Bitcoin Forum

How to detect a scam ICO?

Just check if it has ICO in the name or anywhere else.

You should always look up all of the members on the team and see if they really exist and have the experience they claim they have.  I always avoid ICO's with an anonymous team since it's just too risky even though it's not necessarily means it's a scam. 

My way, search for the team in google. Check their linked in/twitter profile to know whether they are really linked to the project or are just stolen photos.

There is no such a thing, nobody can tell the future, what you can do is some research and asses the risk / return of the project. Is bitcoin scam because you know nothing about Satoshi Nakamoto ?

Hehehe but some really gained a lot of value!

Yes, but it's just pure gambling and greed.

If you buy put like lets say 1000 dollar in 100 different coins! You only look for the one under 10 cent! maybe some will reach 1 dollar or even 10 dollar value. Its not pure gambling its taking your changes!

Very very hard nowadays to spot bad ICOs, because some are straight up scams that run with your money while others are disguised scams were all those "incredible teams" sit behind those projects giving that weekly or monthly update with nothing to show while they are drinking beer in their office. Months and months pass and they show 0, initial investors drop but new ones come to fuel this cicle.

From the combination of the team members' profiles/Bios as well as its White Paper (you will easily feel if it's genuine or it's just produced via 'copy-paste' from other WPs)

So... it's gambling.

without initial business development, I think ICOs are just speculation and that is why these coins are so risky

I think there is always a risk. I honestly do not understand how to establish the authenticity of the team? Social networks? And in social networks, do you always point out your true data?

There are a lot of nuances in this case. But the most important thing is to check the project team

teams and projects are vital in choosing ICO. so sometimes ICO is very visible scam if the team that manages the ICO is not well known and less known people. the subject matter also becomes important, by looking at their project and the allocation of funds, we can predict whether the project will be a scam or not.

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Sometimes you'll see names with linkedin profiles, just check how long the linkedin profiles are active, how many connections that person has and cross checking with google helps a lot

There are many ways but the easiest one and you'll hear it always, 'if it's too good to be true, it probably is'

First of all you ought to ask yourself: "Is it really necessary to use blockchain technology in this project?". If not, this ICO is not actual and bad for investment. It will be better to learn all information about the team, to read WP carefully, to visit official website and to talk with the application programmers if it's possible.

If there is a github, I'd check for how often code is developed. If there is no information of the team or pictures with solid profiles - it's a no go. Doesnt matter if the market cap is 1m+ I don't trust any crypto that isnt transparent those are the 2 dead give aways.

You can do some researche. Start with the official website and see if it is done by professional. Then, read the white paper. The most important factor in the success of a project is the team, that is why you should visit their profiles and know more about them and see if they are reliable or no.
Many factors interfere in the success of a project so be careful.

Scam ICO give a lot of promises about the value of their coin. The whitpaper can be an indicator for technical people, but unfortunately, people do not read whitepapers.

That's a half decent approach but don't forget that all kinds of accounts get hacked or sold so you're trusting a lot.

They have fake team members like declouds scam, only invest in trusted projects.

There are some fantastic indicators that have been covered already, if I could add some more:

• Evidence of a prototype / market usage (e.g.: Github code review or news articles indicating an industry partnership)
• Listings on big exchanges / news of future listings
• Good, consistent communication by the team (mailing lists, Slack channels, Telegram...)
• (Purely speculative) low market cap relative to the total cryptocurrency market.

Generally this takes a lot of research (in no particular order):

• News sites
• Forums, social media
• Github
• Official blog / mailing list / Slack / Telegram etc.
• Analysis by sources you trust (could be bloggers, journalists, Youtube channels...)
• Market research (coinmarketcap, technical analysis if you're so inclined, etc.)
• Reading the whitepaper

If you (mods!) don't mind a shameless plug I'm developing a service to make this easier for us all, you can read more about it on my blog: http://blog.scry.pw (http://blog.scry.pw)

You can get a good idea at what a scam ICO looks like by heading over to oxfina.com.  They disappeared after the tokens were created.  Check out their twitter, facebook and ANN thread here on bitcointalk. 

Most of the people say that;the most important fact is the team qhich create the company.Also i always looking for good advisors.Also whitepaper layout and subject of the project are important for ICO's succeed

Oh this is something hard guys. Determining ICO scam is hard because they "scammer" is a clever person. But there is one way is to look at smart contracts.

And watch out that the 'team' is real and not faked.

One thing you have to watch out for is ICOs self moderating their threads, and look closely at the ones
who stifle criticism.  Cryptodevil caught the Enjin team doing this, although they turned out to be legit
as far as I know.  Cryptodevil is a damn fine ICO scam buster, and he probably should make up a list of
projects he deems legitimate.  I suspect the vast majority are not.  If you can verify that the dev team
consists of real people, that's a very good start.  If they pay their campaigners, that's also a good sign,
but not anything conclusive.  QTUM paid everyone and they ended up being pretty much a scam.  They
censored my posts even though I wasn't being critical of them.  You have to watch that sort of thing too.

there are full skams that will never deliver even tokens/coins those are really easy to sport.
no escrow fake link id. (try call to someone :D )
no experience...
but good ICO can fail to problems on the way that they have  to solve but it won't be able from multiple reasons.

The most important thing to analyzing ICO by knowing  detail the profile of its founder team, and the 2nd is to understand aim and what problem will be solved of the project. To understand it we can read in their whitepaper. And also look for other reviews on other forums,news site and youtube channel, like github, cointelegraph etc.

