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You can't always be sure if a project scam or not. But I decided to make a list of steps every newbie should cross before investing a project  :o

Step 1 - you need to visit a website. You need to make sure there is white paper, team, advisors and links to social networks (a project without this information can't be trusted);

Step 2 - you need to read a white paper carefully. Pay your attention to the idea, concept and realization;

Step 3 - check out all social networks and blogs. If the project is alive there should be regular updates;

Step 4 - you need to contact the team. The feedback is very important thing. If the team doesn't answer you it is a bad sign;

Step 5 - join this project community (telegram chat or btctalk tread). There should be 24/7 communication;

Step 6 - google information about the project. Read articles about the project, try to find team interview and events they recently visited. It is good if a company exists for a couple of years, has its history and generates revenue;

Step 7 - read information about advisors. If advisors have a good reputation and they have their successful projects.


Here are good developed communities examples:

https://t.me/kickcity_chat
https://t.me/matchpool

If you have you ideas please share. Let's make crypto community safe together!  ;)

thank you for this list. I am new here so this is very useful for me

you are welcome!

i would also add roadmap. you need to see where company is going

the list is very good and useful. thanks a lot for this.

but remember  this! most of them already scam. they can find a back door.

yeah. investors need to be sure a company has next steps to make it grow

being careful is crucial! you are absolutely right

Also there have to be people in the community. If project is interesting, people will join it. I believe this is important!

Should someone make a blacklist of those scam project?
Good for the crypto world.

yeah, people should show interest

that would be great. but everyone should be careful with this list, because one can blame good project

correct. What you share is the decisive factor for evaluating a fraudulent project. I used to read the road map. White paper and see the development team. Thank you for your sharing. It is very useful for people who are unfamiliar with scam projects with good projects

you are welcome!

and what do you think about these links

some projects ignore it and i don't know why

BITCONNECT is a scam ICO. And now they are ready to launch a new project. Hope that no one will be a victim of this same project. Focus on its concept and plans because no one wants to be on the same boat as the traders and the bounties of that project.

why they are scam?

blacklist is a great idea. but who will take this responsibility  ???

this is great forum for all the jr. member and also in all rank.
that didnt know how to know if the project is scam or not. also for me i'm still dont know how "recognized'' a campaign if they is a legit. but for now i am perfectly five star rate to our campaign manager because of the successful project..

what do you mean five stars rate?

for example, if i rank my campaign manager 1 to 5, i give 5 for our campaign manager.

Anything that has a word "Bitcoin" in it's name is a scam which is just using thrustworthy name of a good coin for advertisement.

Nowadays scam projects have high-end ideas as you can see like loopx, that noone can exepct problems with them. So reading white paper is not enough.

Wow this is a very cool guide to identify the project, thank you very much for the opportunity to look at your thoughts, but still we will say that this too can not give 100% guarantee for the whole thing. In any case, it will be possible to minimize risks

Nice list.

Unfortunately when it comes to ICOs, there are things that cannot be done, like looking into the history of the project or the background of the team (well some times this can be done).
Even legit ICOs that have done great would seem like scams under some rules.

I will add here a few of my items for project analysis
Some aspects for verification of the ICO projects:

1. Legal status of the company and its activities standing behind the project
2. Team whether there are checked public profiles? At least in team there shall be a business expert, the expert with technical skills. Presence among advisers of famous people, their reputation.   
3. Tokens: distribution, turnover in an ecosystem, placement at the exchanges.
4. What problem is solved by the project and how?
5. Distribution of tokens: especially a team share if it is more than 25%, then it is necessary to treat the project with care.
6. The restrictions imposed on the tokens belonging to a project team: if there are no restrictions, the lack of long-term obligations before the project is possible.
7. Project code: if open-source, what activity of developers.
8. The hype level on social networks and on the websites. What famous people are involved in public relations, their reputation?
9. Partnership with the project? Who and it is how serious?
10. Prototype or minimum viable product (MVP) of the project?
11. The project has competitors, the level of their development?
12. Relations with venture investors?
13. Project Roadmap, reality of plans and terms?

true, unfortunately, you can never be sure. but i hope this list will help someone

oh that is a great list! thank you!

