coin project ) .
Here the investment if big then chances are big that they will not scam Because they have an Better time with the investment money that they should start Thier project in better way ( even earlier they don't want ) .
So here it seems that your investment in the ICO is better According to investment amount that you told .
But here my strong recommendation is that you should make better research about the ICOs project before Investment and also you can ask about the ICOs legimaty in this forum for better suggestion and recommendations .

Indeed. I once wanted to launch an ICO for a coin project with a client of mine, i got hold of a DEV immediately during negotiation he wanted 30% of the ICO that would be gathered.... The problems lies that ICO's in Cryptos are so easy to set up and you will always have suckers putting money into it. Even a retard could set up a coin with an ICO and walk away with free BTC's, it has become breeding ground for fraudsters this is equivalent to premine coins being sold to noobs. Just see how many pop every week hundreds.... Newbies if you reading this , best you put your money into established coins than some nonsense ICO's that will most likely steal your btc's. As they see do not believe the hype its just a honey pot trap. ICOs are unregulated and do not provide protection to investors in case of fraud or loss so you at a very high risk. Running ICO's  frauds is easy and people can do it over and over again without fear from the law.
ICO investment should only be contemplated by experienced investors who are confident in the project raising funds newbies stay away or loose your money simple.

Exactly, we're entering a completely new world, which will benefit those who want to take advantage of the less clever

The over-saturation of low quality ICO's is a huge problem currently. It's even worse now that more newcomers to crypto have been choosing this as a quick way to profit. Scammers are constantly looking for an easy get rich quick scheme and too many are willing to foolishly throw their money around. It all comes down to doing your own research and using your commonsense. It's also never wise to invest what you can't afford to lose.

yes it is. i have invested alot of ico and everytime when it launch the price is below ico price. every uckingg time.

Time to stop now then. You loosing money . Best you invest in established coins instead of falling for the fraudsters.

true. i no longer plan to invest in any ico again.

Its a chain of effects , if newbies took the time to read the forums they wouldn't loose their money.

Or just read the wp and google the teammembers and the tech they're gonna use. Took me about 1 hour of research to decide to invest in Change, 1.5 hours to decide to invest in Datum, and about the same for investing in Red Pulse

i think that depends on the quality of the developers and their experience in the feild of cryptocurrencies aswell as the quality of the ico idea.

He explained that in his post, a shady ico is easy to distinguish, if it has devs no one has heard about or even worst if the images are fake and the devs are not even real, if the website looks unprofessional then that is very telling if they cannot create a website how are they going to create a good product, check the ANN thread as well many other members of the forum will check it and will be able to tell if the coin has merits or if it is just a copy of another project that already exists.

this picture should go viral in the cryptoworld

Yeah, check the whitepaper, adjust between the planning (road map) in the whitepaper with the progress of progress that has been passed if it is appropriate. If not appropriate, check to the developer team why the planning is not appropriate. If there is a response with a reasonable reason, yes chances are not yet scam.
Just a personal opinion

Thank you bru for sharing the posted. Now i know what i need to minimize the risk of being scam.
I'll ask later then after i read it  ;)

I think that 90% ICOs have problems. There are many ideas use to ICO, but most of devs can't execute what they say. Here the link you can read to protect yourself before investment:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2243157.0

What's the difference between ICO and seeds investment in standard startup? You have a paper, a team a.d a roadmap to evaluate it....

ICO are not suppose to be scam! If an ICO turn out to be scam, that means the issuer is a fraud and he should be prosecuted! ICO are campaign by new start up looking for funding l. The traditional funding system might not want to take a risk with new start up but angel investor will! That is why we have many of those lookng for funding rushing to bitcoin market where people's identity are not know until you dig it out!

Invest only for the long term, it's unwise to invest hoping for quick profits, if you invest in an ICO you truly believe in, you should look at the lower price as a chance to buy in more

There are sure scams out there. but remember to research and due diligent checks for our own safety. And sure there are promising ICOs that are good for investments.

Yes that's true! not all ICOs are legit and paying especially this year that has more ICOs and has more airdrops. For me it is hard to find out of which one are true and scam just make sure to research their background and team behind the project.

in my own opinion yes its true!that some ICO is scam,but not all.first we must identify if this is legit we used our own instinct,we must follow the
basic fundamental analysis,we must been become observant & deligent ,some ICO is fraud they only used for their personal interest, so we must be careful because our effort will turn to nothing.

I advise you to do a lot of research before you invest into an ICO. All ICO aren't scam.

If you are looking to get into some ICO's:
1) Check out the site and the quality of the site. Does it look scamish? What the token is created for, timeline, team members and social proof.
2) Take a look at the white paper of a project. In the white paper, look for information like, prototypes, team members and the idea of the token. If the team does a good job at explaining the idea then you should have a understanding of what purpose the token was created for and why it is a great investment.
3) Watch the video on the site.
4) Research the CEO especially if they have social clout or a famous person on the team. It's best to find out what you can about the CEO as far as the background of the person and maybe even connections they have, especially if you like the idea. Check site's like Linkedin, Twitter and stuff like that for info about the CEO and maybe other crew members if you feel the need to dig further. Researching team credibility is important.
5) There is a site called picolo research that gives reviews on ICO's. They'll tell you if something is risky or not.

