Bitcoin Forum

Over the past couple of months, cryptocurrency returned marginally back to the good times. This affects almost every sector of this space. Forum activity increases, as people get more interested, up starts try to take advantage of the surge to launch their projects, and scams also increases as Bitcoin ans cryptocurrency becomes a more frequent discussion across social medias, and the target is usually newbies.

If you are new to this, or joined because of the hype, one thing to note is that there are different levels of scams and it's not always easily detectable.
So view every prospect as a scam, until proven otherwise.
It's easy to avoid basic scam attempts like the use of fake accounts or ICO imitations. But, there can be scams hidden beneath legitimate projects.

- Always be skeptical; do not trust a project on first glance. Always look for a hidden threat, by assuming there is one, this makes you dig further into the fundamentals of that project.
- The fact that the project has been successful so far, does not mean it can not still be a hoax; never get too comfortable when you've out your money in an investment. Always be on the lookout for developments and stay close to the process involved.
- Never fully rely on recommendations; always to your own diligent research on any prospect. Do not simply follow the ideas of "experts" or "influencers".
- There is no guarantee;  no investment is a hundred percent fool proof. Even Bitcoin which I would say is the safest cryptocurrency investment does not guarantee profits.
Always keep tabs on your portfolio.

Thank you for the advice. Indeed being always skeptical is a must since 99% of ICOs are absolute garbage according to this man here (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4394767.0) and it has been proven (https://cointelegraph.com/news/new-study-says-80-percent-of-icos-conducted-in-2017-were-scams) that 80% are scam. I advise to always look at this helpful site (https://icoethics.com/) which inform you about this kind of project and to look carefully at the project team because many of them use fake stock images.

Being a skeptical person won't be in great risk of losing your cryptocurrency that you stored.

It's the same as investigate what you didn't know about a certain things that has been introduced to you and you didn't know anything about it. In short, do your own research and investigate at what you are trying to do or what you are getting into.

Yes, it's true that some project are successful but still there are successful project that are doing something shady that you won't even know until someone will become a victim or someone complaining to a project. Some projects are even abandoned because their project is not a long term project.

Ideas from "experts" or "influencers" are the same as reading a review about a gambling site that someone recommended a site to you and saying that it is what they have to say about it, so whatever experts will have to say about what they recommend is that it is their opinion r how they think about it. Basically, you will do what you did in the first place which is to do a research.

Portfolio will help you track at what you did in your investments if you have invested in bitcoin to earn and it is what you have mentioned because there are scams or fraud attempts going on in crypto space.

The influence of those Telegram influencers is so great tbh, even though sometimes they just repost what a project has stated on their whitepaper and never do any in-depth analysis. At this moment, I think most of them are just marketing tools for projects. A project with money will use them, while those who don't have any money or those who focus on product development won't use them at all.

If you look at the recent IEO or ICO, you'll probably notice how a majority of those high-ranked projects will get pumped at the early stage, got a little dump, do another run and then slowly falling and find it's bottom.

I think what newbies experience are the hope of the easy money that you could get. Imagine that you can invest worth 0.01 BTC and turn it into 1 BTC. That's already a thousand in percentages in gains. That's a lot if you think about it. Most of the time, when a person wants something easy, it's quickly gone too. There are times when you need to be skeptical and somewhat be open-minded. If it doesn't seem to make sense, then it's time to be suspicious. You should never get into something you don't fully understand.

Though I agree mostly with what you have said and you already mentioned the key to avoid these scams and that is through the known strategy of DYOR.

Doing your research with due diligence will save from everything. You don't have to skeptical with everything, you just have to be knowledgeable and fully aware of the potential scam schemes and attempts that are existing today.

Too much patience do sometimes have disadvantages but it depends if the said project is really worth for the wait or just simply skip it out.

Best thing to protect your capital is DYOR and a very strict risk management when it comes to investment,with this you can eventually do all sorts of things that
must be done before proceeding.

I agree! Additionally we also need to diversify our portfolio with different digital assets to minimize risks and I think the OP has forgotten to  discuss the importance of keeping our computer systems safe or in other words, don't let your system be compromised or be hacked, that I think is one of the important way to protect your capital instead of focusing on the integrity of projects alone. Imho.