I would like to carefully observe whether this project is a scam before investing in the ICO.
You can search for the relevant code on gtihub. Generally speaking, good project code is open source.

this information is very useful and very good for beginners who want to invest in ICO project. because I've experienced an investment that ends a scam. I lost a lot of assets because I did not read first about the project.

true. one os the most important things for a company is transparency

Just doing the number 1 step will take care of all.
First thing is the team behind it.
See to it that it is legitimate. (There have been some here that grabs photos and informations from other people)

Look at their service. Legitimacy and also if it is worth to invest with.
Other information will come as you know them more.
Future plans.

true. Thank you for this list

I always considered first, the team behind the project : These should be real experts in what they claim to do with their project. check for their regalias and other signs of expert status. I also check , the whitepaper,the coin supply,and the roadmap.

Of course, calling project fraud is also a very responsible business, because as soon as people begin to say that the project is fraudulent, the project's collections are instantly reduced and the project, along with developers, acquires a bad reputation.

True. I dont like people blaming a project scam when it's actually not

Everyone should do their due diligence when looking at investing in any ICO. It's very important when your looking into ICOs and researching them. You need to do so thoroughly. It can be hard choosing especially now with all these scam projects around.

Thanks for this guideline on how.to avoid a scam ico project but in my opinion we cannot really know a scam project because now a day theres a lot of promissing ico project that attract every investor if you want to invest in some project make sure it has an active developer and have a great or experience campaign manager to project their project.

thanks for sharing this information but now a days so many campaigns are scam. how can they find real campaigns. scaming campaigns also looking like genuine campaigns. how can i trust on this information.

Thanks the author for the list. I woilud add roadmap as a importnant step. Roadmap sholud be very detailed. And the terms that the developers set themselves should be adequate to the task posed.

Hard to say. For me, the projects where the founders has no idea what the users can do with the tokens/coins once the project is life is a scam. I mean, if in the whitepaper there is nothing regarding the tokens/coins once the project is life....this is bad.

you are welcome =)

Good idea is to take a foto of the team and check on google. Sometimes you can find that this is not a real person or different name. Team must have profiles for a long time in social overwise it looks like scam, if people hiding their faces and real names.

if there are no real people it's 100% scam

thank you so much for your interest to help others, your checklist is clear and very informative, I can now invest and join to a project safely and away from scam.

you are welcome  :)

but please not these tips do not guarantee you anything

I don't believe taking a photo of the teams and managers  will help to know a scam ICO. The scam ICO's to me they have the most effective team, they are there to answer any question and they solved problems anytime you call on them a topical example is Benebit ICO they are one of the best active team I have ever work with but they vanish over night with investors money and all the hunters labour in vain.  (Benebit ICO)

Well, you made an excellent work: now scammers have a check list on what they need to focus on, just to make a better scam! :-)
OK, I'm kidding, but only partially: 90% of an ICO is just marketing, and they concentrate much more on the appearance of a project than on its substance.
So, it's very difficult to detect a scam.

A project is a scam if you need to send little amoung of ETH to devs wallet to have some airdrop, even if you have the token that the airdrop provided it is pretty sure that more than 50 percent of the total number of tokens are in developers hand and waiting for some bull trap in the market soon.
SCAM PROJECT OF ICO EXAMPLE: MILK ICO, the dev run the money from ICO.

Thank you, took a note. Very useful information

I actually like to agree with the list you have given.

Furthermore, I guess we can all agree that once the certain project asks for your "private key" or anything that is supposed to be private...it can be understood as scam.

This is a great checklist for sorting out ICOs! Very helpful for beginners like me.
Thank you very much!

you are welcome =)

if for me that's hard to say. because we also do not know which are scam and which are not. so if to distinguish the scam project it already has a lot of information on this

And what do you think about projects inside the links?