Hope you enjoyed the info!)

Yes looks like many of them are developed just for stealing money purpose
It is good to check do devs really exist,if yes it will be not so big problem to find informations about them
Check are thay are telling truth,if you find just one lie,stay away,next lies will follow

With global regulations and rules for ICO the challenges of scammers will be minimal,We have alot of ICO  coming up daily, alot are scams,thats why you have to ensure you research before investing

Better always do some analysis and research,not all ICo that fails is a scam, and not all who'd success can't be considered scam, i mean later on after ico some projects didn't update and have no progress so better weight thing always.

yes there a posibility that an ico would turn into scam and wont guarantee that they would pay you after the ico has been finished. and i see there were more ico these days and mostly they are scamming users here and also outside of the forum who invested on them although theres no other way to combat them or block them , so i  suggest that youd better check their infos before joining them or its better to just avoid them.

Not all ico is a scam. Because there are also ico that failed due to certain problems. Therefore, you should be careful in investing in ico, meticulous in reading and plans made by the developer

I have never incounter an ICO scam here but i think the ICO you have invested stated that they just collected that kind of millions value, it will not be scam.

Depends on which ico. all of it depends on your due diligence with research
what helps is asking the forum on their thoughts. I recently asked about unikoingold and heard really good feedback(ontop of my research) and threw in 20ETH because of this community

That entirely depends on the ICO..

I do not know that which ICO you have joined as it depend on the ICOs that some are promising and some are shady. If you have invested in a promising ICO then you have to hold your tokens for a longer time as the price will increase when they will implement their project and if you have doubt on the ICO in which you have invested and their activities are shady then do not worry if you have bought at the early time in discount as when they will ad it to exchange then sell them at that time you will still earn a good profit.

not all ico is scam, it depends. many altcoins ico is successful and good project
so, be carefull to join in ico, its better to read whitepaper before joined.

These are great pieces of advice before participating in any ICO. This is to make sure that your investment will not end up in the pockets of the developers who do not have any intention to pursue their project. But I have reservations now with unreliable sites that give reviews to ICOs. Some of them are actually paid to publish reviews of ICOs.

That would depend on what ICO it is, some are cash grab scams, and others are legit coins.
All you can do is make sure the team is legit, and that they have past experience and proof of their concepts.

Otherwise I wouldn't invest a lot into an unknown ICO unless you trust it fully.

There were some ICO that accumulated huge amounts and then caused to move in scam and refrain to pay back investors.
But of course not all, most of the new ICO come up with absolute legal permits.
It is better to read whitepaper, look for developer's social media profiles before making investment.

That's a start, but nothing as good them having a working product and provable ongoing development. A good reason to justify the token is hard to come by.

I believe that the total amount of money raised does not show that they have scammed or not. We must gather more information about Team, Purpose,...before invest.

Try to do a research before joining an ICO. Check the team if they look legitimate and the purpose of their project. The legitimate ones would not fail you, I am currently in a campaign called electroneum, this is a legitimate ICO and I am looking forward in the success of this project. About 90% of ICOs are scam, so be careful.

Not all ICOs are scam, but the risks are high, very high. But if you do a deep research before the investments, your actually can earn. But I'm tired of all this ICOs.

Are there any ICOs going currently that you believe are good investments?

With the growing fame of digital currencies, people have started to earn money by wrong means. Not all the ICOs are scam but the number is increasing gradually because of the fact the investors of crypto coins have also increased.

In order to avoid scams, it is better to goose about it or check videos on YouTube. Ask on forums like this one and try to go with the famous ICOs only.

Don't be tired bro. Someday or sometime we will hit the lucky pot out there bearing the next big cryptocurrencies in this time.

For all the guys who answered my question. Thank you guys! As a beginner I have learned so much.

Most of the ICO projects are deceptive, but there are still a small number of ICO projects are high-quality projects, so the ICO market is still an opportunity

I choose ICO and check it as many times as I can, to be sure that it is really good project to invest. Now I have one good that will start in November - confideal.

Near 90% ICO create extremely strong incentives for the owners to exit without finishing their product or service. That is why people only hold Bitcoins.

Not all are! Although be careful as there are some cons out there unfortunately. Research the team that are behind the white paper and see if they are credible. If the idea is solid then I would be contacting people involved to confirm my faith before investing.

You didn't mention which ICO you joined. They gathered $5mln, then that's a good amount. Maybe it has got a good concept and potential and that's why people invested so much there. But yes, out of 100 ICO, I would say only 5 are good.

