Bitcoin Forum

Very often on this forum newbies ask how to identify scams, so there is blog on the topic, there are main points which should be interesting to read:

https://icoguide.com/en/blog/how-to-identify-scam-icos

Add your opinions also.

Yes good article, main points are underlined about icos, very often whitepapers are very general and are not providing sufficient info, and often they are copy pasted.

Usually, a simple google search regarding the ICO, will help you find out if it's scam or not. Just google "[ICO NAME] scam" and there will be either no result or you will find out the ICO is actually scam.

Yes but sometimes, there are some ICO that are not identified as scams by google, but they are. So I think it is better to make some deep research if you are going to invest.

when I know the ico's legit or scam are the supporters only small and if their project information is slow and does not know who founders and co founders and if others do not know or are pretty familiar ico their project

It are good point. What I mostly do is search for the image in Google. Sometimes I see the image on stock websites like Pixabay. To avert it the ICOs choose to edit the image and change it as example from colored to black-white. That is for me one of the things what is suspected by researching an ICO.

Is that your blog? I hope you can copy and paste the contents of that article here so we dont have to leave the site or open another window to read the article, just dont forget to give credits to who ever created that blog if its not you.

How to protect your self from being scammed by those fly by night ICO? If you ahve no time in researching about the ICO and who is behind it, try to follow those whon are posting reviews about ICOs but dont just follow 1 person, its like going to another doctor to seek medical attention, ask for a second opinion from another Peron who are very much active in participating in ICOs.

many ways to see how far ico is practically a scam, I think the most important thing from the track record of the team that is part of the project being done.

then the next one we can see the track record Roadmap, whether it is in accordance with the work done now or before, and the next most important thing, the corporate office, it is also important to know before participating in ico.

Informative and useful artical for newcomers. which person wants to know absolute information about this kinds of questions. I also suggest any person who wants to join with a ico firstly research about that and see which persons promoted it read whitepaper very carefully read their roadmap.

1) Soft/Hard CAP not well defined

2) a simple smart contract without any specific content

3) Cloud Mining = Scam

4) sale of the ICO outside the smart contract in a centralized system

5) Fake team member

i am a developer, so i can figure out by investigating their the websites. and make some queries about domain address and servers.

For me the main scam marks are big bonuses during ico. Anything over 30% looks very suspicious to me and i would not take a part.
 other bad sing:
 unknown team members without linkedin accounts
 lack of trustworthy advisors
 no telegram support

Yeah I like this method as well :) it gives you at least some pointers why someone think its a scam and if its discussion forums then you may get answers from someone that dont think it's a scam.

Not always, but very very often ICOs became fraud only once, and totally ;D So it can be hard to identify some scam before it turns out scam, thats the point.
And sometimes google cant help with this decision. Thats why all of us need to make their own research. We cant get clear market until people stop investing scam projects.

You are forgetting to check the smartcontract code. Try to take any feedback from the community and i think that the community will give a lot of opinion regarding the ico and you can take one that was having high accuracy.
I have seen some people are getting a huge clue about the possibility of scam project from others are doing

usually ico who will scam it is difficult to be contacted by its investors with such a lot of things that will make big losses in an investor and the display on the project website are many elements of fraud.

You can see it through whitepaper and some of the teams social media account if they really exist. Don't be fooled even though the ANN thread is colorful but it is full of lies. Some have some fake advisers that could convince naive investors. Find some ICOs that have a feature in ICO reviews to see its authenticity.

Reading the whitepapers is the best thing to do to be able to know if an ICO is legit or a scam. Do research on the development team as stated on the article. Checking the addresses and e-mails is also a good thing to do. Also try to contact them, visit their website, email them if you have further questions regarding the ICO and their project for you to have more idea about what you're investing on.

actually its easy to identify if the ICO turns to be scam or not. just look at the team member of the project. and read their whitepapers. If its look suspicious then its likely a scam.

Just search in google regarding the ICO it will helps to find out if its scam or not..

It's always good to check ico in scam list, for example https://icorating.com/

There are some key to avoid about scam ICO:
Team Composition, Bitcointalk.org Thread, Stage of the project and VC investments, Community and Media, What do they need the token for? Is the blockchain necessary?, Unlimited / Hard cap, Token distribution – when and how, Evaluating the Whitepaper, Quality of the code – Meet Github

very helpful article.  thanks for sharing.
very informative.  will surely help newbies.

Good info!

A very enlightening article for newbies. Who wrote it, thank you.

There is also a nice post written by another member on the forum. I would also recommend reading it.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2822896.msg28918031#msg28918031

Thanks for sharing

very often scams are ICOs without defined hard/soft cap, ICOs with very general projects, very often roadmaps are also general.

Great article, thx for sharing!

yes, I agree aswell, and in my personal strategy for hunting ICOs I always look at the team first

second I look at the project, scope, market problem

third, I look at the token metrics

fourth, only in the end I look at the whitepaper!

I do not have enough knowledge to point out a scam ICO, but I have a way to help you choose ICO quality, you choose the ICO project that the legendary members, heroic members. They are doing ICO projects do you follow them. These members are already experienced in the Crypto market. The projects they choose have a very high success rate.

Great points raised up in the article.
Although I am not too sure about results of searching addresses from google maps because they are not always accurate, but I believe wen all this precautions are taken, a scam will surely be spotted.

one more thing most of scam icos use someone else profile pics , so google the image of all team members .
some of icos have too much high hardcap of more than 50-60 million $ , so check the project why they need so much money .

It is indeed a good article. The mentioned points are suitable as a reference to identify if the ICO is scam or not. In addition to that, searching project names on websites like icobench.com or trackico.com could also help,these websites rated projects according to the quality of their whitepaper. These websites are not 100℅ accurate,but can serve as your reference.

I think if you see dozens of posters posting about the ICO on here in every thread (even ones that have nothing to do with it) with no information about the company, team, etc. then that's a pretty good indication that something is off.

Look for contact numbers and search online for clues from Social Media and sites like Ripoff Report. Do not invest unless you can verify the owners work history etc, LinkedIn is a good place to start. Here is BlockSims by Shehar Yar, a scam I found on Ripoff report.

Before you invest your money in a startup, find out who its managers are, who the founder of the project is, where these people come from, what kind of education they have, whether they have relevant work experience, how they came to the IT field, whether they have been in business for a long time. A startup conducting an ICO must have an official registration. Assessing the ICO, you need to  admit yourself whether the idea really needs a blockchain or it's just a beautiful package. Not every project requires decentralization, which this technology promotes, but many in the pursuit of profit simply "tighten" it. If you see that the startup don`t need blockchain and it`s own token, but at the same time they are promoted, do not invest in this project.

Continuously check for unoriginality in the sites, whitepaper and in addition different parts of an ICO. While these signs are promptly not obvious, any sign of written falsification expands its odds being a trick. In numerous past cases, new ICOs have obtrusively duplicated content or other related substance from another organization without earlier consent and have ended up being fraud.