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At least 1 in every 5 ICOs is a scam!  How to avoid the fraud?

>>>Recently The Wall Street Journal has made a research with anxious results. Experts have checked 1450 different ICO project to make a conclusion that 271 of them have all the signs of scam. So, ICOs remain very risky type of investments.

>>>The method that WSJ utilized for analyzing these ICOs was focused on finding duplicate whitepapers, weird promises like complete return guarantees, or listing fake executive staff who are not related to cryptocurrency or have no relation with ICO that has listed them as a team member. The study has also found that many ICO team pages featured pictures from stock photos. The most striking example is perhaps Premium Trade, whose five-member executive team purportedly appeared on 500 other unrelated websites, according to a Google reverse image search performed by WSJ.
 
>>>For one, you should double-check all claims made by the company before trusting the marketing content blindly. It also helps to run extensive background checks on their team members to make sure their credentials are indeed legitimate.
 
>>>It is also always a good idea to read the white paper, and see if it defines a clear product idea, including the technical details (remember to check for plagiarism).
 
>>>And if you spot any overtly bullish claims like “registration with the SEC,” lavish “celebrity endorsements,”  or “a billion dollar solution” – you should avoid such investment “opportunities”


                                                        <<<<<<  This is helpful for all and be careful your investment >>>>>
                                                                                 <<<<<<Thank You>>>>>>>

This is really informative and educative. Thanks so much for letting us know this. From hence I think we will be vigilant on the choice of ICO's we choose to invest in.

That stat is scary,i think ICOs should be regulated by Government,at least to some level.It will reduce the chances of scammy ICOs

I'm not a professional investors in ICO project but as I know to know which one is a good ICO project, people often check dev team member, WP, social media, Roadmap,...Beside I think you can avoid scam project by joining some groups about ICO project on Facebook or Telegram, I don't know if it'll work for you or not but for me, it's really good ;D

I think ICO's can never be regulated by the governments. These governments are the people stabbing us at our back so how can they regulate ICO's for us?  

That's why governments are now evaluating these ICOs to make sure that shady ICOs will removed and banned. So they won't be able to scam investors. There are so many scam ICOs out there. So every ICO must comply to every regulations that government needs them to do. For me, this is not a bad thing in my opinion. Many gullible investors are being scammed everyday. Atleast we see the government is doing something to protect us.


How they regulate these ICOs? That's very easy on their part. They just evaluate those ICOs. Of course quality ICOs can only pass. And when an ICO passed, then government will set a regulations which the ICO must comply. At this terms, they won't be allow to do any shady business and eventually scam their investors. Actually some countries are doing it now.

The SEC has taking an action for those scammy ICOs

https://www.coindesk.com/the-sec-is-again-freezing-the-assets-of-a-plexcoin-founder/

Yes that is our best way to analyze the future of the ICO project. Very many aspects or factors that we must review and of course it all takes experience.

However, we can make sure at the beginning whether the project is a SCAM or not we only predict it, for the certainty is when the project is running and ending.

SEC is right we can't handle them or pay them for this. They make action and to warn investors about some ICO's that's why it's not classified as security but some ICO's are really good that really give a good contribution in the economy.

The ratio of 1 in 5 is quite expected. Given the fact that previous ICO's have anonymous teams/devs, it was so easy to run. Good thing more people investing into crypto are getting smarter now. Great tips by the way.

Oh, great to see that there is only one of five. I consider it to be a good index, don't you?

you are posted good points and its help for which thinking investment about ICOs, if i have S merit surely give to this post because it have good points for avoid the fraud

I feel this way is more informative and good for ICO investment, it is always good to be patient and observe what you want to put your money into

Good information to increase knowledge and be more careful in making investment decisions. Based on what you reveal, at least we can be more vigilant and check everything related to the project we like in detail before starting the investment.

Well kickstarter also suffer the same fate, many of them turns out to be a scam so when it comes to ICO, which not strictly as IPO some of them will turn out to be scam, is a normal thing. You can find
how much kickstarter that finally turns out to be a scam even though the funding was hosted by centralized organization and that's just doesnt make sense at all different with cryptocurrency thats totally decentralized.

This is a technology world so some one is trying to cheat the Crypto platform so we only protect our self. Because we have some technical skills in Crypto platform so research and analyse the more trusted platform then participate that ICO. But Five out of one is successfully survive in Crypto world so we should choose best one then only it will useful to our future journey.

If this is true, it will be an alarming stats. I think the figures are too high and it can make investors think twice or doubt before investing. As a result, the number of investors will go down because of the stat. I think word needs to be rephrase like "higher risk" or "unsuccessful". They need to differentiate it first before coming up with a conclusion that its a scam.

This is very apt. But most Icos today are more are suffering because of lack of knowledge and impatience on the part of the investors. They fail to understand that putting money in an ico should not be seen as a get rich quick scheme. So when they invest today they expect to gain x10 profits as soon as the tokens are listed on exchanges. It doesn't work out like this most of the time and that is why most feel icos are scams

Yeah their a good and bad of it! It affects the whole crypto market instead newbies or new investors will really rely on other projects they look the project as a scam, they should be aware on the project they are into it! Might as well read whitepaper and search it on google.

