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Hello, dear investors and everyone who reads this.
Being a developer of smart contracts, I cannot stand aside of the current lawlessness in the ICO market.
Out of every 100 projects 99 is a fraud, or a scam, as we used to call it.
Please, read the following advices as a guide to verification of every ICO:
1. At the start of pre-ICO team should have a contract for automatic assets transfer, that contains a written set of rules for early investors – not on towel, not in the speaking form, but written in the smart-contract.  Otherwise, collected assets can just fall in the pockets of founders, or they can change rules of the game in the middle of act – there are many examples.
2. The contract for pre-ICO should be a part of a bigger contract on ICO and do not be different tokens – it is unsafe form a standpoint of vulnerability and withdrawal of funds.
3. The contract for pre-ICO, and then on ICO should have a lower and upper barrier - if it does not – the team does not know what it wants - just a scam.
4. The contract for ICO should have escrow of the funds, received as a result of placement - it can be a frieze or multiSig with a voting condition. This will give you a guarantee against the expenditure of funds earlier than the team completed the previous stage.
5. The contract should have indisputable return of funds condition, in case of not reaching the lower limit of the collected pool. It is in the contract and not in the white book, if it is not – move on, it’s just a scum.
6. All contracts must be posted on GitHub, this will enable third-party developers to check the contract for the vulnerability, if the team has not taken care and before the ICO has not posted a bounty on the vulnerability.
7. The contract must specify the conditions for the team and for the bounty’s for vulnerability.
8. The contract must specify the conditions for not traded tokens - with clearly defined deadlines.

This post is about having a standard. Everything in the end should have a standard - and together we can achieve it. If you do not invest in teams that do not adhere to basic security standards - they just won’t be able to steal your money.

I hope for a dialogue and a healthy discussion.

Thank you for sharing, but most of the time, because I am not a technician, I can hardly judge the technical issues. I can only understand the background of the team and whether there are any bad records.

hey guys - noob question. How do i send my XYZ tokens from metamask to exchange? I have the exchange address, i just dont how how to send anything besides ETHER with metamask.

If XYZ is ERC20 tokens just send it to your ethereum address. Try to send a couple of pieces at the beginning.

I'm always concern about the security of investing in any particular ICOs when some misfortune happens like losing funds and any fishy activities that was just basically crippling the late investors. A background backbone on Github is a must for me to look through their efforts given to basically develop what they promised to achieve in the next few road-maps, some of them just uploaded some basic wallet transaction helper code and that's not helpful at all. The rest mentioned above are definitely good read as i always assumed projects would have some sort of 'early private investors' that was guaranteed to have profits once they took off, i just don't wanna be a victim that get my tokens -30% value gone on the first day it reaches any exchanges.

some of the above advice has been implemented by guts, more info please check at my signature.

I want to share another advice, which is not directly connected to the topic of smart contracts. At least on the face of it.
It is not that simple, to start ICO.  The team that goes to the ICO should have at least the code on the GitHab - something I repeatedly warned about in my recommendations. Any statements on the site without the presence of the code on the GitHab are a direct indicator of the scam.

https://auctus.org/
The project is solid from the developer standpoint. Has contracts, has a working prototype. The only thing that missing is an escrow - but I admit that in this context this is not the biggest mistake.

http://armorceramics.co
The site indicates the beginning of sales, but clicking on the button moves to an empty block. Perhaps this is the error of the web programmer - but first red flag is on. The page on HitHab is in development.
My conclusion: if you are trying to be real, then you should take a bigger test. SCAM.

https://playkey.io
The project takes funds for a contract in which there is only one token for all stages of sale and bonuses for early investors from our list. There are no conditions for the team, bounty, no soft and hard caps, no escrow and freezes. With such a grandiose project, getting out such an unfinished product is unacceptable from our standpoint.
According to our standard – it’s a SCAM.

https://lcd.lucyd.co
This project will receive a e-wallet payments and it’s a biggest scam-factor. To be frank, project is not innovative one bit. Founders just lazy to prove their own idea in front on investor’s board and trying to cut a quick cash. Do you really want this? Nope. Because it is scam.

http://ico.b2b-gbs.com
They managed to be cheap, even using free hosting. Nothing to say – SCAM. Another bag of dust.

I’ve been asked quite frequently about not-scam projects. This bunch was tested by my only by smart-contract standards.
https://auctus.org
https://cashaa.com
https://covesting.io
https://goldminecoin.io

These projects are all different in regard of directions, but they are all the same, as to responsibly approaching to the safety of investors' money.

https://ico.guts.tickets/
You have a strange project. Those wishing to contribute to the project put in line. The code on the Github is missing. There may be a contract, but there is no access to it.

