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Hey everyone,
Would love to get a show of hands for the most distinguishing features of a scam ICO ???.

Let's educate each other by picking your 3

-The CoinRating Team

Unrealistic Claims are the biggest flag for me - any claims to a guaranteed return on investment are ludicrous.

Fake teams are a huge red flag for me, if the individuals who are involved are not willing to put their own name forward there is something wrong!!

So many times I have come across ICOs with stock images or ones swiped from another website.

Whenever the website focuses more on how to buy token more than the project, I suspect a scam.

Just recently met a team in which all the artwork was taken from various free resources, even were pictures from the series. Went to their Twitter there's more than 2000 participants. Checked them on twitteraudit and only 11% of them are real users many even profile is not filled. Even the documentation did not read. ;D

Most times, when you look deeply into the team of some ICO, you will notice that some use fake identities. By the time you contact the team members one after the other, you will discover that most of them are not aware of such projects. Sometime their white papers can be vague and might not be easily comprehended. You can also notice that the percentage token allocation is usually in favour of the developer and the team members.

In SCAM ICOs, when you have someone who answer to questions (CEO, admin or BM), he very often delay everything.
To any precise question about when somethig is gonna happen, you are answered "next week", "after we solve little problems" ...etc

Slow token distribution is not on schedule and no response when asked on their official channel, I see this from a simple side.  ;)

Team identity theft, no escrow and no kyc/aml. Online presentation, website, whitepaper etc. are easy, some scam projects even write few code.

There is no doubt that there are thousands of ICOs even going on right now but unfortunately, most of them are scams or fake and out to steal your money. Most of ICO scams target first timers, but even experienced traders and miners fall into the scam trap. I'm holding the view that one of the essential elements to consider when assessing a potential ICO scam is the individuals behind it. Never invest in an initial coin offering that has an anonymous team, regardless of justification. If you spot an ICO with an anonymous team, it’s most definitely a scam.

A scam ico has a fake website have a bad english especially in their whitepaper , roadmap, etc. The team are slow they focusing to buy their tokens not to their projects i suspect that they are scam.

I argue that of all the red flags that identify a potential fraud ICO, guaranteed profits are the most obvious. There are no certainties in the blockchain ecosystem, and no proven, reliable, or guaranteed methods of generating profits.

Personally, if your ICO links through to an empty repository or doesn’t provide a link at all, then it’s more than likely fraudulent.

Take a look at an article regarding scam ICOs on our website https://icoguide.com/en/blog/how-to-identify-scam-icos

Actually its hard to define or distinguishing features of a scam ICO,but through some little experience maybe we can share each other tips.Mostly scam ICO have no clear roadmap and sometimes there white paper  is always disame ,there is no changes of advertisement  picture in twitter,or in facebook ads,and mostly theres an anonymous  CEO of the project and the team,and lastly the community manager or the development team is not interested of the investor participation complain.

I think a white paper is the most important element of any initial coin offering. In a white paper, an ICO will present an outline of what it plans to achieve, a breakdown of how the technical aspects of the platform function, and delineate its token distribution model. If an ICO doesn’t provide a white paper, then it’s undoubtedly a scam.

From my point of view, one of the distinguishing characteristics of a scam ICO is that it does not have a roadmap or has unrealistic roadmaps. Initial coin offerings will generally provide potential investors with a detailed list of what they have achieved thus far in the development of their project, as well as what they plan to achieve, in the form of a roadmap. If a project doesn’t provide a roadmap at all, then it’s highly likely that they don’t have any plans for the future apart from “exit” and “profit”. Moreover, a roadmap should be realistic. If the ICO that you’re assessing hasn’t yet developed a working platform prototype or any code at all, then it’s highly likely that it is an exit scam.

From my point of view, , I think a scam ICO will not have a clear roadway. Genuine projects have realistic goals and an outline of how they intend to raise and utilize the funds. While counterfeit ICOs promise more than they can deliver. If you come across a blockchain project that promises only profits, seeks to eradicate poverty or global warming, aims to replace the internet, or advocates for a 10,000% profit ratio, think twice. It could be just another fake ICO ready to swindle unsuspecting investors.

For me,one of the commonest thing i see is so much attention being given to how to purchase the tokens or how you earn when you refer people to buy the tokens rather than on the quality or merit of the project itself plus absence or low availability of credible info about project.

Actually, a scam ICO might not have clear information on founders and advisors. Therefore, before you venture into any ICO project, do your research to find out who is behind the project. In many instances, scam ICOs use pictures of people who are not even related to their projects. You can be shocked to find out that people listed as founders and advisors don’t exist anywhere on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. This clearly shows that such projects are not authentic.