I recommend the following;
1) Verify the authenticity of the social profiles of the members of the ICO team (linkedIn)
2) Check out the project progress published (GitHub)
3) Avoid businesses that work with referrals.
4) Avoiding unrealistic promises (profits with exorbitant figures)

Basically not being lazy and reading about the project and the team, in the end, it's you who decide to spend your money or not on an ICO. The job of the ICO managers is to convince you to buy their token

Thanks for the tip.  It should be transparent with what they are doing and can be raech in any means of communication. People behind should be known in the industry and not with the fly by the night   groups or company. Its better if they are doing business already .

First of all read the project white paper, this is very important you should know what is product of the project? Why this project need the blockchain?
Second: Make a research regarding who is on the team (CEO, CTO, blockchain developers, advisors etc.).
Last i think you should research this project have Compromised Escrow. ICOs will usually have an escrow to hold user’s funds during the ICO and after

Before you invest, check out their whitepaper and what are their visionaries. Check out the team, on LinkedIn or google search them.

You can do your own research like if the team is legit coz some are just anonymous which is very suspicious. You can also read some topics on forum and see if that ICO has a negative feedback and ofcourse you can search and analyze it by observing on Market.

some ico are obviously scam like the team members are fake, whitepaper lacks of logic, give too many promise and so on, but there are some scam projects seems to be good, only time will tell

Before I’m investing in something I first check if it is fully transparent, and that people that are involved in project and their past (usually LinkedIn account) is shown. Second thing to check is if the project you are investing in already has a working program, which shows they already put a large effort in it and that it shouldn’t be a scam.

No one can give you the right answer, only experience will give you the right answer. Most people will check from concept, team and also price. But some people will always try to making connection with team to know how good they handle customers problem. We only can predict, just prepare the worst. Have a nice day.

I'm too lazy to check an ICO scam or not. sometime just wait people do it for you. and we invest later

Maybe this is very difficult if indeed we do not really understand about ico. Maybe a little I know about the scam project. 1. There is no clarity about their project team 2. Their project is not clear 3. Too many offer discounts or the like. Maybe that's all I know. And keep looking how far the project goes

who wants to tell you that a project is predicted to be a scam? and whether you believe the person's report is a fact or just an opinion, we can take an example from the Centra project. They are in the beginning said to be a scam for incorrectly installing a photo and immediately replace it and now we can see that they Crowdsale is sold out.

I think he mean he wait everybody invest so much money into it then he follow them. Am I right?

It's really hard to determine which ICO is legit or not. I think one good to see is their transparency about the project and about those developers behind the ICO. One good to check is the physical address they are using.

You can go through list of some things which are important for an ICO to have if they are legit.

Firstly you can have a look into the team itself. There could be fake representation of the team, random pics, names etc. If the ICO is legit then there has to be few know team members and you can consider it as legit. If these managers already given best of the ICO then the chances are high that you will get it as legit one.

Secondly, check for the news about the ICO. If it's in the news in positive way and making the good publicity then the chances increase a lot towards the legitimacy of that particular ICO.

Third, have look into altcoin announcement section if they are present there or not. If they do have thread then look for the discussion, read it and grasp what people are saying about the ICO.

This should lead you to the legit ICO for sure.

Only invest in popular ico, you won't be scammed any more, most scams are in this forum.

We can avoid it by first research about the company a simple google would not hurt.Also this forum will help you if there is a new coin try to search it here.

Check who are the people behind the coin. Check if they are truly invested about the coin. You also want to see what are their plans in the future because some coins seems to be a scam but actually it just did'nt work out.

yeah maybe. now many users can follow the tips from various sources. you can see a lot of investor accounts on twitter that gives some tips and information about potential ico. sometimes I follow that tips and get a profit. so I think he also did the same thing as me..

Only invest in something you fully understand and if the team is real and capable.

come on guys. this is definitely not a gamble. Everyone knows that gambling will finally "the house always wins" . but you know that there is no such system . here.if it were really such a thing, it would not be the rich people who earned so much money from crypto.

I asked myself if I can really say what a project is really saying and can really do it. I first looked at the "team members" tab.if there are familiar names and they actually share them from social media accounts, then the project will at least reveal something.the question is now, what if we do not have any members of the team from familiar names? then we search every user on the internet. we are reviewing social media accounts they have been following who have a popularity how important these are. you can actually reveal people who are lying and cheating with a little research. If everything seems to be smooth, you should still try to get into the projects with eth-based and tokens immediately.





 

a working product or prototype that is already up and running  is always a good idea for a ICO .

To find an ICO scam is now very easy. You should monitor them more, if you find something suspicious you should avoid that project immediately because it is possible that the project is trying to attract more investors and promise a lot of future profits.

With a good research about the team and the project, you should be able to know if it is scam or not. However, some are very good at pimping themselves, but you had be surprised so much people can know about some certain team and digging out the past. So, it is good to ask questions.

Also, like some have said, google is your friend and you can find out about the team, what they have been up to most especially on linkedin since it is a professional profile page.
Confirm if there is a project they have done in the past and take note of the success of those previous projects. Whitepaper should be the last which will make you have conviction if you feel the project is worth investing into.

read the whitepaper, do some background research of the team and check their github

In my opinion, I think that there are few things that can help you spot a scam ICO. There is a certain information that every ICO should bring forward to their potential investors,  the team behind the project is the most important. Ensure that the team is providing their real profiles and not catfishing.

Investigate the team before you can actually consider investing in any ICO, if the team is a lie, then it means that the white paper, the idea/ the technology and the ICO itself is a lie.

The purpose of ico to raised the money to keep the development still running,  maybe you are forgetting it right now. A lot of the project just released the pre alpha as the example for the product.

Yeah I agree and when its too good to be true then you should better be careful.
Over promise comes with under deliver is one of the strategy of some ICO and you should also consider the team behind it if it's credible and trustworthy as I see many ICO now are started good but turned out scam.