The lists above is good but it can only help, most projects in the space now can be classified as bluechip tokens and now it is difficult for small project with less capital for marketing to attract advisor to their platform. About whitepaper it is just IMO, most of these projects don't stick to their whitepaper, I hope there would be a quantitive data to help with this

Any scam can correspond to each item in the list so using these items do not understand how much a cool project. everyone can make white paper and a good site

yeah. but you can't make up a good idea and real team

And would have added about the concept of the project. The concept and idea should solve the real problems of people, and be fairly easily implemented at this stage of development of the Crypto-currency

You pretty covered most of the points, any project that meets the above criteria is definitely not a scam, but there is also a possibility that the project may not be successful due to some other reasons and some people will call it "scam".

well... you can not call unsuccessful project a scam, to be honest =)

this is very good information, and where I also always practice it when I want to follow a bounty where. I think that very often I use as a benchmark whitepaper and roadmap on a project I think it is the main thing in choosing a project. and thank you for sharing about whether the project scam or not thanksyou verymuch new science again for me.

Scam projects and ICOs are everywhere. About 90% of ICOs are scams thats why everyone needs to do there due diligence before making investments.

you need to be careful blaming each ICO scam

Most of the time, you should avoid the Russian and European ICO projects.
Because the ICO projects in both areas are mostly a fraudulent project, they need to be more cautious.

Thank you for publishing this post, made a lot of interesting and useful things

Thank you, you made an useful check list, even if - as you said - you can never be 100% sure.
Btw, it seems to me that rarely an ICO starts with scam intention. More likely, it's all about bad projecting and bad management.

I doubt many would actually contact a team before investing. And if a big project... I can understand if they are slow at answering mails etc as well. But being active on social media and answering people on telegram / twitter is a good sign of someone being professional.

These are good points for testing the project. But nevertheless, you need to pay attention to the idea, the availability of a working product and an open smart contract.

it seems not only that point is important,
we must know the information about them first before follow ico

Most of ICO promoters are now very skilled in making their product to appear very attractive, and I suspect they put much more effort on marketing that in the creation of a solid background.

So, it's more and more difficult to evaluate the potential of an ICO. Btw, with just a little attention, you can avoid the most obvious scams.
And with a little attention more, you can identify the probably winners.

How can you testing a project ( ICO ) when they only provide you some anonymous information and a white paper only ? It's only like a promise and you can't do nothing with it.
The only thing we have to do to protect our money is don't ever invest in those project with nothing showing up.

I think it depends on our analytical skills, because I'm sure, there are still many people who are fooled by the ICO scam easily because of poor analytical skills

There should be the feedback. I don't understand why some projects ignore it

This is a good list, thank you for your work; but - if you have the intention to put some serious money in an ICO, this is just the beginning.
So, made you research and don't forget that many ICO promoter are good marketer and know how to make attractive presentations...

What is nice about this list is that it will help you recognize good ICO's most of the time.
It is better to learn how to recognize the good ones. The bad ones will be filtered out then.

About Step 4
It is important not just to try to communicate with the team. It is important to know by 99% who they are, what they know and can. What an experience, how old are they. What kind of education they received. If I see 20-year-old children, I will not look any further and read nothing.

In my opinion, the team can have several young people, but not many. And if this young man is a leader, then he must be a genius. But this is rare.

My detective post about one potential scam is here https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2980740. You can go through it to see examples how to detect fraud.

Thank you for sharing this information

Most of the teams are young. The age shows nothing, to be honest. What is more, in IT industry young specialists are the best

thankyou for posting this this is quiet useful info for a newbie like my self

information is very interesting and at this time I just found out that many steps that must be done to know the project is a scam or not,
and I think this is something I should look at to help my work in choosing a project, in addition I will bookmark this link for an interest in my work.
thank you for your information and hopefully many people who helped with the topic that you created it.

welcome  :)

The first thing to look at is the project team. The project team must be reliable, honest and experienced. See the project's social media accounts. If the accounts are current and active, we know that the team is hardworking. It provides us with information on the white paper progeny product. Ico rating sites are important.

I would like to congratulate you for the information and concepts shown in your topic, but despite following all these steps we know that we can come across a scam, there are sophisticated means that can fool everyone and even experienced investors. Particularly, by adding step 8- Flexibility in the informative readings, the security is almost perfect.

This is just red lines. Like, the most important factors

Useful tread! Thank you!