Scam ICO Alert Auctus, DMarket.
Video review on the SCAM from the developer of smart contracts.

https://youtu.be/ZdHnVY0JgU0

Thank you for sharing this, I think a lot of people don't even read into the concept of the ICO, never mind the smart contract that governs the pre-ICO / ICO.

The standard needs to be raised by the crypto scene, if bad ICO's don't raise money, then they will cease to exist and develop their concept / idea to meet standards.

I totally agree on the advices from a developer's point of view. But how would you handle FIAT payments in this case, which is from a business' side very crucial?

Another day, another review.

https://swisstok.io
Site contains one interesting detail – pre-sale is going to be over after 21 day and they still didn’t add “buy” button. I smell a bit of a scam already. Even after signing in you will receive only an invite to a sales, nothing more.

https://paytailor.com
Site does not contain “sale” button. It’ll only going to be found under the heading. As result we are shown a wallet, on which we should drop our coins. What does the team hopes for? I don’t know. It’s clearly a scam. Don’t give them money. 

http://gigagiving.com/ICO
Despite the fact that this project has git-hub link and did found collection in the right way, it has some red flags. First – tokens are going to be out at once. All of them. No burning function. No spelled out terms for the team; no bounties, no hard and softcaps. No freeze and escrow. Scam through and through. 

https://razoom.org
Project is claiming to combine AI and smart-contracts in ETH. And even after this bold claims they still collecting found on the wallet. Maybe hoping to lure some naive soul to their nets. Eh. C’mon, guys. At least do some efforts into fooling us. Scam.   

https://swissborg.com/en/

Before the sales begin, we have the opportunity to review code of the prototype. It could be better. Just a pack of standard functions and nothing more. Of course, there is a possibility that cherry on top will be added right before sales but for now – quite a dull project overall. 

https://tokensale.gizer.io/

Project has a spelled out terms for early investors, has soft and hard cap and token-burn. There are no terms for bounty and team, no escrow and no freeze. 50\50, but i'll put this project in a scam pile. 

Dear Hero10,

Swisstok now proceeding with 1st closed presale, starting with KYC/AML procedure. So, lack of the wallet or "buy" button means we're doing that in a manual mode. We are counting on dozens of participants  here, so the manual mode is much simpler than smart-contract. You are welcome to register (or https://t.me/swisstok) and see the news and test alpha version.

Swisstok

Thank you for reply! We'll keep an eye on your project.

And meanwhile, another review.

https://fortknoxster.com
Web-site is looking quite unpresentable, and to add insult to injury – there are no GitHub link to review the code. Big “No-no”.

https://www.saavcoin.com/
Another horrible looking website with no GitHub link. No means to verify code and contract – no advices to invest in this project.

I've a suggestion and how about try to make a list about the result of the contract that you have been auditing it? It seems to be a very good sources for everyone to determine the ico project itself.
The smartcontract becomes a crucial part in this game, that's why majority of the scammers are hiding their code.

We've got an idea. We could create encrypted mail for all bitcointalk users based on our alpha. It's not a small opensource server one could download which we intent to create, but the cloud mail with fully available encryption (PGP-based). 

https://ins.world/

The code that we can see after following the GitHub link is weird. It does not revive ETH as payment method. After trying to pay for tokens, I was welcomed by simple wallet. Well, dream came true, again. I hope it's just a mistake and will be fixed in a shortest amount of time. If not – scam. ins.world

https://www.tokendesk.io/
The project aggregator of ICO’s goes on ICO - but the verdict is scum, because of reason that payments are accepted on the wallet and not on the contract.

Thanks for the advice.

I find that the average person has no concept of the actual technology behind altcoins and are only in it because they heard about Bitcoin on the news....

I invested in ICOs more than 5, I regret for all, because all of them are unnecessary and not profitable. Even they most fall below ico price. I just wanted to invest in 0x ico.

Very thoughtful post.  I will add these to my filter criteria for ICO.  There are so many and the industry is moving so fast.  Much care and due diligence is needed.   Thank you!

I think everyone should read this thread before they invest into any ICO.

Really good job man!

Really good thread, everyone should read this before even thinking about investing into any ICO.

Thanks for the information man, always good to hear from the perspective of a developer rather than someone trying to sell their altcoin.