It is hard to tell that nowadays. The scammers are kind of already mastered mixing along very well with the true ones. But just try your best in reading and understanding the project's whitepaper. Try to check the members of the team and their background and then contact them through their official communication lines.

Nowadays even a serious projects can be scam. Before investing - need to do some research ICO project very closely.

quite difficult to detect where ICO is scam, because greed can happen anytime, although dev has the seriousness to run their project, they could be a scam when gaining huge crowdfunding, so luck will be a little play, try to follow the information from some big players

I believe with a GOOD research on the internet and forums discussions you will detect which one is scam.

1. Trust your instinct:
If something appears too good to be true, it probably is too good to be true.
If it doesn't feel right, it probably isn't right.

2. Never believe the hype, do your own research and do not rely on the opinions of others:
Most people have a vested interest of some description.
Either driven by investment, greed, bounties and site traffic.

3. Use real-world standards of due diligence:
If someone knocked on your door and said I have a great business plan, Bill Gates loves it, here's a photo of the highly qualified team and here's a bloke called Dave who thinks it's a great investment and this time next year we'll be millionaires - you wouldn't hand over a month's salary, would you!?

Specifically, things like:

(a) Support, partnerships and contracts with well-known brands:
If someone claims to have support, a partnership or contract with a well-known brand ask for verified proof: a contract, announcement from the brand or an article from a trusted news source.
Every time I have challenged these claims they turn out to be untrue or tenuous at best.

e.g. Hero Token claimed to have the support of Alibaba
It turns out that Pawn Hero, an already established business, received start-up funding from an investment arm of Alibaba. Alibaba was not funding or endorsing the Pawn Hero ICO.

(b)Can you verify the team:
Do they exist, are their credentials correct and are they really connected to the project?
For me, they need to be on LinkedIn (or similar), possibly media profile, linked to an institution, publication or other online profile and I need to have made contact / spoken to the team directly.
Wagerr is a good example of a team that is legitimate. The CEO checked out and engaged with me on day one. To be fair, so did the CEO of Pawn Hero.
Scam teams should be easy to spot.
I once emailed a highly qualified Chinese lawyer - he knew nothing about the project and was livid to see his photo on the ICO website.
CEOs of legitimate businesses engage with their shareholders.

4. Do the team give the impression that it can deliver?
What is the team's track-record?
Do they have a working product or any sign of progress?

5. Do the team provide regular updates and meet their milestones?
Credibility is really important.
Sometimes, particularly when a project is a first, things will slip. A good team will keep you posted and have a good reason for a delay.

6. Does the project look professional?
Does the ICO, website, white paper, engagement and communication give the impression of a team that can deliver?
We are talking about ground-breaking projects with the potential to change the world.
If they can't design a decent website or run a well though ICO...

7. Who controls the tokens and is the project centralised or decentralised?
If the team control the majority of token or the project is centralised the market can easier be manipulated - against investors and in favour of the team.

8. What is the team's attitude?
I only do business with people I like and can trust.
SALT threatened to boot me from their telegram because they had a rule that investors were not allowed to speculate about the post-ICO token price!
I'm not saying that SALT is a scam, but really! Needless to say, not a team for me.

9. Major rewards for the team should e held in escrow
If the team become millionaires overnight at ICO, where is the motivation to succeed?
A team should have their operating costs calculated pre-ICO and only need enough, initially, to make its milestone.
Additional rewards should be linked to success/completion of milestones.

10. Only trust reliable sources of information
Fake news is easy to create (and can look quite convincing) and some sources will literally publish anything.
Is this source reliable? Don't be afraid to contact the journalist or company.

11. How does the team respond to challenging but sensible questions?
A genuine team will engage and do their best to answer.
A scam team will avoid answering the question or most probably ban you from the forum.

12. When you find a good team and credible project, be patience
Good projects will take time to deliver.
Scams often want you to believe that you can get rich quick e.g. +550% in 4 weeks (with no working project of evidence of work). It's hype and will fail relatively quickly. That said, even if it is a scam, it is possible to make a few quid in the short-term. However, morally, I couldn't invest in a scam.
The best rewards will come to those who wait, most probably 2-5 years time.

Happy investing  ;).

Find out who is from the team of a project. Are they real true? Or they are just a scam. if they are real they certainly have social media to communicate or other.

I just use my handy flow chart.  It looks something like this.

                                           Is this a scam?
                                                      l
                                                      l   
                                          I'm not sure.  Is it an ICO?
                                                         l
                                           -------------------------
                                           l                               l
                                   No, not an ICO.               Yes,it's an ICO. 
                                            l                                   l
                                            l                                   l
                                       probably a scam.           Yes,it's a scam. 

Totally Agree. Lot of good companies started with no ICO. But, it's just a good prevention. In fact, some of ICO are nice success : Lisk, Waves... But yes, the graph is correct in the majority of cases

Research every bit of information about the ICO in thorough detail. Go through every team member (If there are team members) and every link to do with the project, if there doesn't seem to be much information or no leads about anything to do with it then I would assume it is made up out of thin air and probably a scam. Of course this isn't the case for all projects like this but the majority I have seen seem to be scams, and I fell for one a few years ago but only sent 0.04 BTC at the time it wasn't much at all. Don't buy into Hype, as you will probably just end up losing money. Take time to research and don't invest until you are certain and if you aren't just avoid it, there will be other ICOs to invest in.

Thanks Sr. What you said was really helpful. I'm still thinking and seeking some infos specially when it comes to scam ICOs. We cannot prevent it though what I do is study the ico first before I join in.

Its very easy to detect a scam ico the number one thing you have to consider is the dev behind the coin,  are they real and open to the investorsinvestors.  Secondly their roadmap.

Dear it is very difficult.