How about: fabricating a team of people who probably don't exist, create a linkedin profile for them.  Act like they are major players in the financial/crypto scene but aren't to be found anywhere else on the internet.  My estimation at the moment is that about 80-90% of ico's are scams.  We need regulations and mandatory KYC of the whole team is one of them.

If they are not giving any update in the ICO project, or the campaign manager even the team are not updating us, whether in telegram, Twitter, and in bitcoin forum, it is considerable scam for me.

I think you can check how the escrow releases funds. Scam ICOs are likely to release all funds towards development while genuine projects have proper planning regarding funds distribution, with specific percentages going to various aspects of project development such as escrow fees and others.

Anything that says get xxx% return in just blabla weeks!
look up the team, do they have legit linkedin pages? do you find them on social media, do they show that they're the real team?
you can also reverse image search their pictures.

Many empty and nothing not backed by facts words. If the project does not have anything and they promise gold mountains, it is most likely a Scam.

There are so many exploitation about ICO that would lead into scams. Unregulated are some factors and the easy creation of token from Ethereum's ERC-20 compliant also contributed the proliferation of some fraudulent ICOs. Identity theft, unreasonable claims and unfair distribution of token which favors on the side of the team  are some indicators you can easily identify that these ICOs are scams.

Identity thefts,github repository is empty or inactive,then the online presence is poor, thee are the main things we should look for if we are going to invest to these ICOs because thes are the things that these scam ICOs wont have,you can check their names in google if you found nothing morelikely it is a scam that is we should be doing a lot of research.

Identify of the people behind the project is unknown or some members are unverified,probably a scam,online presence should be considerable,there should be some good working product or MVP so that you can research it thru google,the github account is newly created or theres empty folders,the whitepaper should be well writtern as well these are the things i am looking for the redflags.

Most of the scams i have seen in the past had questionable team members and when you ask specific question they will skip answering those things and they lack vital information in their white paper or just copied from other projects, which means that they really do not have any vision rather wanted to collect the money and run away, most of the time these signs are present in all the scams we had in the past.

I voted for poor online presence, because if the team is not present, then the product/platform is not present for me. Team needs to be active and engaged with their supporters and community and not hide behind some curtain. Also, empty GitHub repositories can be a problem, especially if the project is open-source. If there are confidential documents and code, then I understand. Last but not least in my opinion and while we bounty hunters don't like it when it comes to it - KYC. Investors have to pass it, because the company must comply with AML laws in order to keep our society somehow stable. But I don't agree for bounty hunting, because we are earning cryptos and not investing our cash.

The ICO pioneer has its own valuation model. The high quality ICO project has several basic principles: technological innovation, Essence reduction, trading compliance and benefit to society.
At the same time, the supervision of ICO needs to pay special attention to several points: product registration, information disclosure, asset trusteeship, project authenticity, qualified investment. ICO pioneered a quantitative analysis of ICO projects through six dimensions, such as token rate, team consultant, Financial audit, technical strength, operational capability and application scenario. Here we highlight several dimensions and indicators. ...

Some great insights here everyone,

Thank you all  :)

-The CoinRating Team

Still number one are
- Team members

Else, i seen many 'Lending project' or project that has 'High profit offers' are turned into scam, so i will avoid put investment on this kind of ICO's.

You can see that an ICO is the fact that participants are real. It is important to know what the project is for. Prepare for the future and the project will always win.

I think the best way is to check out who is behind the project before you venture into ICO. Nowadays there are a lot of scams everywhere and it is necessary to be extremely careful with all untrusted projects

When you check their Twitter and Facebook, their links do not always open correctly, their followers are few, and their Twitter even change their name.

hello my friend
I chose 3 differentiating features from ICO scams such as Team Identity Theft, Poor Online Presence, and Unrealistic Claims. I do not agree if the project ask for personal data like KYC

The most important thing when evaluating a block-start-up is to understand which people are behind it. Even if the potential of the project and its target market seem to be extensive, one of the main factors of success is the team. Absence of full-fledged developers in the project is the first sign of danger. Additional caution should be shown if none of the founders has specific knowledge and experience in the relevant areas.

I don't think so.
Most of the scam ICOs do consider to have a lot of followers in their twitter handle so that they will look like legit.
They can easily buy followers for their own interest and that is by scamming investors.

A white paper is the most important element of any initial coin offering. In a white paper, an ICO will present an outline of what it plans to achieve, a breakdown of how the technical aspects of the platform function, and delineate its token distribution model. So, if an ICO doesn’t provide a white paper, then it’s undoubtedly a scam.

