Bitcoin Forum

If there is a new ICO and there are hype going around it, how do you tell that i is a legit one and not just a scam?
How to tell if an ICO is a scam?

You read the whitepaper, you see the team behind the project. If it's something that has been done before multiple times and it didn't give any success (say a debit card for crypto) or you have the least doubt that they won't manage to deliver, simply don't invest.

I have taken my time to study this very topic very very well and I have discovered two sure ways of identifying scam ICOs, they are not foolproof but they have proven to be effective.
One- THE TEAM: The team of a project usually helps me decided if the project is a scam or not, for example scammers do not want their faces seen and so that avoid conferences and meet-up s and summit, infact anything that would make them show their faces are avoided.

Two- Whitepaper: I know this might sound obvious but it's actually not, studying the whitepaper helps me determine if the project is unique or not, I usually only get involved in unique projects and avoid Rip-offs of other projects, a scam team would just find an existing project and rebrand it, they would not spend the time to bring a unique concept.

Once these two criteria are met, I always know that the project would not end up being a scam project.

To be honest, this is quite hard to identify, personally I just go with my guys,it has been wrong before but it has also been right so many times, I do as much research as I can and leave the rest up to date.

That's a very difficult question. Now there is a lot of fraud in the field of cryptocurrency and IPO! Personally, I have already stopped looking for new ICO projects and buying coins / tokens of promising projects on the stock exchange (in my opinion). Now a bear market and many tokens / coins of good projects can be bought at the price of ICO or even lower.

It is correct, even if we find a good ICO, we still do not have the opportunity to get profit from it with this market. Its price will definitely fall deep when the bear market is too strong

I agree to an extent,  but not completely.  The WP says a lot about the project,  the team too,  development, planning and road map also.  But just because a thing's been tried before and failed doesn't mean the next person doing it is a scam.  And for the debit Crypto card you mentioned,  I think this is coming soon than later.  MFChain,  a cryptopayments platform is coming out with something like this and I very certain,  they're the farthest thing from a scam you can think of.

These days there are a lot of scam icos out there. A very simple way is to have look at the background of the founders and use your brain ;D

Actually to determine the LEGIT or SCAM is quite easy, but I do not guarantee 100% accurate.
You can view the contents of the whitepaper, then see the progress of their social media accounts, then the progress of softcap and hardcap in realtime, and also a roadmap that fits the schedule they specify since the initial launch.

There are numerous things, that bring red flags to the project. But mostly I just check the team out and possibly do a reverse image search to see if the photos on their ICO landing page are legit or fake. Then I go and have a look at their whitepaper to see, whether it holds any relevant information or just copy/paste from other projects.

You will not be able to track it because you will not indicate it anywhere and the best way to determine for yourself whether the project is worthwhile, is to make its analysis, but the analysis of the project also does not give a one hundred percent result.

There are many factors to recognize an ICO scam campaign, especially in this time, when the market weakens, and the exchange rate drops continuously. You need to carefully study the ICO project parameters and find out about the website review before participating in bounty campaigns. And an honest ICO campaign is a publicized spreadsheet about the rewards bounty members can be received.

It's really hard to tell you how cause every investor has their own way to detect scam ICO project. For me, I often check team member of every ICO project and their social media account. After that I'll check other part of ICO like WP or roadmap. Beside you also should check their Twitter follower via Twitteraudit, if almost their twitter followers are fake so you should stay away from it :))

The first thing is idea is it legit or not. The second thing is team. Which is very important for a ICO project. Most of the time you can see the people are same from a previous scam or don't have that much details about members. Which is not good. And the advisory board is equal important for a ICO project to be a good one. In most cases if advisory board is not good enough then you can keep it as a scam. The third thing is whitepaper it is very important. How they made the white paper. If you have experience in this ICO analysis work it will take minutes to catch a scam from whitepaper. But sometimes it's hard and they scammed. If you are new you have to do some serious research fellow r of analysis.

One of the most importaint things is team! Team must be well known with legit linkedin profiles and need to make more partnerships to proove that project and people that working on it are real..

There are already a lot of articles out there that teaches you to identify scammy ICOs. First of all, read the whitepaper. See what is it all about. Ask yourself if it is possible to achieve what they are trying to sell. Secondly, look at those developers. Go through their background. If they are some well known developers, then chances of them scamming is very low. But, if they are some unknown developers or try to remain anonymous, just stay out of it. They are highly likely to scam everything out of you. Thirdly, believe your own intuition. If you have a feeling they might be a scam, then just don't invest.

A similar opinion was voiced above, but you are interested in the opinion of a large number of people. I guess so.  Thanks to the whitepaper and the team we can judge the project . For me it’s also important that the minimum valuable  product was ready before ICO.

you can just check the team and their history and have a look at their whitepaper to see, whether it holds any relevant information or just copy/paste from other projects good luck :)

I telling the truth is very hard and difficult to find better icos because of the scamms project, and take note it's almost the same concept of whitepaper and roadmaps from the legit icos project. So far I can't advise for everybody how to got good icos project to invest.

practically no way. this is a kind of lottery and if you are lucky you will earn on it and if not, you will lose all your money invested in this project

By making a lot of research. You can see if the ICO are scam or not. If the ICO have complete information they have chances it is legit but if the ICO are not complete details or informatio better to avoid that because that is not good for you.

I do not know how to distinguish fraudsters from real projects, but I always pay attention to the proven team of advisers or partners of the project and check this information if this is true.

I have found out my first rule in the deal of searching reliable ICO projects. In my opinion the core thing lays in a team that develops every part of a new project. There should be some known to you persons.

Usually, you need to participate some of their social groups and follow the progress of the project. Experience wise, It is hard to see some of those scam ICOs, since they are getting smarter and smarter everyday. They are working in very organized matter.

it is very difficult to determine ICO scam now because I see ico scam and real having 90% similarity .. so to determine that in my opinion is to do research or choose real products

You need to study the project well, visit the website, study the technical document, especially study the project team and see how the project team attends all sorts of summits. Having studied all aspects, you will understand how good the project is and whether it is a SCAM. Poetmoe here it all depends on you and your mood.

Aside from checking the whitepaper and the team behind the project, I also make sure to check if they have a working product first as this gives me more assurance that what they're aiming is already in the works. One project I've been keeping an eye on is NeuronChain. There are a lot of scam ICOs these days so we must always be careful on who to trust.

Indeed, you have to study well and wisely so that you are not disappointed with the project that is followed if you believe that the project will be able to succeed, positive thinking will bring good things.

I think you only need to read their white paper and look if it's just a copy of other project,
And also their team other than that it is really hard to identify which one is good and which one is scam or would end up fail.

It is essential to run a background check about an ICO before you decide to invest in it. Because you’ll be investing a considerable amount, you have to be sure that you’re making the right decision. Some characteristics that you should be looking for are the whitepaper, the team behind the initiative, and the roadmap.

Today it is almost impossible to distinguish a good normal project from a project scam. Only if you really find a very transparent project that will show you all your documents and you will be sure that it still does not give the right to trust these people.

I generally treat everything as a scam unless I can verify information about the project from independent sources. I check the teams background by looking at their LinkedIn profiles looking for signs that the identity has been recently manufactured. If they claim to be developing a DApp or other product I look at their Github depository for signs of the work being done. I am able to eliminate about 99% of scams using this method.

trusted teams and advisors are the key to the success of an ICO, a good WP. A trusted BM is not a guarantee of the success of an ICO.

There is no exact way to find out if a project is honest, but you can try your own investigation. at least try to personally contact the project team