But i think we have some of way.

first research and check it's related to ANN thred or ERC20 .
second check all information about the team member, it's anonymous team or not. and read white paper, then you will visit official website.
Most important who is the campaign manager?   

LOL dude you put a lot of effort into this post for a Junior Member... I have high hopes for you.

Seaching and finding more before invest! Don't see only infomation!

I think to detect the scam ICO is now a bit difficult because of too much ICO,  but the important think is to know their team founder's profile, its true they are really solid and professional, read the white paper carefully whether the project really can solve a problem.  Also sharing with professional advicer and look for other review in youtube, forum in here or github.

Agreed, the ones raising on a concept are riskier on paper, and then look to the team and their track record heavily.  Our current CHEX token sale has a developed platform (started in 2014) and beta launched, with user interest growing:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2112470.msg21120617#msg21120617

http://thechex.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/diamond.png

Look for a highly transparent team with a track record, and strong community engagement. Highly respectable when routinely engaged in very a personable manner, such as how https://www.monetha.io/ did and still does post-ICO via weekly YouTube video updates. Very impressed by them.

Of course, if their platform is already built, that's less risky, and having active business development & user adoption is the next milestone.  Since most ICOs still raise on a concept, this is a factor, but not as important as the team.

In our case, our current CHEX Token sale has utility for an already developed platform, that is beta launched with growing user interest. Please have a look, and we appreciate feedback comments:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2112470.msg21120617#msg21120617

All the best,

Eugene Lopin
The CHEX

http://thechex.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/diamond.png


http://thechex.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/chex-showcase_slide5.png

That project looks like a scam as well since they are changing the payments from Bitcoin to something else. I would invest in it if it featured Bitcoin only transactions.

good info , detect a scam ICO , i always use my knowledge , read ICO' informartion and roadmap , maybe dev team behind .....

Scam ICO is not have any  standards .

We plan to accept multiple digital currencies per client demand, and especially Bitcoin first. Good point, as we need to clarify that. Looking into regulatory compliance - Money Services Business (MSB) license to have a crypto merchant gateway, legality of doing this for Cannabis, etc.  

First i search the name of the ICO in the internet , then the price of its promoting token. If the name of the ICO is not being search or no information about them then it is a scam. I also look in the ann thread and see the detailed information and what its like to introduce, then if the information is not that detailed then maybe it is a scam. If your intuition is telling you that it might be a scam then check it. Its up to you just be aware of joining in an ICO all the time.

By not being stupid. Lol.
Seriously though, there are aot of ways if you really wanna be sure. And i think you probably know if not all, then most of them. So next time, don’t ask questions that google can answer man. Do a bit research about your question first before asking here. Relying on others and being lazy won’t get you anywhere.

I think do not get generalized. not everything that starts from ico will be a scam and not everything that was previously not ico will not be a scam. need more research before saying that they will scam or not. I think many have been told by various users how to detect ico scam or not you can try it. but btw your flowchart is just your logic only #imo

You need to study the team, algorithms, project roadmap and most importantly see opinions from others. If it's a really good project then there will not be any dissent

Well, if you see ICOs that have nothing to offer and is just here to try to get funds from users then it should be a good indication that it's a scam ICO. Check out the development team as well, do they actually exist or are they making up empty promises out of thin air?

Also, how much funding are they asking? If something is asking for $100 million just to build something really simple, then it's likely a scam.

But best thing to do is just not invest anythnig you can't afford to lose. First rule of thumb.

First of all if you want to know that the ICO is scam when you go to their ann thread and you see a few details about their project but not displaying or mentioning how will the participants will earn their rewards. Also another is when you intuition is saying that its a scam . Do trust yourself but know first the situatoin before you act.

That is all correct. In addition to it, you try to check their wallet addresses and their transactions. There are several projects here that were caught having some dumping transactions using the wallet addresses that are also used in receiving ICO contributions.

yes that right

bitcoin is difference with ICO. we can check bitcoin code to make sure Satoshi can't do anything to bitcoin network. ICO is difference. We send their our money to get token( which dont have value if they dont do anything). so we need their information to make sure if they want take our money they must pay by blood( for sure)

ICO projects appear more and more, with the development of fraudulent ICO projects, much to the detriment of many investors. Therefore, we need to be aware of good ICO projects and ICO projects that show signs of fraud. Before deciding to invest in an ICO, be sure to check it out carefully, the information must be clear, there should be an official ANN theme on Bitcointalk forum, there is a wallet archive and especially a platform is the better. Check that the development team of the project, if they are reputable, experienced and professional working people with clear objectives, will be very good. These are just my personal opinions, I'm not sure it will help you to distinguish completely but it can help in some way :D

You can chack there Announcement post,
Communication Skill.
If you Need Any information, will They provide those info.
Clear Informative Announcement.

Maybe those ico Will be Lagit.
if you can find one of this maybe those ico are scam.

for me i read about the thread and developers and also check the whitepaper for further info

scammy Ico bring such a Fud

Just look and observe the name of the campaign or ICO,if you've seen uneccessary things or you've observe not good,think of it if you will continue to it and if the stakes or your earnings were very few it means it has to do with illegal or scam.

Actually i don't know how detect a scam ICO.Anyone know please tell me.

I think ico dishonest (or just fear it) if:
1) They have a vague idea
2) not known
3) Too large requests to start the project. Good luck

Actually there are a lot of opinions and ways to detect Ico fraud, which has been described by other forum members, your job now is to read and choose which way is considered the easiest to detect Ico fraud.
You should not ask like this, if you really want to know how to detect ico scams, get used to reading first before asking something.
Because explanations from other members are clear and understandable.