It's unfortunate, but that's the best advice anybody could give when it comes to ICOs.  The reason these scammy projects keep getting suckers' money is that those suckers think they're going to get rich and will miss out on a gold mine if they don't invest--so they're impatient and can't wait until a project proves itself to be legitimate before handing over their money.  At least that's the way I view it.

My advice would be to just ignore that whole space entirely.  I've never invested in an ICO and never will.  The only thing I see are a bunch of scam accusations against these idiots, mostly for plagiarized whitepapers and so forth.  Never have I heard that one of these projects has some sort of breakthrough technology that's been adopted by....anyone.  If someone knows of an ICO that actually fulfilled their hype and all their claims, please let me know.

Not only digitial assets, but various non-digital assets in general.  It's hard to believe that some people only have cryptocurrency in their portfolios.  Those folks are risking everything on something that could bankrupt them in the long term.

Maybe you could check the reviews online also the the same time some countries are allowing you to see the whole profile of a company or a person and locate them through KYC , therefore it is something that could be helpful when you have to decide which is a scam and which isn't.
At times like these KYC is very helpful and at last we can always rely on the public reviews I think.
For better or worse , the more you search online about it the cleared it will get .

Diversifying your portfolio is a good idea if your plan is to buy stocks, bonds, gold or real estate, but if you are planning to buy a cryptocurrency other than bitcoin then you are asking for trouble especially if you buy a coin outside the top 20.

Now when it comes to securing our coins, securing our computer should be one of our top priorities but unfortunately it is almost impossible to do this with any Windows OS, so you will have to install one of the many Linux distributions and while your security will improve significantly there is no doubt that you will miss some of the functionality that Windows provides.

The Boglehead 3 fund portfolio has been going around for years - https://twocents.lifehacker.com/simplify-your-investments-with-the-3-fund-portfolio-1831746735
Basic protection would be diversified into 3 sectors + cryptocurrency for fun/speculation

Research before investing. I agree with the author, in crypto when you are a newbie is best to think that everyone is trying to steal your money. It'd make an individual more cautious and smart.

Read. Read. Read.

Read good books on money management, especially microeconomics. Don't follow follow people's opinions, follow your guts.

I summed up all your post as to educate yourself first, this is not something that you are going to pay a firm just to take care of your business, as they do in the stock market, you are your own bank, even experts can give you a precise prediction on how to make a good decision, you have to do it for yourself, they can only present, but it always comes down to you.

Scam ICOs are just at the tip of the iceberg when we are talking about ways on how newbies (and even vets) can lose money in the industry. There are other ways from HYIPs, fake cloudmining sites, scam exchanges, and phishing sites to things you literally have no control too like ransomware with the industry getting more and more attention you know the number of fraud will also increase because criminals are also setting their foot in it. That is why knowing how you'll protect your investment in all angles is necessary.

Projects = good projects, overhype projects, scam projects, sh*t projects; they are everywhere.

To fully stay out of risks of losing funds to any projects, even how good their future plans are, how constructive their whitepaper is, how important their use-case is, then just simply ignored putting money on them.

We are already at risk putting money on a much stronger bitcoin so don't play with another risk by testing the waters to those other projects. Focus instead on crypto that already built a good foundation since inception and successfully withstands most of the problems it encounters while on progress.

This is an advice worth reading. With regards to our investment especially on ICO or IEO, it is always the best way to secure whether the project is legit or not before engaging and putting our money in it.

Security of your computer and your assets will do. It's part of growing while you are living in the world finance and investments including cryptocurrency or bitcoin investment alone.

Diversifying should be done by everyone and it's not just for crypto's which I reckon what TP has said. In this manner, you are starting to become responsible the way you are managing and on how you are spending your money on worthy things.

Great tip and great advice there mate. Another way we can also protect our capital is not to be greedy and also to be patient. These two things are the greatest enemy of some people and it takes money away from them more than scammers. I have seen some of my friends out of greed do into trading and because trading normally is no longer enough for them, they feel that they could take more in margin trade, and if they had even leveraged low, it would have been okay, but they had to go all the way to leveraging high which most of them eventually lost their investment badly.