Thanks for your sharing and I think I will benefit from it.

I'm glad you like it  :)

i think airdrop project = 9/10 scam ::) :o :(

I would estimate at least half of projects I have seen people screaming scam at, are just failed projects which started with good intentions.

How is that different from any startup in Silicon Valley? Most of those fail, but they are not scams.

Screaming scam is as fashionable in crypto as self diagnosed "gluten intolerance" is in the real world.

Absolutely agree. If a project fail it does not mean it's a scam

from each step I think it still needs to analyze from the project and you should also see the sales transaction from an ico if it is or is nearing the target then the project will have great potential for future investment.

I don't believe taking a photo of the teams and managers  will help to know a scam ICO. The scam ICO's to me they have the most effective team, they are there to answer any question and they solved problems anytime you call on them a topical. Good idea is to take a foto of the team and check on google. Sometimes you can find that this is not a real person or different name

Also, I believe that it is very important when an investor is able to talk with each team member. That is why a developed community of a project is crucial

ICO investors need to protect themselves and unfortunately, ICOs are still largely unregulated so we cannot expect that somebody else will search for and banish the “bad apples”.
So we decided crypto community needs a proper Due Diligence project based on common knowledge. We would like to build it from the ground up and we are open to any comments, suggestions and ideas. However, first we need to know, how you guys actually screen ICO projects, what you look at and what you maybe neglect. So that we can focus our attention on those things. If you fill in this short anonymous survey you will help us understand exactly that. We are doing this to create better transparency regarding ICOs.

https://tilburglawschool.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_3sCWmLd0wY1OK3P

One sure way is to know if a project is scam is by checking out the developers linkedin profile that is if the project is not an anonymous one.... If you search and you don't see their linkedin or however u find it but it something related to the project is not found on the profile then it is definitely a scam

Yeah. And it's also important to be able to contact a team

Does not that make Bitcoin a scam by definition?

Most important is read the whitepaper, the team behind the project, the partnership, Roadmap and the platforms.
There's  a project that are scam but it's easy to know if it's reliable and credible.

In the world of the crypto currency, you may encounter many of the projects which seem you to be the best project for the sake of investing of your money but later on, you get to know that the project is scam and that you have lost all of your money too. You need to think well and study well about that project and then invest only when you are dead sure that you are going to make good money out of it.

In this kind of world ,in the cryptocurrency world you'll have encounter many scammers because this worlds involves big money and others want to steal it from you.so think carefully for those scammers and i have some tips to prevent that. First, you have to research in one project or you have to gather some information in the one thing. This is the best way to prevent scammer

If you are subscribed to the campaign, or following them for a while, you can also check if they comply to their roadmap. You can pretty much tell if the campaign is legit if they are getting to their own objectives and goals.

Also it is good when a company has long lasting history and generates revenue

Sometimes I'm fascinated by how people write messages which say nothing meaningful at all, to get their message count up  ::)

Probably to study the project? Carry at least a superficial analysis before getting down to work

It is. But scam can be made in a very professional way. The team may look honest and clear. And still it can be scam. On the other way, there can be a good project with it's faults. And people can b;ame it's a scam, when it's not

Difficult  ???

We can't say perfectly which project is scam. Because Nowadays the scam project also comes with one legit website with https:// and also their white paper looks very attractive like a professional. But, you know it only after the ICO when for long time this coin is not listed in any  exchanges. So, never invest with blind eyes. Always look at the participant and the Pre-ICO to know whether the sale is successful or not.

Unfortunately, Its almost Impossible to tell what project is a scam especially at the early moments. Mos of them normally have impressive outlook and an almost perfect marketing strategies that are so convincing that noticing a gap can be difficult, people only come to realize that there were never legitimate when its almost too late.  as a pointer, always look at the token allocation of a project, a legitimate project will always have a balance in their token allocation.