As long as there is no single standard for entering the ICO, the existence of a contract is rather indicative of the seriousness of the team and the create and develop business within the framework of new technologies, rather than using this new boom only as a form of fund-raising. When you’re going to buy a house you are not just listening to how beautifully the seller sings. In the absence of a material analogue of the product offered for sale, it’ll be logical to evaluate it from the point of view of digital guarantees (by analogy with the contract of sale for a house). So in our case, if the team does not have a contract describing the actions of the team at the time and after the fundraising - they do not have this very contract with which they come to you as a buyer; How can I trust my team with this money?

If you think that the contract can be written after fundraising - it's illogical, because the team needs a working model with a prototype, in order to convince investors of the seriousness of their intentions. Situations that will soon happen everywhere - the collapse of projects and the departure into nonexistence - is just the result of the relaxed attitude of investors to the guarantees of the teams. It is a mistake to assume that the risks of entering the ICO are completely the prerogative of the investor. Teams have the same responsibility as investors, if not large

My advice is the following: do not invest in projects that do not have clear, prescribed contracts. This, it is proved by statistics, always ends badly. Evaluation of ICO, contract writing and orientation in crypto-currencies is a difficult, but not impossible task.

Today’s red day on many crypto-tokens. But I thinks it’s great. And here is why:

1) There are simple none of market asset that can grow all the time. It’s healthy to sometime cut off some lard from the main body.
2) It’s giving opportunity to buy tokens cheaper. No joke. Buy low, sell high.
3) It’s shows us that it’s not just a blob of assets. While eventually everything (even fiat) is going to crash corrections in a sigh if healthy market.

Don’t panic, have no fear. Invest in proper ICO and tokens and everything is going to be fine.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2465642.msg25250829#msg25250829
We will develop bespoke ICO according to your project.

Topic with our projects and discussion.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2465642.msg25250829#msg25250829

In the light of recent events, the question became urgent: How to understand that your position on crypto-currencies suffers because of market fluctuations, and not because of the whims of speculators?
It's very simple, but some ignore the simplicity of this advice.

Open the capitalization of the Crypto-currency. This is a good metric for understanding where the market as a whole is. Next, move to your crypto-currencies.
Having seen the place of the crypto currency that you are interested in in the general rating and evaluating its neighbors, you will receive very important information about the effectiveness of your crypto currency in competition with others. This information will allow you to draw conclusions about the current situation of your position. If the coin began to lose its place in the global capitalization rating – perhaps, this coin is influenced by fundamental factors or a speculative element. If the crypto currency keeps its positions in the rating, while losing in the price - do not worry, maybe this is only a global market fall.

I think i prefer to join in real working priduct ico because many people will support it. And also more promissing if we investin such kind of ico. Always check the idea and team as well.

Great thread,

These are very important questions that should be asked before investing and usually people do not ask these as they are too interested in the concept and marketing and the ability to make cash of the token they are investing into.

Interesting topic of course, but I do not know how to read contracts, tell me where  can learn more about reading contracts

Hey, hero10! Someone posted a reaction (quoted below) against smartcontract.life on this thread, https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2465642.msg25705995#msg25705995... Could you say some feedback about it? Thank you.

The BLUE project aims to do a lot of what the OP has very helpfully done here manually (BLUE will release an SDK which auto scans contracts to look for malicious code e.g. infinite minting)

They have also launched a wallet which will scan malicious wallet addressed (e.g. known hacker addresses) and give the user a warning before they send funds to that address. Something like this would have saved a lot of people from the recent EtherDelta hack.

You can check https://www.etherblue.org/ for further details.

The post was ignored consciously. This is our partner from the old team. Just black PR.

Ok. Thank you for your feedback. A while ago, I have stumbled to this thread, https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2798374.0 it's about MediChain, The Medical Big-Data Platform - Saving Lives With Blockchain. This is their website, https://medichain.online/... could you please tell us if it's safe to invest in this project? Thank you.

Thanks for precious advices. I mostly check token^functions if it is reasonable then many other factors like team, advisors, investors...

Thank you for sharing.
Indeed, there are serious problems with ICO, most of them are a fraudulent project, but there is a strong speculation in the whole market.
The site will have the code for the ICO project, and the quality of the code will determine the quality of the project, and the smart contract is the key to the token.

What to look for in the Whitepaper?