When it comes to patience, we have to really learn to persevere, some people have lost their capital just because they could not be patient for the market to pick up again, and then panic sell into the hands of these big whales.

The best thing that we can do is always be careful when we want to invest in one or more project, only use the money you can afford, and don't use too big money if you are not sure, or you are sure that the project will be successful because you never know if that will happen or not. Always search for more information about the project so you can get additional information which will help you to decide. All in all, your tips will help people to choose, and they can know what they need to do before they invest.

The best way to protect your capital is to diversify your investments. Not only Bitcoins, even not only cryptocurrencies. I dream to have at least one real estate asset in my portfolio.

Very few people read books about money management despite the fact that if you used a random entry point you could still make profits if you had a solid money management strategy, it seems everyone is obsessed with the perfect moment to enter the market or how to select the right coin that is close to skyrocketing, so by far the best way to protect your capital is with money management, however I do not agree when you say that we must follow our gut, we must follow our strategy and if you still do not have one then spend the time needed to create one.

Keep it in government debt. Safe and gives you a steady return that beats the yearly inflation

Diversifying your capital isnt protecting them from loosing because when you diversify , your only spreading your capital on different investment assets and the value of those assets can still go down   .  if we want to protect our capital the best way ,  we should only keep it on a safe place like on a vault or on a hardware wallet if its a crypto based but then again the value of our cryptos can still fluctuate so better if you will convert them to fiat first if you will not use them imediately  .

Agree, patience is not only applied in trading, but also many things that are included in crypto investment. patience will make you more calm in making choices. it will make your calculations and analysis more effective. than panic which will make everything that your analysis become useless

For the people who cannot afford much money to lose for the new scam projects just stick with the exchanges no need to go with ICOs and their high risk.

99% you are going to lose your capital as ICO investor because IEO took the place of it and hyip still existing onto it.

Very well said advice. The biggest and best advice is about being diligent, and also being cautious about any new investments. We've seen how scammy and shady things could get a year or 2 back when the scene was littered with scam ICO projects. If you are unable to research these projects effectively and are still unsure about new investments into these projects, just say no. You should be going into investments with not a single ounce of doubt, and if you can't do that, I'd recommend you to avoid investing in that industry or investing altogether.

The best portfolio is one that is diverse. Not just in crypto, one should also have traditional investments outside of crypto so it covers all of their bases.

Also, one thing that people don't seem to understand is that leverage and margin trading is a double edged sword - you can flourish by it but a sudden move in the market while you're leveraged all the way up can leave you exposed.

The ironic thing is that as much as we really give good advise to those newbies around, they still fall for the old trick here. I thought that the market will really improved this year, but it was not the case. Scammers are still on the loose here in the ecosystem and many are still being victimized by them.

Good thing is that we won't stop giving them tips and good advise just like what the OP has share. And I do hope that beginners will take the time to read and educate themselves.

There are a lot of bad actors here, just one slip and your money all is gone, don't be another statistics. Used your common sense, and I'm sure if will save you time and your money in the long run.

Do your homework, yes but it also doesn't hurt to ask for opinions, especially from people who are more knowledgeable than you on the topic.

Another thing to watch out for is over-enthusiasm. If you notice yourself being too excited about some new prospective investment, sleep it out and make the decision the next day. You might find that it isn't really as great as you first saw it.

They fall for such tricks because of greed and impatience, as far as I am concerned, greed is the major causal factor of scams, paltry knowledge also is another factor too, when newbies refuse to read and learn from threads such as this, it leaves them open to scam.
It's still amazing how people still invest in icos/ieos, to me it's like a case of throwing your money into the ocean, hoping it does come back to you.

A pretty good suggestion for a beginner, despite all the scams that occurred last year, I think this year will be a good year for investors. But keep in mind that scammers will always find ways to scamming us.


Most of them are doubtful but due to something like being supported by a well-known vendor or whatever, they have changed their minds. I strongly agree with you, not to invest if there are still doubts, even if it's a little, it's better to invest with confidence. The problem is that not everyone is able to be patient waiting for a good project, they prefer to invest quickly and profit quickly but ultimately sad.