I'm really lucky and i never was scammed, but could be if didn't start read this forum.  I still believe we have no scam ico. I sure that confideal is exactly this case. But You need always check your ico and read as much information abt it as you can.
In my opinion describe of ur ICO looks good, but it could means nothing also.

Well some of them are. Even airdrops can be scams, so be careful. But if you're gonna invest money you should always do enough research to know if it's a scam or not, or at least if it seems legit.

Many ICOs will be scams, it is important that you take your time before investing to investigate properly the coin and the team surrounding it, ask others in the forum their opinions, if anything seems shady then don't commit your money.

Please do not join an #Airdrop #Airdrops which needed you to sent some amount of eth to participate .. its a scam .ask for they contract address I bet they cant show you
take care guys theres a lot of ripper out there
if you one of the victim
you can report them by filling this form with evidence
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSf8vsYLkm8QA8il615yS0gqCNmWWfLArFM1o4-R5xmV-0fbYg/viewform?fbzx=-4224064424139077000
please share this

This is one of the few ways to raise funds to bypass banks. In many countries, interest rates for small businesses can reach 30 percent.

I believe some icos are scam but not all. Remember that icos want to generate money from there tokens, i dont know how they scam from this site but i believe that it can be done.

Even if we suppose that all ICOs are legit, not more than 10% will be really successful. Buterin has recently confirmed it. But its really same as with startup industry

There are lot of things to consider why an ICO fails but it does not mean it is a scam, so better research regarding the ICO you invested so you can conclude that you get scammed, but based on they had collected it is not a scam because they are supported by community and reaching $5-10 is not a joke.

some are scams, you've got to do in depth research on an ICO before risking your hard earned money.

i dont think so

Some are scams and some are not.  Why would you contribute first and then ask if it is a scam though?  Do research prior to investing any money to play it safe.

Almost 70% of ICO are fraudulent but if you are an ICO analyst then you should find out what projects are really working and there is always support behind the community as these factors decide for the The success of ICO projects

yeah agree, before deciding to invest in an ICO, should do research first on the that ICO, whether convinced that the ICO is really true legit or scam

to the choice of any investment program associated with the crypto currency you need to approach seriously otherwise you can run into garbage
what exactly am I talking about
choosing a project make sure that the people who promote it are real people and not pictures from the Internet
 that the project has a clear development plan
 so that there is an accurate understanding of the distribution of monetary resources and also an understanding of the required amount of funds to be co-created

Not all ICO are scam, but we need to be very serious in choosing ICO for it may possibly will result for nothing.

If you are confident with your choice, then wait for the result for it could be a successful one.

Selecting ICOs is easy. But checking and finding out the real purpose is difficult. All you have to do is find out who has established and where they are based. Not by the amount of money they have raised the base so they can not say they are scam

How did the money they collected make you feel they are scam?
How is it connected?

Icos can go fully into scammy schemes but NOO. If you read more ico analyst blog you can clearly see there are very legal awesome project coming out of ico lair. You should look more into ico dev list..

Its really hard to tell but i think before investing is that you must research the coin well and look at its purpose.
All alt coin who have finished their ICO are depended on its user without its user all the investment for the coin will be such a waste.

Some ico might be scams and used it to acquire money. Few countries are already banned or regulates ico.

Almost ICOs are scam and it is depends on the number of members who participated in. More members in an ICOs are surely real and not scam. But be sure that the ICOs you want to enter is not scam by research and know the whitepapers and also the founders and participants in making projects. If you joined in a real ICOs you must do in your projects properly.

A quick linkedin search is often enough to determine whether or not they're a real business. Next, social media profiles give away a lot, an inactive team is a team not commited to their cause. Third, is the project possible? A project offering trips to mars is a scam, but a project trying to bring banking into the cryptoworld (Change, TenX, ...) is possible, so it's likely not a scam. Last, do they have backing from big names like vitalik? Going through a long checklist often protects you from harm

We can have bad surprises iota, EOS, tenX, Monaco, status, etc : many projects look big but they can be potentially a scam I think.

Not all Of them and there are lots ICOs that are actually legitimate. For me, the first thing that I can say that ICO is real is when the manager rank is high like Full Member or higher. I noticed some ICOs that were started with Newbies and Junior Members so that's why somebody will place red tags in most cases.

ICOs are not known as scam at all. It is true that some of them have been scammers. The problem is that 95% ICOs will be screw up in the future cuz there are too many of them.

before you follow an ICO, you should first check the details, and if you have no doubt continue. but if still doubt better don't

Most ICO's are run by scammers so that's not a wrong assumption. Maybe only %5 of ICO's are really legit and only %1 of them work as the same way when they collect money for their crowdfunding. You can see good projects suffering to collect money and bad projects making hardcap easily. That's mainly because of money laundering. For example check out Bancor, Change etc. you'll see how they collect money.

Not all ICO's are scams, but some say 90% are - and since its a new way to make money these days, caution must be taken!