Yeah there are many project that scammed, usually you need to do your research by reading the whitepaper, check the team developers, join their social media, if they are legit, you will see how they promote the coin and where they promote the coin, there will be bunch of photos where they go to promote and no need to rush to invest, find more information about the project, check their website, if something is odd don't join the project

Right now, sometimes we also find ICO which theme has been released, call it Trading Platform, Banking System or Artificial Intelligence, how do we do that? whether all the ICO should also be avoided ?

Also, reading whitepapers or researching more alts will help you to determine which are the likely to be scams. Compare their objectives, goals, and what they promise to their investors.

1 in 5 ICOs? Don't be lame. 4 out of 5 ICOs are a scam.

Dude, you're wasting your time here. One, because if people are smart they would know what they are putting their money in. Two, this thread would get buried with shitposts and again, your time spent on this would become worthless. What makes you think that people would actually read this and use their stupid minds when they can't even read the stickies on top of each board?

This is really informative and educative. Thanks so much for letting us know this. ;)

Well Cryptocurrency is full of speculation and we don't really know what's going on in the future- what's important we have blockchain and bitcoin in the long run that will give benefits on other ICO projects- Frauds is normal in our society let's make it simple.

Only 1 out of 5? I think a little more of that amount are scams.

In addition to this we must add that many ICOs without be a scam is very difficult for them to succeed. Some projects start from bad ideas, others are too ambitious, or have a lot of competition and find it difficult to find their market share.

Anyway, they are good tips that we must take into account to avoid falling into this type of projects.

Use ICODROPS recommendations, that's the only path to you to avoid. i usually use that option. i  personally put my money to wabi,powerledger ,libra credits from it.

use it wisely

well, the ratio is quite impressive in favor to legitimate 4:1, bounty hunters/investors must really double check with the project by reading their documents such as whitepaper, roadmap etc... this help to lessen the chances of getting into scam project.

That is why ICOs are now being regulated by the government to prevent further damage to peoples' investments. Projects that are planning to screw people won't be successful in doing so due to this regulations made. We just have to spot the best project and see to it that it can really address and help develop the technology today and in the coming years.

1:5 is a good number and I’m shocked for I thought that scam ICO ratio to legit one is much closer than that. We all know that even a great project with a good run from the start can turn around for 360 degree and that’s the risk we always have to encounter in dealing with investments that are online. Do your own research and don’t let yourself fool from others flowery words just to get you onboard.

I'm not surprised to be honest, because this ICO things is has a big money involved, million dollars in a single ico. To avoid this fraud ico, you must be selective before invest an ico, do you own research on the team, product and the project too.

we often hear the project failed. in joining the world of cryptocurrencies need a lot of knowledge, read, understand, analyze before joining is the best choice. it's better to invest in a good place like bitcoin so you do not follow failed projects.

This write up is very fascinating indeed because it torches all aspects of ICO project screening, whitepaper flaws, team faking, bogus project concept and so and so forth. We should be very wary of such scam projects by conducting due diligent search always.

The data is so alarming. This only means that investors should double check the details of the ICO, the team and the project before making an investment. The same thing with the bounty hunters, we should be very cautious in selecting the campaigns that we are about to join. But aside from this, I think there is something to be done to filter these ICO. If not, people will still be hesitant in investing on such wonderful projects

It's true that most ICO currently looks bad.
How to identify a scam is also a hassle, so most of the time you should search as much of its open source as possible.

Really very good post because some investors loss money when invest on ICO, this very helpful, its meritble post, unfortunately I don't have S merit to give to this post, thank you for sharing this valuable points     

Now a days the scam rate maybe increased from one in five.Because we can see lot of projects are getting accused in the accusation section and many projects after the ICO will never pay this is because the crypto currency system getting perfect to get scam the people who has no idea about it.SO if we want to avoid those fraud we need to make ouself we educated in this field to do our own research about projects.

Very useful information op. Thanks for sharing it. There is nothing surprising about these results though since this has been a common trend in the cryptocurrency market always and I doubt it will change anytime soon. This is the primary reason why I always recommend analyzing the whitepaper related to any particular ICO before checking out other factors. It is also a good idea to work on multiple campaigns to increase the chances of profiting even if some of them turn out to be scams.

Yes there are so many ICOs going around right now and yes most of them are fake. I generally start with looking into the idea, if is it really solving any problem, if there's a problem which they are trying to solve. Then I check the team members, there linkedin profile, twitter profile, previous tweets. If members seems genuine to me, I go and look there whitepaper and try to understand how they're planning on increasing the token value in future.
After all this only, I take a decision on whether or not to invest in ICO.

you are posted good points and its help for which thinking investment about ICOs, if i have S merit surely give to this post because it have good points for avoid the fraud