There is no way to know the chance of a project surviving or not even when they look very good and done some hype about it. It all depends on the strength of the team and also depends on how far they are willing to go and never to get discourage about the project no matter the storm that they face through it. So the best way is to test them first by using the money that will not make us hypertensive, ten after we have tested the project, then we can gradually add more money to it.

When I first got to know about bitcoin, I just put some money in for and waited to monitor the development of the project, it was until I became sure of my capital being safe in bitcoin that I started putting more money into the market. So like you said, one of the best ways to protect the capital is just to ensure it is in the market of a strong crypto.

Protecting ones capital must start on how the individual handles the capital in the first place. Also, one must learn how to make the right decisions as to which coins to invest in order to earn profit. Diversifying ones portfolio reduces the risk of losing ones capital to a single project/coin.

Seems like this thread should be move to beginner and help since the content mostly aimed to newbie who have intention to invest in cryptocurrencies.

I don't have any idea for those people especially who jump into cryptocurrency is caused by hype or rely on someone's else suggestion. They are willing to spend money which though they didn't know the place itself even they didn't know how to take a little risk for their investment. Only store their money and have an intention which store their money on the coin they will get a huge profit only for short term investment.

Whilst, the movement price of cryptocurrencies never up constantly, there is a time for the price meet a correction even if I see when the correction came the price will fall drastically. This is what I worried for some people who didn't know about cryptocurrency. They will sell their investment in lose situation and got panicked of it. Although I have confident if they choose bitcoin for the main of their investment they will not fall to get a huge lose if they keep hold it when the correction comes. I'll agree for some people above me who says learn more about investment and make an analyst by themselves if they intend to start investing because that is the most important thing to start.

That is just bad though.

It is true that you should be responsible with your money but these scammers are so smart, they are used to what they are doing which is fooling people out of their money. Not all projects are a scam since there is a lot of them getting profits, but that is shortlived. I think what ruined the ICOs are the hunters that immediately selling of their payment in a lower price resulting into more hunters selling it to more lower prices for their coins to be bought faster than the others.

So it's the person's fault in not knowing what he or she is investing at, and if you are curious with it, better start learning first. I don't think mimicking is the problem, it's themselves. I don't understand what you are saying now, because how would you even have a profit if you don't risk something? How could they imitate correctly if they themselves don't understand it? I don't really care anymore on what others do, because they don't apply what they read. I'm not perfect but I won't risk my money in what I don't know.

That will be done if that person can learn about how to protect the capital. And yes, diversifying can be a solution to reduces the risk of losing money, but we still need to choose the right investment or coins to buy. That will not be easy if we don't learn something that will help us to choose the right coins, and besides that, there are so many coins that we can select as the next investment. When you can find a good project, and you invest with them, then in the future, you will make a big profit too so you can protect the capital plus you got the profit.

To keep your capital safe is a difficult thing because investment will always meet with risk, what we can do is minimize the risk so that your capital does not decrease but increases due to profit. of course what we do is make a profit, in what way? of course by choosing the right coins, it's true what you say that clever in analysis is important in this case, there are lots of coins on the market but not all of them are profitable, choose the one that is really potential and good in the market

Personally, I don't think that altcoins (which you implicitly refer to here) are a good diversification option

They may indeed be an invaluable tool for multiplying your wealth (read, for the purposes of speculation), especially if you enter a coin right before the pump (and exit before the dump), but recently most if not all altcoins have been performing worse than Bitcoin. So if you want to diversify your cryptocurrency investments, you should look elsewhere, not in the cryptocurrency market. On the other hand, if you want to protect you cryptoholdings from losing their dollar value, you can use shorts as a hedge (but then you expose yourself to the risks of using an exchange)

I do not trust these so-called experts anymore, some of them are running ICO rating sites, and we all know they get a quick buck from giving a false rating and they don't care about their reputation, it's their cash cow.

There's no guarantee that Bitcoin will always bring you profit but it's the safest investment and profitable compare to the altcoins in the market, they all follow Bitcoin's performance in the market and that's a fact.

This depends a lot to be honest. There are a lot of projects that have a good roadmap, plans, a reputable team and are still unable to make it big in the crypto market. No project, no matter how many funds they raise, how many team members they have, is to be a confirmed success. Before investing, I personally make sure they are as little red lights and as big of a chance of the project succeeding as possible, but the best advice I can give anyone else is just - don't invest money you aren't willing to lose.