You can't say that an ICO is scam or not unless the project starts. ICO (Initial Coins Offering) is the first step of these companies who want to offer their product to people. During that time, they are trying to evaluate how people patronize their project/coin/offers. If there are a lot of people joining the ICO, then the tendency is that the project will be successful. On the other hand, some ICO don't succeed, thus, forcing the company to close after some time. But still, you need to take risk to become successful, too. No one gain without any risk. That's what cryptocurrency world is all about.

Not all ICOs are scams. There is also legit. But ICOs are actually scams and even say they are big enough to be raised and sold token It's hard to trust anymore. So we should study the best of our ICOs so we can not go to the wrong ICO. We know that the price of bitcoins is high and certainly many bad guys will make a way to steal our hard-earned money.

this may  depend on the person which point of view he will use because ICO can be a scam and also not but if you go to the certain ICO without knowing the purpose of that coin you will lose some time and hardwork so I prefer doing some research

yes it can because there are some ICO that really scam and there are some scam that i join posting for a week then suddenly posting that there is a problem and etc and lastly there some ICO there are some ico that is not a scam

Some ICO's are legit and some are not you need to take time observing them if actives, reading their whitepapers if their project is more reasonable that can convince people to invest and wait the website to ensure the project is alive and healthy

I think it depends on the project and the developer policy. Although ICO's achievements are few, but if the project can run at a small cost, usually the project will continue. Like minexcoin, they only managed to collect less than 300 BTC, but the project continues, and now the coins are pretty good.
Another option if at a small cost is not enough to run the project, usually will held ICO Phase II or extend ICO date, but it all depends on the policy of the development team.

no there some ICO that are not scam but we should now how to do a little a research and also a little asking from your crypto world friend because some of the do a little bit of research and there are some risk takers

yes ICO is a scam but it can be avoid do not join the ICO very quick just wait for a week or two see there spreadsheet if it is a legit ICO but if the spreadsheet is not updating bewarned just find another ICO until you feel that ICO is safe and no problem at all

Not necessarily, a lot are though, ICOs are crowdfunding events to source funds for blockchain projects.
It's like betting on stocks but with a lot more risk as blockchain is still not mature.

Per Vitalik, 90% of ICOs will fail, but some that will survive will surely take us to the moon. :)
The upside for ICOs are we normal people can get returns previously only big investors can have.

There are so many ICO's
Some are good project's some are scammers , you have to do researches what's good what's not before you invest.read about their white papers , team members.

Different projects,different ICO's.We can never tell a good one from a bad one.Some are has good preface but on the contrary will just lead to scam people and leave them hanging.I cannot say that all are good but I cannot also say that they are not scammers.

When researching them, read the white paper carefully, find out who is advising them, who is backing them, who is endorsing them, and how transparent they themselves are in terms of identifying themselves, their background, the team, etc.

All this should boost your confidence in the ICO, although as with all startups the risk(s) are higher, but so are the payouts for the initial investors.

Case in Point:  Look at Latium (LATX).  They have a great concept/idea, will be 'working' the cryptocurrency they are issuing, the more they can circulate the currency that greater value it will have.  Then look who their advisor/endorser is, John McAfree - that's huge!  If he's in and he's endorsing them (I'm sure he's investing in them as well).  So, all this to say that you don't have to get into an ICO on a wing and a prayer, even though there are risks as with all venture capital, still you can mitigate some of the risk by reading as much as you can. 

Here is a link to Latium, the example I cited above:   https://latium.org/welcome/mfchiro  -- will give you an good example of an ICO that is legit. 



   

Not all ico are scam there are legit ico which has great project and their coin is possible to mine and that is my basis looking for legit ico. If the coin are just created and not supported by miner i do not invest on that ico because most of the time they are coin which is scam and that is the coin do not to be support by many investors.

Not all ICOs are scam, but most of them are scammers. Some ICO actually give us a lot of profit even more than Bitcoin investment. But ICO usually does not always exist and does not always run for long. If you want to follow ICO, do not invest carelessly and you should see testimony from other fellow users. You have to do some research and analysis. Not all ICO scams, and not all ICO generate profit. I myself never participated in ICO, because I was still in doubt. I just invest into Bitcoin only.

I can also add that if there are so many different ICOs, than you are in the right to choose one in which you want to invest. There are ICOs that are actually able to make a profit and there are ICO which are scams.

Some are scam, but here are my favourites:

  -> Props: https://propsproject.com < supported by YouNow and backed by Union Square Ventures (the same as Kik or Filecoin)

  -> AppCoins: https://appcoins.io < supported by Aptoide and backed by e.Ventures (San Francisco / Germany), Golden Gate Ventures (Singapore) and Gobi VC (China)

Compare them using Google Trends, adding Kin/Kik which ICO is over:
   https://trends.google.pt/trends/explore?q=kik,younow,aptoide

not all ico scam, you have to be careful when participating on ico coins

If you take into account the fact that the companies that run the ICO do not owe you anything, then yes. You do everything on your own. A token is not a stock. There is no legislation. Therefore, huge China banned all the ICO. And if this is considered a lottery, then of course you can make good money.

i think 90% scam, anf 5% is good project!