I can add that it is necessary to evaluate how the token fits into the concept of the project. Whether he is needed in this project or created exclusively for the purpose of collecting money. It is also necessary to compare how realistic the project objectives against- softcap and hardcap.

yes indeed, and many more scammers will appear in the next following months, if cryptocurrency gain more demand as it does last year, crypto world will be full of scammers.

it's really hard to say who is the good or bad, or like the scam or not, sometimes those project seems promising and really has a good community and many more, it was like disguising in a better way, so It's really hard to figure out that, and sometimes the one that really worst in every aspect is the one that will be successful. So better to take some time reviewing each phase and try to consult with others, friends or the one that is more experienced than you

thank yoy so much for your guide! if only 9 ghad it sevral years ago.. well, at least now i have my experience to help me through this life

i think you will fail one or two times, it is sad, bit only this way we get the necezsary experience whoch can save us fro  further failures

Thank you for sharing, and I think that is in line with what I analyzed before assessing the ICO project. What you share is the deciding factor for evaluating fraud projects. I used to read white paper. Roadmap and see the development team. This is very useful for people who are not familiar with fraudulent projects with good projects.

Thank you for your sharing. What you share is the decisive factor for evaluating a fraudulent project.

The author gives really good advice. I have been working with some projects recently and I cant tell that some of them are a real deal

My favorite one is Socratus. Their WP is legit and their team made big progress, I consulted some of their investors and the Project is geting bigger everyday. Look them up maybe you will also be interested in their Project ;)

I have already experienced being scammed by a project and it was very awful. Salpay is the ICO name and they did not paid their bounty participants after the ICO. They did not also updated us on what is happening.

What is nice about this list is that it will help you recognize good ICO's most of the time.
It is better to learn how to recognize the good ones. The bad ones will be filtered out then.

that would be fats. on the contrary each should be cagey with this database, thanks to sole excommunication good project

All the steps listed by the initiator of this discussion are important to be followed. But even when all this criteria are fulfilled a project may need up being a scam where the bounty manager may decided not to pay say bounty hunters although hardcap was reached. We can't challenge this kind of experience for now but accept it in good fate should that be your experience.

There's a lot of ICO scam right now but I do believe there's more that can gain good moneys as we try to search a good one and able to read the information about the project they promoted. Yes, its difficult to involve in ICO right now due to issues but as long we are vigilant we can avoid this.

I do not know why you thought that the Matchpool project is an example of a good project. This project for many investors is only a feeling of fatigue. I do not agree that this is a project that can be cited as an example of a successful project.

The well-known scam recently is HashCard. They probably raised about 4 million USD and they left the project, which was promisiing  :-[.

I don't believe taking a photo of the teams and managers  will help to know a scam ICO. The scam ICO's to me they have the most effective team, they are there to answer any question and they solved problems anytime you call on them a topical example is Benebit ICO they are one of the best active team I have ever work with but they vanish over night with investors money and all the hunters labour in vain.

It's a pity to know that people invest in scam. Especially when you work in a real project, but people say you are fake.

Confirmed scams projects as :
- Ponzi
- Cloud mining
- Bitcoin forks
- Many tokens claim fund .
Thank you

There is a separate topic in which the author collects information about fraudulent projects - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4687372.0 unfortunately, information is provided in Russian 

I don't think taking a photograph of the groups and administrators will know a trick ICO. The trick ICO's to me they have the best group, they are there to answer any inquiry and they tackled issues whenever you approach them a topical illustration is Benebit ICO they are extraordinary compared to other dynamic group I have ever work with however they vanish over night with financial specialists cash and every one of the seekers work futile. (Benebit ICO)

Thanks for that infos, we really need to be careful and be knowledgable about the project we are into for us not to waste our time campaigning and investing in them. So that in the end we will not regret, because you knew that you knew and studied what you are working for.

It's great for your useful information. I have been involved in projects, one of which is not good. I learned from the bad projects and before investing I often study a lot about the project you have to make sure you make good money from that project to invest in.

yes, you are right. before investing or before joining in the bounty, you need to check and collect the information about the project so you can know if the project is good or not. but unfortunately, right now with too many ico projects list, we are difficult to find a good project because if we say project A is good to follow and join, it doesn't mean that the project is legit. sometimes the project can run away and leave their investor and their participants without paying the rewards and give the profit to the investor. so we need to be careful and always check for every project that we want to invest and join in the bounty campaign.