Yes. It becomes harder to spot a scam nowadays. Almost all of the ICOs out there looks promising and legit. You just gotta be more vigilant and cautious on choosing an ICO that you plan to invest on.

prioritize first research on the ICO is to explore the developments that exist in it, find out the team work on the ICO. do not take a short decision to invest in it because most ICOs are just starting their work step by doing various ways to promote it to attract the attention of many people to join and invest their money on the ICO.
there are so many ICO projects that offer various promotions so people can join can benefit but the ICO is just deceiving, bringing all the money invested by the people involved in it.

from the question you are asking, I will reply .. more importantly you are at all the team, see what it means or not, I often use Linked to see them profile.

read whitepaper, join their telegram/Slack/fb/twitter.

Try to find out reviews on hacked,medium or so.

You can:

see project reviews and analysis
see the concept of the offer interesting and different
how credibility of the project founder team
how fundamentally of the project

There are many things you should check before you invest on ICO?
1. Dev team: clear, professional
2. White paper: clear, logically
3. Product: you should invest on ICO with real product

Good luck for you!

Firstly look at the team. And ask yourself these questions- are they legit, what is their experience, do they communicate with the community. Secondly, look at the the whitepaper and ask this ques- how much time was put into making it and does the idea solves any real life problem or not. Lastly, is there a hardcap or the team wants to rip everyone of their money?

First of all it is necessary to check communications with advizor — at them the reputation costs money and therefore it isn't necessary to be lazy to write and call to confirm/deny information on the project where they participate. Further legal entity: registration, location, if it is about preICO that it is possible even to check the postal address sending the welcome letter on paper. Just two simple actions.

Surely this one and on top of that you should consider the news also. They are the main sources which will provide you time to time updates for the same. There is also social network which you should follow. Check time to time whether they give the updates about their projects and make you comfortable from the updates. Meaning there should be all the positive news about the project and everything must be working according to the roadmap plan. If they are giving reasons and pulling out strings then that's not good one. Furthermore you can checkout the strength of their marketing on this forum, I mean if everyone is talking about the same project then that's probably got big fish involved and you can trust on it.

no body can tell if an ICO is a scam but there are indications that make an ICO susceptible for scam like the background of the persons behind it, their official website which if dont look good and you can see no effort on making one, their roadmap and the whitepaper contents if its is just a copy of someone's ICO, the use of their coin and the product.

It's abit tricky to check if an ICO is a scam but a little bit easy.

1.Go and try to check thier whitepaper on what are thier aming for thier project
2.Analize thier team also if they are legit.
3.Check them out on social media.

I hope this helps.

firstly, find out , Whether their products makes sense ? whether the team connected with social media and there are some experience in crypto ?
But , there is no guarantee is this can be used as reference or not ? , for some people , it helps

there are some things you can do to distinguish scam ICO and not. I usually look at their website and see all the information they provide. and after that I see the team and the community's response to the ICO.

check team profile and advisor. contact to them to make sure they dont use fake indentify and put random advisor

Not too possible. You just need to do your research. Look into the project, who is behind it, and updates. Also a strong community is key. Even then stuff can still happen, but its crypto and there is always some risk.

First of all read and study the whitpaper of ICO. Also you can do own research about history of the team, which behind the ICO.

I would first look at the whitepaper and do some researches on it. Is it a viable project? Is the roadmap clear ? Do you think that the team has the capabilities to reach their goals? Does the project even make sense ?

I do not know how to remove ico scam, it seems to need strong power to report an ico scam, and the evidence also must be strong to report it, maybe if you have enough evidence you can report it in the scam section

The best you can do is to search/investigate about the project and see if it look credible.. and than close your eyes and trust the project founders :D

Well, sometimes it might be quite difficult to differentiate between a real ICO or a scam. You may not really be able to tell the motives of some persons behind the ICOs. A friend did say you can check with their whitepapers to read through and be able to tell if it is scam or not. But I should say that the integrity of the Directors/Managers matter too.

Most reply's here are quite correct. Before investing anything into any ICO or IPO or anything else that has no immediate benefit - always do your research. There are a few key factors that can tell you quite quickly if the person/people you are dealing with are con artists.

• Is the account new? If it is, be weary of it. They will tell you a lot of times that they made the account for the coin itself and that they are 'a senior member'. This is usually false.
• If there is a team listed, with photos, then do a google reverse image search on each individual. If you find the same picture elsewhere with a different name and different type of business, then you have a malicious ICO.
• Look at the person's previous posts. You can tell a great deal about someone by looking at their posting history and the way they treat others. While this may not be 100% related to the ICO itself, you can be sure that a person treating others poorly & often has a harsh way about them, I would be careful buying into that persons ICO.
• Last but not least, use your head. If something seems 'off' or amiss about the ICO, avoid it. It is better to not have invested and 'possibly' losing out, then it is to invest and find out a month later that the 'dev' ran off with your money

Those are but a fraction of what you should watch out for. If you are unsure, read the threads posts. 'Feel out' the vibes that people are giving off about the ICO. Lastly, never invest more than you are willing to lose. Even a solid ICO can turn out sour for reasons that can only be seen in hindsight (look at the first DAO, for example.).

--Mistercoin

Thanks for the advice!

Scam projects are usually based on the same ideas as other project ideas. They can not produce a different idea

from some of the statements you have mentioned above, I support and trust from some statements from you, have to see the experiences of the teams, see whitepapers and also see the hardcap project .. it is very helpful to be able to detect the fraud of a project.

i do not know how to see that ico is a scam. which I see based on their presentation when offering their projects. such as ANN thread, whitepaper. There we can see if ico is a scam or successful

I think follow the ann thread all time carefully and also follow the official web site to detect a scam ICO.

read some ICO review site to see how they check an ICO project is scam or not.