I pay attention to the whitepaper, grammar errors, product presentations, commands, how they advertise themselves in social networks. In accordance with these criteria, I choose the project, this can reduce the risk of hitting on scammers

One of the essential elements to consider when assessing a potential ICO scam is the individuals behind it. A robust initial coin offering will present potential investors with a detailed team breakdown, listing founders, developers, advisors, security experts, and anybody else associated with the project.

I look out for things like these when looking at ICOs to invest in. The whitepaper can tell so much about a project and the people that are behind it. Especially ones with so many grammatical errors on something as important as a white paper just shows that there is no seriousness about the project and once they get the money they are looking for they will leave the project to crash and burn.

Sam e opinion

Normally, there will be no public team behind it or there will be no particularly good connections between the team and other people. i.e. Linkendin accounts with almost no network and things like that.

Now a days the scam ICOs are using fake details about the ICO team so we need to research about that team to get Idea about the legitimacy of the project,if they stole information from someone then it is scam ICO.But other wise they are also getting more knowlegeable they are also providing the websites works absolutely as a good ICO.

If an initial coin offering favors the development team or founders with an imbalanced amount of tokens, then it’s worth considering whether the project is attempting to maximize personal gain for team members as opposed to maintaining the stability of the proposed blockchain network over the long term.

identity theft is the biggest one for me. unrealistic claims are also a huge thing to look out for

Initial coin offerings will generally provide potential investors with a detailed list of what they have achieved thus far in the development of their project, as well as what they plan to achieve, in the form of a roadmap. If a project doesn’t provide a roadmap at all, then it’s highly likely that they don’t have any plans for the future apart from “exit” and “profit”.

An empty code repository is a telltale sign that the ICO your considering is a lazy ERC20 token and doesn’t offer anything groundbreaking. Most ICOs propose open-source solutions that make it possible for potential investors to assess their code via a repository link like GitHub.

The biggest distinguishing features are too many words, the promise of the Golden mountains, the hitherto unknown team, as well as the complete lack of preparation of the project and the sample.

first of all, I appreciate what the company has now. In most cases, if the company comes out only with the idea, especially not the original idea, this is the first sign of a Scam. Further, the presence of living people and

We need to check their team member info, look their member profile picture, easy to know is stolen or not, read their whitepaper, it's just a copy and paste pdf files or inside include a lot of project information? Scam ICO owner don't dare to take profit and upload social media account, check their social media account is active or not, sometime always post let investor faster invest their ICO, if not must regret later, same post everyday, then this 100% is scam ICO and owner will run away after collect investor fund

A scam ICO could favour 2 approaches to supply management: First, fixed supply to boost the appearance of scarcity and push up the price. Second, a fluctuating supply allowing them to sell an apparently scarce supply and then programmatically double the supply and dump it onto an exchange before fleeing into the wilderness.

ICOs that seem like they are too good to be true will probably end up here. A roadmap should be realistic. If the ICO that you’re assessing hasn’t yet developed a working platform prototype or any code at all, then it’s highly likely that it is an exit scam.

Of all the red flags that identify a potential fraud ICO, guaranteed profits are the most obvious. There are no certainties in the blockchain ecosystem, and no proven, reliable, or guaranteed methods of generating profits. Promises of guaranteed profits come in many different shapes and sizes. Some platforms promise automated trading bots that deliver massive returns, while others promise returns to investors for “staking” their coin.

Cross-referencing the data points a project provides the supply schedule of tokens that will be released is a powerful way to discern the true intent of project leaders. Moreover, if the ICO you’re considering investing in offers an unrealistic future roadmap and has not achieved anything significant apart from a PDF and a WordPress website, don’t invest.

The most visible distinguishing features of a scam ICO are a team without social profiles, bad white paper (stolen), no activities in social networks, unbelievable big pools.

One of the key signs of an ICO scam is Empty GitHub Repositories. If an ICO links through to an empty repository or doesn’t provide a link at all, then it’s more than likely fraudulent. By providing links to their code repositories, ICOs allow individuals with programming knowledge to audit their development process and determine whether the proposed solution is valid or not.

There seem to be so many Scam ICO around nowdays,

Often they are just projects promising hype and great increases in value, only for the coin to be "In development" for 5+ years and then the developers all to quit.

in fact this should of course be based on overall observation. there must be an in-depth study to make a good choice on an ico, even more so to figure out a very potentially scam. so, as a whole you should review it from white paper, roadmap, team and developer even check the official website data especially if the newly registered it is very doubtful.

The last point of the survey is very controversial. If I were a fraud, I'd set up a KYC and sell my personal data to get extra benefits. If you are required to provide such a scan of the passport do not do this, because it can be sold in crime. The presence of KYC and the quality of the project are not related.