Of course they are not all scams  :) Some are very good projects with bright future. you have just to research properly.

Not all ICO are scams, there are also good ICOs and you can avoid being one of the victims of a scam by searching and checking the website and the developer's credibility. Search the credentials of these developers and if they have previous experience in doing the project. Transparency of the project is one important factor to consider, ICO is definitely a scam if they have obviously hide something

This is very stupid advice.
You can't say that ICO is scam just because someone did or didn't updated bounty spreadsheet.
There are more important things to look at such as team, roadmap and other things, spreadsheet is not one of them.

The table can be faked. Therefore, it is very important to study the project and be able to analyze it in general. It's useless to sit feedback too, because often they are made from fake accounts

No. there are many ICOs are good projects. You should research carefully. I will introduce you some potential projects to invest. Bitclave, Spectre, Livestars...

I don't mean to spoil your fun though most ICO's are a scam. There is not much you can do about it other than to not invest in it.

I think some ICOs is real. But there are some scam ico. Just becareful. Do with your own risk. Lear more about ICO, before you investing your money.

They collected big money already, and ussualy by that amount this project will succes and continue entered to the market. In my opinion many ICO legit now and has working product that uniqe and interesting. Now we should spend more time and doing some research to find it, like learn about purpose of the project, what problem they want to be solved and know in detail basic personality of team founder. 

I have been involved as an investor in a few ICOs and I know there are decent ones out there. Research should profit you OP or any other person going into  ICOs as that woukd enable you sieve through the scamming ICOs. Bitbase just proved it by running away with investors money. Just do your research before investing.

i might say the ICO is Scam if you don't qualify in their KYC
even you  joined in their bounty campaign.
and you wont receive the token that you earned in the campaign.

We should accept the fact that some ICO are totally a scam. It’s hard to determine whether it’s a good project that will result successful at the end or it’s considered to list of scam project.
We should consider few things before we can invest for some ICO. Better to check the quality of the project, its unique features that other project don’t have. Make some research about the real status and the reputation of team behind the project if it’s real or not.

Be an observer when an ICO is a scam. It is ok if you are part of bounty campaign. The ones who are greatly affected are those who invest. Those who joined bounty can dumped those coins without investing money. But those who invested money while the ICO is a scam will get negative profit and just burn down their money.

From what I noticed a lot of brand new accts holding ICOs can be scams. One of the best way to find out of an ICO is a scam is try calling them on a phone or ask them a bunch of questions. Scammers normally won't like giving out a lot of information about themselves. There are some ICOs that are "legit" in the sense they don't run off with the money, but they might not produce what they said they will or simply too incompetent to do the project. Basically they take your money and buy time until the project loses hype or dies off completely.

its so unfortunately for you. in my opinion ico is not a scam. ico is a new way to develop the business by gathering or seek a support from people by funding the money that will be use to doing the project. the investors will be payed back by the token or coin that can be used in the platform with particulat advantages. so ico not a scam. maybe this kind of thing still new and this kind of way still on developing.

I saw many ICOs already , the percent of success in ICO is only 20% , but if you hit the right one, your profit will be x10 times. So that explains why many people are still investing in ICO even most of them are scam projects.

NOT All ICOs are scams. If you joined one there will be a slight chance that the one you joined is a successful one. Just read their portfolios and white papers for more information about their project if you want assurance and safety.

Not all ICOs scam. You you try you can find good technological project withoun infi hipe, but that can give you a good profit.
If you are not sure in investment by youfself, you can try join to some strong cryptofund.

Some are scams, some are money laundries, but many of them turn out to be a legit crowdfunding project. Some of the legit ones are bound to fail but others are going to succeed and build value.

If you feel you might be scammed, then you need to check it. Whats the ICO name? You need to do research and check if the forums have mentioned it anywhere.

There is might a possibility that Ico will be scam, if they just collected a huge amount of money and at the end they will suddenly disappeared. As we know still there is ico a legit ones in this case if in doubt research should always do.

I think it will all come down to how they are actively recheck and record the activities of the members specially if the update is weekly. You can also check it if the community that you have joined are full of outstanding admin and manager.

There are possibilities of scam, especially if most of them just a whitepaper project, meaning only a project with idea without working product. But you shouldn't be worried if you invested in a famous one because usually they are legit. There are a lot of icos that haven't release their product yet after a long time but there are also some with great dev that keep progressing onto their roadmap.

They can turn up to be scam, all of them.. if the blockchain technology fails to provide a future and be integrated in our everyday lives.

Without it ICO`s are worthless..

KYC is needed in ICO right now, do not to join in ICO if do not have a KYC is the best choice.
KYC and Escrow is an important to see that before joined.

never ran into scammers ICO

ICOs were not scam before and there are still some good projects out there you can safely invest your money but number of scams are getting higher each day. You need to be very careful before you decide to participate in one of them. Analyze them well and read everything about the ICO and of course don't forget to check the team behind ICO. If they all seems real and trustworthy you can invest.