Check out their team, if they have a valid identity then no doubt that it is not an ICO SCAM, but when they have a fake team it is clear their ICO will be SCAM. I race it is the most important thing

it is very clear what you describe above, it is a matter that must be considered to know the project is a scam or not .. it all must be built with the level of focus of each to be able to understand very well about the truth of the project.

I would stay away from many ICO's, or I would say that I would stay away from all ofthese ICO's.  These initial alt-coins offerings can trick you to buy them, then you can find that they have no value at all. All these ICO's were invented to make the value of the bitcoin less than its true value, there are thousands of alt-coins offfered by ICO's that loose their value fast. Thus my advice is: stay away from all ICO's .

When there are no escrow, poor infographics, no information abouy dev., and lack of support from thr dev. and the community.

really interesting

perhaps by goin to big ICO it prevent you for pure scam

but he don t garantee you it s a good product

hard to make a choice but we can say if a project is amazing and the team is good you have good odds to have a big ico (like cardino 109000btc raised )

I think a better question is how to find a legit ICO, but it has already been asked a lot around here.

You can do some researche and choosing ICO . some ICO is very visible scam if the team that manages. It will be better to learn all information about the team, to read WP carefully, to visit official website and to talk with the application programmers if it's possible.

Check the team, evaluate the concept.
Look through the advisors.
Chech their roadmap, their whitepaper, their hard and soft cap.

Check the website or talk to them telegram or slax.
Look at their reaction !
Most important think dont trust. !!!

 :-X

i think equipping yourself with a lot of knowledge through researching and inquiry on other people will be a nice tool in order to identify if its a scam or not.
because as far as i can can see there is no foolproof system that will help you identify a scam ICO.
all i can say if its to good to be true then better be careful about it.
avoid it until you haven't got enough information about it yet...
:D

If they acting shady as hell and never answer those critical and important question regarding to their identity and the content of the project then we could spot it as scam since If they are running a pure honest business they would let people to criticize them and answer the inquiries of the people.

I think it's really difficult to detect if someone make a perfect one, only the future will tell you if it s legit.

There are tons of useful information online about how to detect scam. But in general, the most important thing is team, product and advisors who put their reputation on this.

True, and it was easy to spot a scam team and forst if they pass it and go on the ICO observe first if they can accumulate some amount as a first progress of the ico if its good to invest or not.

Always check the following when investing a substantial amount of money

• Team

Background, experience and SIZE of the team. Make sure there are experienced verified people (no fake linkedIn profiles with few connections or fake pics), you can google them easily and they are acting professionally. Team with less than 5-10 members sounds suspicious.  There should be content specialists, editors, PR specialists, SMM specialists, community managers, designers, software specialists, and targeted advertising specialists.

• Whitepaper

Read the whitepaper carefully or related blogs/articles/FAQ to it from the creators. Or have somebody to read/check it for you. If the whitepaper contains a lot of superlatives, fairy-tales or non-cited sources, the ICO is certainly fake or the creators are just dumb. Whitepaper should be a legit scientific paper with cited sources.

• Social media

Check their social media activity and people commenting/sharing/retweeting/TRUSTING the ICO and their trustworthiness and reputation. If there are any/a lot of fake profiles retweeting and liking posts, the ICO is probably a scam.
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DO you know mostof these site are paid to promote those ICOs and  I have seen project called scam by someof these ICO rating site that happends to be not. The help rely but the decision is with you

team members and their history is very important. they should be experienced ones and their previous projects should be successful. this is my main category to get rid of scammers.

Those linkedin profiles of nearly all ICO's are fake. I get it that people do not want to show their face. Just leave it empty. Is true that people are new to this industry.

We don't have to make out, that we are something we aren't. So lets make it simple, DO NOT USE FAKE PROFILES.

They are so easily spotted.

It is not easy to detect an ICO if it is a fraud. With having many ICOs to be launch this coming months. It is imperative to differentiate between a good opportunity and a scam. First you have to look for the dev teams' profile. If it doesn't provide their profile, it is likely to be a scam. Second, check their whitepaper. Their whitepaper should composed of technical and their operational details. Lastly, Study their plan of their project if it is a realistic one. Even if they have a roadmap, you have to do your own research and judge it if the project is feasible.

The most important is to see in detail what is described in their Ann Thread. roadmap, full description on pre-ico, ico, crowdfund, etc. team formations, etc. usually ICO explaining with very detail of the project they are going to do. very likely they are a legit ICO because they are serious in doing their project. the most important is the idea of their ico that determines the future of the project

this is the wild west. There can be scams that have alot of time put into them. They can have a great website, "great dev." lay it on real thick and turn out to be a scam. There is also small coins that are honest and have potential just dont have the right marketing. So you decide.

Always do detailed research on the team and read through the Whitepaper. I have seen several ICO's that have team members that don't seem to exist anywhere...and people still invest in them! Check If they have any 'real world' presence or associations with an existing real world businesses.

Also check the amount they are raising and if there has been a max cap applied.

I have had some success with ICO's but they have have all had a low market cap and haven't been trying to raise more than around $7m.

Yep agree, plenty of small projects with great potential but don't have the marketing budget.

Yeah that's a million dollars question at this moment. Cause we saw a lot of ico right now. It's too difficult to find promising ico. In my opinion more research and collect more news for project is the best option for this problem.

might be able to find out if the team is real. see the social media of the team. and learn about the project. like a whitepaper.

I also do this when I'm checking if the ICO is a scam. You can also check their website or read their whitepaper to know for sure that it is certainly a legit ICO.

first your check escrow, if you have then make sure to be trusted and anyone who suspects an ICO is a scam can repot it to the FCA online.

You should search everything about ICO. Their team , ambition of project and everything like that should be deeply searched. Unrealistic goals are the main thing that helps me to detect a scam.