The first ICO I invested in was the Polybius project. For me it was more of an experiment than an investment. How did I find out about this project? Of course from ads. But why did I decide to invest my money there? After some time, being already an "experienced investor", I noticed that every project I analyze primarily WhitePaper. When people tell me about a new project or give a link, I do not consider landings and do not read the comments in the chat rooms. Even being a programmer, I do not climb into the code to look. First of all, I'm looking for the WhitePaper section. It was the well-made made WhitePaper that allowed me to determine my decision for the first time.

In due course I have generated the list of those requirements which I present to the project interesting to me. These requirements can help not only a novice investor. They can be guided by the development team ICO.


1.   When will the ICO begin? In general, the fund-raising process can be in several stages. But we'll talk about a project with one stage of the ICO.
2.   What is the motivation system for investors? The most popular now are two stages. Bonus for early investment and bonus for the amount of the invested air.
3.   When will the ICO end?
4.   Team. Very important part. Who creates the project and what kind of experience they have. And of course links to profiles in social. network.
5.   The main idea is transparent in a few words. This section is for the investor. The section should be short, transparent and without project-specific terminology. If the description of the idea takes more than a page, then something went wrong. For technical details and for geeks there must be another section. Most investors will not understand your formulas. If it is not clear, they will close and will not remember or postpone until next time, which is extremely unlikely.
6.   Necessarily those. details. Section for developers, engineers and geeks. These guys will carefully analyze each line, check the numbers, and then still ask a lot of questions in the chat support.
7.   Comparison of existing projects.
8.   What problem does the project solve?
9.   Motivation to invest is the point of buying tokens. What will I benefit from this?
10.   When is the benefit expected and how will it be distributed?
11.   Why tokens will go up?
12.   Link to the smart contract code.
13.   Who are the partners or advisors.
14.   Stages of project development and background, what has already been done.
15.   Which exchanges will the tokens come out on?
16.   Estimation of the market. At least approximate with the plotted graphics.
17.   On what and how will investors spend money.
18.   Where is the company registered?
19.   Will there be an escrow?

Simple Escrow contract

Schemes of work:
•   Once the customer deposits money for the contract, then his address is remembered and the contract starts counting down 12 days
•   If the developer called failedByDeveloper, then the money is returned to the customer;
•   After 12 days, the contract will count the period for another 5 days. During this period, the customer must make a decision. If the task is completed, the customer should call completed. Then the funds are transferred to the developer on the wallet. If the execution of the customer is not satisfied, then it should call orderNotAccepted;
•   If the work is not accepted, the contract gives another 5 days;
•   If the customer has not made any decision after the expiration of the safe period of five days, the work is deemed to be performed and the funds go to the developer for the purse.

Scheme when a dispute arises:
Terms of dispute
•   The developer did not call failedByDeveloper, thus not saying that the work was not performed;
•   The customer prohibits withdrawal of funds within 5 days of the day using orderNotAccepted. The contract extends the safe period for another five days.

Terms of dispute resolution
•   The developer called failedByDeveloper. Thus, the developer agreed that the work was not performed and the funds go to the customer for the purse they came from earlier;
•   The customer called completed. Thus agreeing that the task is completed and the funds go to the purse developer;
•   The customer did not extend the disputed period until the current orderNotAccepted function terminates.

thanks for this post bud, I have to learn more about if they have a smart contract during pre ico

what are the coins you would be interested in investing for their value both technical and business.

I don't have merits rights but this post deserves merit. So all those who think this is useful do merit this post.

I would appreciate it very much if you could create a thread naming or making a list of all scam/fraud ICO projects.

Thanks for your advice guy. It's good and useful for newbie. I strongly agree that ICO projects must public their smart contracts on Github for everyone can audit. And it will be better if   there is a third party will audit their smart contracts. Some ICO don't have clearly information, no public smart contracts, no infor about total supply...etc

Unfortunately, this happens often

I also have no sMerit left to give it on OP, but I recalled that I endorsed this thread to the owner of this thread https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2827596.msg28975211#msg28975211 as he's giving 20 merits to post or posts that deserves to be merited.

This is some really enlightening information. thank you for posting your knowledge and I'm sure a lot of people like me who have been conflicted about investing in icos have found this incredibly useful and I am bookmarking this page so I can always refer to it in the future. We need more threads like this so more people can get educateda about ICOs and how to carefully invest in them.

thanks for sharing ..it is informative

I've seen a lot of projects in the Bounties (Altcoins) (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=238.0) that have no smart contracts, and some with whitepapers that have fake team, you can see some of them here, Scam Accusations Board (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=83.0).