Well, somehow, yes they are. There are not so many guarantees for investors comparing to IPO

If you research enough you will see its not a scam, just like a stat up project that need funding. But be really ady to lose the money you put it in, if you didnt research a lot. Many ico right now are somewhat sketchy

There's a lot quality ICOs. And it's not so hard to identify them: read the company policy, learn about the team, look for useful information about it on the internet.

IF you have earned money from them, then they are not scams.

I don't think that ICOs are scam because if you want to invest in good or legit ICO then don't invest to the projects that have an anonymity and not a transparent project because transparency is the best thing to have in a project so you can do more research to verify if those people are a good for their position on the project.

It depends some are legit and some are not ..  If the company promise but its sound like too good to be true , if the admin/manager are lazy  be aware .. If the program or there articles are  nonsense dont buy there tokens.. Its hard to earn money so choose wisely you can use your common sense to determined whether it is or not. If there are transparent in there program and aervice then grab it but if its anonymity then think about it if you want to risky your money in that ICO

No one word answer to this one.

While ICOs allow for easy dump schemes, there are some genuine projects. Essentially it is a situation where amidst a largely negative dominated ecosystem - there is the small, but relevant, amount of positive projects depending on the existence of that ecosystem for vitality.

I would advise you to do research on a case by case basis and just look at individual ICO projects and try to apply something like Charlie Munger's two-track analysis when making a decision.

All ICO are not scams but you need to be choosy when selecting the ICO. I think in order to avoid scam in ICO, there should be proper authority which provide escrow services for ICO. The amount collected through ICO should be given to escrow provider who will only give coin to dev, once he give coins to the buyer. Maybe one day, some one take these pre-cutionary  steps.

it depends. did you do your reasearch on the ICO? you should always learn a few things about the team behind the project or join a telegram group to get some more info.

They're not scam, but the thing is that you need to be selecting the legit ones. Otherwise they can easily exploit your investments by spending them on their own purposes. ICOs need regulation.

Not every ico's are scam but in order to know if it is a scam then you should look at the developers, Also try to look at the manager who will handle the platform because they are those who are going to give the payouts.

Without investments, there will be no new coins. In ordinary start-ups, there is also a percentage of failed and fraudulent ones. With a conscious selection of ICO, the likelihood of hitting scammers is extremely low.

Now there are a lot of scammers in the ICO sphere. People earn easy money by deceiving their investors. You have to be more careful!

The probability of an ICO to be a scam is low becuase the community here can determine somehow or sometimes if it does. If the altcoin receives a lot of positive feedback from the investors and workers then it is possible that it might be succesful. Vice versa when a lot of the reply is negative. Also, the one who manages it is also a factor. If the manager has a positive trust then mostly it is legot but if the manager has negatove trust then most likely it is a scam.

Of all ICO's that are being launch and poping up anywhere on today's era, i'd say there is a 20% chance that it is a scam because some people have proven it and expose it so it depends on your point of view whether you want to trust it or not. We all should be careful on choosing the right ICO so we really need to observe it first before giving our trust to it.

research as much as possible as you can, if you feel its scam then don't go for it

Majority of ICO are far from scam! ICO has been another profitabke avenue fir serious profit. The future of ICO is also very bright considering the fact that the market of ICO is global and less than one percent of that market is in ICO right now!

Some ICO are scam but some are not. You must have to research if the ICO that you want to invest are not a scam. Though it much better to join the Bounty than to invest. Maybe knowing about the campaign manager or the developer of its ICO are also a great help if it has a positive trust.

Some ICOs are dodgy however many are legitimate. Make sure to research the team first and the concept. You've also probably heard it repeated before many times that unless you understand what the product is solving.. then don't invest in it. That's good advice.

Some are definitely a scam but not all of them. You should do a lot of research before investing in any project because some can be really cunning when it comes to money.

Many ICO's are not scam but they are just poor in contents.. or they just want to make projects that are not realizable... it's very difficult to take good selection without spending much time reading whitepaer, analysing team, etc...

i think not all ICOs are scam, but surely there are so many ico projects that we can not recognized which one is scam, but this is a huge source of profit if we can find a really good ICO, in order to do that, we must do research about the project before investing in ICOs.

Many ICO occur recently and it's quite difficult to research it alone especially for new trader.
I'm usually ask experience trader or join telegram group whenever the ICO is good to invest or not.

Bitcoin value is quite high recently and new ICO are coming ...

This is actually scaring many if the new people who had heard recently about the bitcoin and want to invest in this market. So best option comes and recommended is ICO . but due to this scam problem it is difficult to believe which coin and where to invest as nobody wants to lose the money. in such scenario one can miss the best ICO offer also which in future can make the multiple time returns also.

no this is not a scam, it is a fund raising for their project to be implemented. The money that they've  got is from the investors and the donators that supports the ICOs. You must check their roadmap and check their news/updates about the bounty. Join the telegram group and talk to the devs for you to be satisfy that the ICO is not a scam.