You ought to dependably look into the greater part of the individuals on the group and check whether they truly exist and have the experience they guarantee they have. I generally keep away from ICO's with a mysterious group since it's quite recently excessively unsafe despite the fact that it's not really implies it's a trick. Check their connected in/twitter profile to know whether they are truly connected to the task or are recently stolen photographs.

First you should check the website of the ICO, i don't say a wordpress page, is not okay because u could make great things in wordpress. But you could check the source, and very often if its a standard template, within the sourcecode, the template name is written. Check if the site looks decent. Read the whitepaper to the full extend, if u don't understand all tech talk, ask somebody who does know the tech part, and add its opinion of the tech part, to your opinion of the things you do have knowledge about.

- Take a good look at the team, look for starplayers with a great repsheet,
- Look at the roadmap, check for realistic goals.
- Check if they have a public repro where u can take a look at there code, (if u don't know how to write code ) look for commits, how many commits does the project has.
If the project doesn't have any, check the developers in their team, check for their contributions to opensource projects.
- Take a look at their linkedin, look for recommendations by others.

In the end its always hard to see if something is a scam or not, but atleast u can take some steps a a security measure for urself

Do a little bit of a check when you go through the companies website. Look at the amount of information that they have as well, if you want to know more then you'd have to read their Whitepaper in full.

Detecting scam ICO is probably one of the hardest thing to figure out, why? because almost all ICO start with great and promising projects, but in the middle of somewhere when someone decide okay i had enough, lets take some cash and run away. That's when scam happens, so its the people within the company, if they are not ethically fit, then it might get broke anytime specially top management level.

Does the ICO actually have a working product?

Is the home page full of hyperboles but no innovative features?

Was anyone paid to have their name lent, but didn't disclose they got paid?

Has a celebrity (e.g. Paris Hilton, Jamie Foxx, or Floyd Mayweather) promoted or endorsed it?

There are a lot of ICO rating/evaluation organizations out there now that can do the basic due diligence for you. That won't necessarily tell you if an ICO will be successful or profitable, but should weed out the scams. Examples:

ANYTHING affiliated with Cofound.It (those guys are in the business of ICO mentoring and launching--they are the best out there as of right now)
ICO Rating: http://icorating.com/ (http://icorating.com/)
ICO Bench: https://icobench.com/ (https://icobench.com/)
TokenMarket: https://tokenmarket.net/ (https://tokenmarket.net/)

Look for a working product thats close to ICO date, something you can test or see other people using.  Best way to try and avoid a scam.

Don't rely only on ICO rating organizations.  They may claim to be experts, but you don't know for sure.  You are likely more knowledgeable about your field, whether it be medical, engineering, gambling or finance, than they would be.

They would also be biased.  Some are staffed by mainly people from a certain country or region.  Does that mean that they are biased for ICOs that are from their region?  Putin hosted Vitalik Buterin in Moscow.  Russia wants to grow the crypto industry in their country.  After that, there has been an explosion of Russian ICOs.  Is Putin funding these ICO ratings organizations to favor Russian ICOs?  We just found out that Russia took out lots of ads in Facebook, to disrupt US and European politics, so it wouldn't be stretch to think so.

I think if the ICOs has a profound and precise cause, intention and description of the project with strong foundations and sources. This kind of ICOs will provide enough information and data for transparency. 

If none is given then I think it's a scam.

It is not so easy to detect a scam ICO, but first of all you should read a white paper several times, learn about team and members, read about advisors and their reputation. Ask some people about this project. after that do some research and take a discision.

I think ,there's no specific way to know if the campaign is a scam or not. Joining campaign is also like investing, there'll be times that you will earn nothing. But you may alsp look for factors such as checking and searching about the ICO. You may also consider checking the background of the ICO team. I don't know if this one is effective but I also prefer some campaign managers espexially those who has lots of experiences on managing campaigns.

It's EASY to detect most of the shit or scams, and most of the ICOs are shit or scams.

You only need to do about 5 minutes of research and you will find major problems with most of the ICOs.

Most of the ICOs have built nothing that you can use today. That is a major flag. This means that they cannot prove that they can build anything.

Several project have raised millions of dollars and still have not built anything, despite their 10 member teams and fancy videos. This number will explode in the coming years.

This is not that easy but possible. Does anybody bought ReCoin?
Here is more about how they lied about 4-5M raised while in fact it was about 300K https://t.me/yoken/21

It's probably likely that many projects lie about how much they've sold, especially in the first few days, in order to create FOMO (fear of missing out) and fake hype/popularity.

These days all ICO's become scams.i think the last succesful and popular ICO is monetha's maybe centra's(there was so many problem during the ICO).these days most ICO's dont hardcapped.i invest DOVU its the best project of autumn but its collected few.i strongly suggest to look it

It's funny a LOT of people who are doing ICOs are posting articles and blogs about scams.

They then write a list of things only legitimate ICOs do.....and no surprise they narrowly define everything to just suit them and no-one else.

Really silly. So they imply every one is a scammer except them.

This forum has a lot of information on this topic! If you study well the advice and comments, and also have useful websites, then you can find out where the scammers are, and where they are not. But you need to spend a lot of time on this!

I agree with this advice. I would check the people out. I've found a lot of these profiles are fake.

If the team don't want to be published their name, social media and etc. The legit and trusted ICO have the escrow to monitor the ICO development. Join in the ICO with the reputable manager like YAHOO, NEEDMONEY, SYLON, AVIRUNES. They are responsible in the campaign and they also active escrow. They'll update the news about the ICO on going, activities and the date start of ICO.

Good point and yet, many of these scammers still don't have the ability to look like real people to me.

I know this reply is over a month old, but what do you mean? They were caught dumping - do you mean while the ICO was going on?