It is true that the offer usually is very attractive when it is out of the ordinary. Usually ico scam has many dreams, but if seen from the data they have then it does not support. As the easiest benchmark is when we see there is a developer who already has a good reputation then we can trust the ico project. I usually see from the team that developed the project. For a beginner then I recommend to read a lot, because now it is a lot of ico that ends with a scam. So look for as much information as possible because it will be very helpful to make an important decision in the investment that is undertaken.

I think these are all way too obvious. No clever conman will forget these things when preparing the ultimate con. That said, I think people call ICO's scams way too often and way too quick. If value drops below 2 times ICO value, half of the investors are screaming 'scam'. If milestones aren't met: Scam. No activity in Telegram chat for 1 hour: Scam. One of the items from the list missing: Scam....only a handful are actual scams, where the main goal was to steal peoples money as subtle and quickly as possible. I never fell victim to one so far (knock on wood).

Yes, this is sometimes happen to a scam ICO. Their coin are very cheap when arrived to the marketplace that makes disappointment to the investors and decide to quit investment. In addition also their coins are slowly in development and getting worst in terms of value in the long run.

For me, team is one of my way to distinguish if the ICO is a scam. There's a lot of ICOs who run their crowdsale and their team is all fake that is disgusting. Second if the project concept is realistic or in short if the project is to good to be true. Third, unrealistic claims false information they were given to the people in order to gather more investor. I hate those scammers who don't have a heart to steal money from the others.

This can be harder to detect as there are no regulations regarding who can or can not hold an ICO. Just because a business is poorly presented online does not make it a scam, more importantly just because it looks good and established online does not make it a real organisation.

There are two major things i look out for when participating in any project. Out of the two is the team. Team is a very important aspect of every ICO project and many a times, thorough investigation . There are times that some of these scam ICO projects use the pictures of outsiders to their project as team members.

1-Poor Online Presence 2-Lack Info In WhitePaper. 3-Token Structure Disproportionately Favours Development Team.I think these are the most important points to be paid attention to when choosing ICO

I think we can tell the three most distinguishing features of ICO fraud by looking at Identity theft team, Unrealistic Claims, Lack of Info At WhitePaper.

I really don't like ICO without working projects already, for example, if it's involve an application, I would want to see that actions have been taking towards developing the app or even more preferable if the app is already in beta stage. Then I would be convinced that they mean business. Little or no commitment at all on the part of the team is a huge red flag for me.

But the majority of icos are implementing KYC verification to complete the compliants from the regulators. Man you should remember about not all of icos are applying it to the participants are scam icos.
KYC doesn't give a lot of impact to the quality of project itself.

Team Identity Theft, Lack Info In Whitepaper and unrealistic Claims are the key features to distinguish a scam ico. Beware of these three things if you want to invest in any ico

Lack info in Whitepaper is the most easy to track scam ICO, usually they noted the unimportant things into the whitepaper and dismiss what should be in the whitepaper. Also, when we asking in the group, they usually they give an information different from their whitepaper

I think that fraudsters in the sphere of his companies are already becoming professionals in their field of activity. Therefore, they will do everything to deceive us investors. So the usual errors or lack of information will not do.

Analyzing the issue in a way other than the ones mentioned, in my opinion the salient feature of a scam is the level of promises in the news media. With this type of positioning the developers end up promising investors too much in a short period of time, causing inconvenience for both parties by making possible a scam.

There are a lot of indicators actually if you look at only one or there exists only one it’s a good move not to invest in that ico regardless of how attractive it may seem, it could be the team which does not contain all the technical members aligning with their promised technologies.

Team Identity Theft   
Poor Online Presence   
Lack Info In WhitePaper   
Empty GitHub Repositories
No KYC or AML

These are the basic things you should be checking if you are planning to join these ICOs,or if you want to get these shitcoins because if there are pointers you have missed you might lose all of your investments.ICOs nowadays are getting more scammy compare to the previous years which is why we need to be more careful and be vigillant in picking these new projects.

It seems to me that lately it has become very difficult to determine the real benches, because the scammers have learned very much how to work with information and how to correctly provide information about the project. Now this is a problem.

I first of all pay attention to White Paper . If it is not-then I do not even consider the project further, but go further . The lack of information in White paper is the easiest and fastest analysis

I these points are signs of a scam ICO definitely.  But now a days, fraudsters go to any length to make the whole project look legit. Such team invest in their scam to make more money from people. They dump such coins immediately they get to the market and exit, if you are investing in any ICO, just know you are taking a risk.

Of course all these points very much show that this is a fraudulent project . But everything changes and many scammers so everything is done correctly, that once you do not understand that he will deceive you .