It is very much current in some ico is just a scam, but not all ico is a scam. so before you choose ico, you should be careful, if you have no experience in investing with ico, you should not do. at least you should understand what project they are working on before joining ico

Not all Icos are scam but you have to be very careful before investing, must do your due diligence, even experts in this field do invest often in a failed project, so nothing is 100% in this arena.

Not all of them because there are some good ICO that will reward you and also there bad ICO that will scam you but if you done your own research you can avoid it and also whebever there is a friend in need you can recommend those you research and it is give and take

ICO is a great way for companies to collect investments. But because this sphere is unregulated investors not protected from hype.

all ICO even if they collected a lot of dollars or few. there is a possibility that they will scam your money if they want. but if they already get that much. the manager and the ICO is trusted so there is a low possibility that is a scam.

good luck to your ICO and hope that your investment get a profit.

I don't think that all ICO's are scams.

There are some bad ones as with any type of investment. The most important thing is to just do you research and ask questions before investing blindly.

Yes, It is hard to find out the good ICOs and it is also to point out which ICOs is a scam or not. You need much knowledge and a bit luck to choose a right ICO

Some of them are scam and some of them are not. You need to be very cautious and picky. Some greedy people are trying to collect people's money and get away with it.

There mimght be ICO's that are scams and there might be ICO's that are not that profitable so they look like scams, but sure there are ICO's that are a good investment

Maybe yes but some of them are not scam. The best thing to do is to research and ask who knows more about ICO's so they can teach you and you can invest to the good one.

There are sure scams out there. but remember to research and due diligent checks for our own safety. And sure there are promising ICOs that are good for investments.

Without any proper research you can't know for sure if an ICO is a scam or not, some you can check their website design, if it's crappy and you can't find team details it might be a scam.

Also, check their roadmap if it seems to you reachable, many have HUGE plans without any insurance that they will get even to first step on their roadmap.

That's a risky yet good investment. I think it depends on what ICO you joined. Did you do some background check on it? Have you investigated the ICO? But think positive and i believe it will give you a good profit.

What is it mean 5-10 mln dollars? Don’t you see clearly how much they have money yet? On my mind it is first necessary thing to have possibility of controlling ICO entrepreneurs and their funds.

It's important to assess the:
* team (known scammers or well experienced professionals?)
* possibility of the project (built on an existing platform, or inventing time travel?)
* marketing (active team or updates every 2 months?)
* roadmap (well documented with possible struggles, or 8 pages of vague info?)

If all these seem good, I'd say go for it (I recommend Adbank, they score high on all of the above)

I heard that there are some ICO scam but of course there are a lot of legit ICO. Some of the coins just fail for some reason. The best thing to do is always research who released the coins. Check what are their plans in the future and how will they differ from the other coins in the market. Research the team that are behind the white paper and see if they are credible. If the idea is solid then I would be contacting people involved to confirm my faith before investing.

Actually, Not all ICO are scam, It was just alarming that there were so many ICO's out there so we should do which i not a scam. Another one, It becomes scam to think if the ICO or that project fails or if there's no development with project or the dev didn't continue it. If you are going to invest, then have a background check and look for it's roadmap.

if ICO is still ongoing and in social media they are still active then chances are that ico is not a scam even though they just collect some money

Can't be answered by a simple yes or no because it is an investment. It's important to do your research first before investing n any ICO. These campaigns doesn't always succeed.

It should be said that most ICO projects are a scam. They just want to make a lot of money, and then they don't have anything.

Some ICOs are indeed scams. But not always. Some will not be realized, but not always it is stealing money. Investments are always a risk, but you can earn more from such aggressive tools than conservative ones.

95% of the ICO is a scam, but there are cool ideas that are already working. It is necessary to wait another 1-2 years and in all countries will begin to regulate this

Really depends.

Research is the most important thing. You have to remember that just because an ICO gets a lot of cash they still need time to make progress, hire staff and build everything.

Most ICO's just have a concept and once the ICO is finished they need to create it.

ICOs are likely start-ups. Some are bullshit and try to scam people but somes are really potiental and will be success in the future. So investing in ICOs could be consider as gambling. :D

You should have asked this question before joining.

Not all ICOs are scam. There are scam ICO and there are very good ICO. You just have to do a due diligence review before joining any.

In my country there are more than 10 ICO project and more than half are obviously scam. They even go to the country-side and lure greedy but lack knowledger farmer to their pit.

With the time it is more and more difficult to find ICO that would show investors good results of its work. Whitepapers, whole information about the projects are not supportive in making good investments.

Some can be but some not, and some can be very rewarding also. You just need to do research and review them before joining.

Yes,  few % of present ICOs are scam or either they are fake. this percentage is increasing day
by day due to formation of new ICOs on the daily basis. you must do lots of research before investing in them.