I think you can check their website and social media for more information. Know about their project and team also. Good ico generally use block chain. Read their white paper and all necessary documents to find real investment ico.

It is a bit awkward to give tips to a Sr. Member when I am still a Full Member. But here's what I do. I go to their ANN thread first and check the details as well as on how responsive they are. I then go to their website to check everything there especially the team and partner companies. I then read their whitepaper to look at the details on how they plan to make the project into reality. The roadmap and coin details are also very important to look at. 

For me it is hard to detect it for the first place, it can be detected when it is in the middle or in the end of the ICO, maybe in lack of information or details of their sales or no response from the team, or they just run away. My strategy for investing on ICOs is to see it first if their support is very interactive and they have the list of the team behind the project, whitepaper, roadmap and when it hit their market cap because it is sure win.

I look for terms and conditions. If there is none, that a big point of concern. If the T&C are available, I look to see what it is that the issuer contractually undertakes to do.

Certainly first check for team member and their advisor.search them on net.sometime scam ico often take photographs from internet and randomly select advisor.there is no harm to check before investing.now majority of all ico take kyc ,it is also a factor.you can check their address and search them if their company is registered or not.always check their bitcointalk profile bcz there many scam buster people  here so you will automatically get to know.

Do some background check if they really exist. Check there team if they are true,the company,ico and the campaign.

There is this thread explaining some ICO filters that everyone should be applying in my opinion before buying into an ICO. These guidelines really help to detect a scam. I will link the thread here.: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2243157.0 Definitely recommended to read this thread! Not only for newbies to ICO investing, everybody can learn something new!

It's hard but there are signs that could help you. The first one is the manager of the ICO has red trust. The second one is their thread or website is too crappy. I don't know if this helps but once I see I word that is mispelled then I stay away.

If you mean the real scammers who want to take your money and run. Then just watch thier site, team and whitepaper. If you have some experience than you can figure it out quick. But for advanced scammers it is near to impossible to catch them because the main idea of ICO is trust. And this kind of trust is really high risk.

One sign of ICO scam is the inaccessible website, and they are not honest with the token sales achievement.
It is difficult to distinguish a good ICO or a scam. You should read some white papers and make sure the Team is professional.

The complete outline as well their experience makes them trustworthy. If you look at the United traders token, they have been into the trading excellence since 2009. This adds more value to them, and the same will easily gain investors. There are good professional teams and some turns to be a scam due to the lack of funding.

in my opinion, you can do some research first, you see the team work it is really the team that can make a success in a project, the work done, the work map and their white paper. it will help you to know whether the product will work and grow and bring benefits to you.

It is hard to determine whether an ICO is a scam or not. If you are not paid then it is a scam. When you want to know what is a scam or a legit ones, go to their page, try to do a research by yourself and consider that it is known by many. Try to read about their project platform and judge it if it is too good to be true. Try looking for the white paper,if it has none probably it has a high chance that it is a scam, if it has a whitepaper read the full project description. Look for the development team, read the description then think of it if it is worthy to be trusted, if it has none then do not waste your time, look for another.

It is not really visible that you can say an ICO is a scam or not.Have been there folks.Scams are not that easily detected.But as for experience try looking at the manager,the team and also research and read something bout the project itself.

Google is the key,if the ICO doesnt have a good whitepaper,product you should do a full research or else you will waste your time.

i think there are many ways to detect an ico scam, you can read on their website if their project dont have enough information about their whitepaper, roadmap, and their coin infromation, or you can look for assessments from ico reiviewers. however i can guarantee no ico project is safe no matter how much you did research on it, so it always up to you, whether to take that risk or not.

It's so hard to detect or determine if ICO is scam or not, but the only one thing i've been know, you do some research before you can participate or invest her project, just search her website and ask many people if that ICO is legal and not scam, you can check their project and information their roadmap.

Well, there is a joke that basicully all ICO's are scam.
There were never so many IPO's cos it cost huge amount of money. There were never such hipe
in crowdfunding cos you had to give something back and it had to be something
valuable. Why now and so many ICO's? Cos there is responsibility if something goes wrong.
In my own opinion most tehnological ICO don't even know how it will work in the future
and will there be any need for that.

Ask for experts if that ICO is a scam or not. And you can also do some research or google to know it.

Whitepaper always says whats going to happen.
Whitepaper language will lead you to the end of project. Profeesionally written whitepaper projects alway successfull.

My way of detecting is from searching the ico on the google and there are many kinds of stuffs to read about when you search it on google from there you will find out if the ico is a scam or not, do a research always for you to be not a victim of a fake and scam ico

so many methods and factors was considered here. some of them could be really useful. :)
but here guys my way of detection high risky and similar to scam projects. there're 3 simply steps that could help you to clarify the things that make you doubt in ico. it is very simple but could help you to filter out "bad" ico at an early stage.

1) first of all check the project team, who these people are, how competent they are, their activity in social networks, the past experience etc.
2) next step is analysis of social and media channels: study all social and media channels, what the audience things about the project, what activity and popularity of the project as a whole. just check out the feedback of community. i'ts not enough just know who is adviser at the project. i mean that the ico should be discussed by investors and by project's target audience. it will show you the engagement of other possible participants.
3) finally you should create your own check-list, according to which you should study the project in a complex way. but... probably it should be the first step...  ::)  anyway, just think about your personal requirements and conditions that ico should match. it will really help you to filter out all "bad" ico.

so to be positively selected for investment, ico should have: idea and resolution of some problem; strong and qualified team and  successful pr compaign.
all mentioned things sighn that the company have stable financing, a good management structure and good community support. 8)

Be carefull check out the community

Works 5/7 times  ::)

You can search Google's founders career records, whether there is a bad record, and whether the group engaged in blockchain before the study, etc., I do is to distinguish whether or not a liar.