Real ICO always best for making money within short time

If the project makes sense and the team is real, then it must be not a scam.
You should do a research for that.

There may very well be ICOs just meant to steal your money. On the other hand, not all of them are crooks. They just need a bit of research from our end.

There are legit ICO and there are also scams. That's why before investing to a particular ICO try to do a research first about the project, read their white paper. Also search about the developer and their team. Its very important to be very carefull all the time so your money won't go to waste.

Not all ICOs are scam. Well there have been some ICOs in the past who were proved scams. Some bad ICOs can't effect the integrity of the ICOs. ICOs are very important. Before investing in ICO, read the project whitepaper have a detailed understanding of the project and team members integrity. 

There some ICO scams, but the most of them are legit. You have to do research about an ICO and decide does it looks
 honestly. That is the way to minimalize risk of get scammed.

Most ICOs are scams and most cryptocurrencies (other than Bitcoin, “altcoins”) are shit coins.

I think also not all ico project are scam. So many good and success project rising.
Because so many ico scam so please be aware before joining. Do own research before.

Mainly not. Always are people hungry to your money but mostly people just need money for realisation of their idea

At the moment it can be difficult to determine the scam project or not. But even if the project is not scammed and it has no goal to raise funds and hide, it does not mean that the 100% project will be profitable.
I think in the new year there will be more control over ISO, and probably less than deliberate scum. And of course, when choosing ISO, you need to learn a lot about the project if you are going to invest in it a solid amount for you. Plus the old rule is not to put all the eggs in one basket, unless of course you're the owner of the project :)

issues like this greatly depend on the company running the ICOs and the kind of people running it. It will be very difficult for us to determine which is a scam or which is not. But always keep in mind to perform your background checks well before investing your money or else they will scam you.

Of course not all the ICOs are scam. We have witnessed many great project had very successful and profitable ICO process.

If you don't want to be caught by scammers you need to be very careful and do a lot of research about project and team members before you decide to invest for that ICO.

HHHH, it's perfectly possible that many of the ICO projects are really a money-making game, but even if it's a money-making game, you can still get a good profit, like TRON.

In order for this not happen, you need to competently choose among this huge list of ICO.
We need to study everything well, consult with people.
It is especially important who the team members are. It is necessary to look at the history of their previous projects, if they exist.

Perhaps not all scams. But you really have to wonder why they go down the ICO cash-grab route and not another route if their idea, business, or product is so "great".

Obvious scams aside, I just find many of these ICOs to be unprofessional, almost as if this whole thing is some child's game to them.

They have your email address and they have a website. So where do they post "official" news??? On telegram, of course!
Yes, go join umpteen bilge filled channels to get "official" news from a company you've invested in. If you want a record of the "official" news, take a screen shot before it disappears. For some reason, they can't be dealing with things like emails or content on a website that get archived. They'd rather you wade through a tonne of animated gifs or the numerous flavors of fud and ramping just to catch any developments you may have missed. All very professional.

Just a safety precaution, make sure to read and research about the project before joining this ICO. Ofcourse we cannot say that ICOs are scam since a lot of ICOs are not and giving much earning to those who have invested.

Not financial advice here, but I would certainly do more research on the ICO, understand the project and the tokenomics, make sure I like the concept, team and potential before considering any investment. I will also check out many review sites like crushcrypto.com and youtubers' views as a reference. Eventually this comes down to a few picks and then I will distribute some funds accordingly. My current favorite is Hadron and Swapy but you might have complete different choice. Bearing in mind the high risk of ICO in general as well, even a great team might not make it in the end, but at least I know I am investing in something that's I really like

Yup, you can never be too sure.

I gues going with ICOs done by already established companies is a good idea. The Telegram one, for example.

obviously not all of them are scams, you just have to find the ones with:
* credible projects, nothing too crazy or innovating because those are unlikely to bring out a working product fast
* transparant teams with experienced members
* a solid marketing plan
* not too big of a pre mined supply (team can dump and run)

not all ico are scam, many good ico u can get profit, if you join ico just read the whitepapper dont just joint before research :) if you dont doing that dont ever think join ico, because your money will burn in scam coin :D

That's not a criteria of finding out whose ICO is scam. If they don't develop the project in a year holding those funds, if they shut-down their server, if they are not identified on their website then maybe they are a scam. But you don't judge that quickly, I hope you did some research before investing LOL. That's what people do to let themselves prone to scams

When joining ICOs in a project that doesn't escrowed the funds your money will be risky but in my experience, there are so many legit ICOs without escrowed. We only need to choose wisely on what ICO that we going to invest in.

There are some but not all of them were acam..  If the company promise but its sound like too good to be true , if the admin/manager are lazy  be aware .. If the program or there articles are  nonsense dont buy there tokens.. Its hard to earn money so choose wisely you can use your common sense to determined whether it is or not. If there are transparent in there program and aervice then grab it but if its anonymity then think about it if you want to risky your money in that ICO.