Regarding ICO's, the market is in a bit of a weird state right now. It's died off from last year, which is good and bad. It's good because there are now fewer scams and the industry is a lot more tight night, as well as there is now a lot more smarter investors and scam/bad icos are getting a lot less attention. The bad part is now there is less variety in investment options, and a lot fewer ICO's in general.

I wouldn't recommend throwing money in ICO's right now. Probably some stable altcoins are the way to go rn.

To protect our capital investment, always look for the top coins at the coinmarketcap. Though we all knew that all investment has always risk at least with reference and guidance about the coin background you already have it. And don't just get easily believe on their promises always look and base on their volume as most often.

Protecting your capital is like being intellectual in every situation or problem you will encounter right?
Then having a good discussion on handling the money and where it should be, your capital will be safe. Find a good adviser or ask an expert regarding the current market situation, it might help you also.

It isn't really necessary to look at for good adviser or expert but somehow sometimes it is good to make them as a preference but not totally a thing for you to rely on.

Protecting capital does really need some good intellect and decision making yet it would vary or depend on situation that we are currently facing.

As a smart investor, I also believe that we should have passed the stage where we should be fooled by any scammer, the only thing that can be justified is if they hacked into our account to steal our fund, but not that we were fooled into leaving the money to them at this age where it is so simple to spot put dirty and useless projects.

I know it is not easy to do research and laziness to do so is what has been destroying a lot of people and making them fall for these bad projects, and one of the best way to still protect our investment is just to stay in a reliable project and in a reliable exchange, once we have these two, then I am certain that whatever investment that we put into the market will be a very safe one that we can make use of at any time.

Can't say that bitcoin returned back to it's good times because we had a lot of highs and lows, price was playing very often between 9k and 13k but lately these days, there is really not best but good, normal situation. Yeah, number of scam projects rises but that's not only related to price, that's because people want easy money without any afford. On another hand there are really good news and a lot of people who ruin the name of bitcoin are sent to jail.

Indeed, an adviser/expert into cryptocurrency is needed for us to strat and protecting our money to have a little risk. Only give a little risk although we have an adviser for our investment because all investment place must have a risk for every investor, the knowledge and an experience will help to reducing a high risk to a low risk.

But, I don't want to rely on with every my decision to invest in cryptocurreny only for them (advisor) I should have an analyst to start an investment as well. We have to equip ourselves to know which is bad and which is right for our investment. So as I don't need an adviser anymore if I have understood how they gave me an advice to invest and to protecting our money. I won't gulp down crude for each an advice from the advisor, I'll make an analyst again why they give this advice to me.

While it is true scammers are still running rampant we are seeing signs of improvement, the current growth in the market was driven by bitcoin and while alts still grew in value the majority could not outperform bitcoin, this means that many have lost their desire to invest in icos since they know that most likely they will never see their money again, now ieos are trying to take the place of icos but the hype surrounding them is nowhere close to what we saw with icos on the past.

I would add researching the background of the company/team involved in the development of the project. Couple of crypto successes in the past brings more trust.

Tell me one of those people who ruin the name of bitcoin who are sent to jail?
Going back about price volatility,it is indeed a normal or casual day here on crypto and theres no surprising with that.Now,we are moving sideways with those price ranges but actually we can utilize those movement on making money.

I will use this "don't invest money you aren't willing to lose" to remind myself, so I can protect my money. I agree with you because that is our reason if we don't want to lose in any investment type, but you never know if you don't try. But we don't have to invest in any investment if you don't want because now, the ICO has not attracted more investor.

I would feel better to invest in the altcoin, which has a history in the past, so at least, I can analyze where the price wants to move. Besides that, we can see that the project still running until now and they are serious with their project.

I believe just this will get you somewhere.
Very deep that you will smell all the bad odor of one project.
Be doubtful.
Do not be played by their sweet words. All of them does that for you to buy.
Look for negative feedbacks too. Not all of them are trolls or from another company with the same project.
Some of them are really reliable.
Join the telegram group. Make a debate but just do not go under the belt. Still follow the rules while you are questioning them and their supporters.

At first they will give you an assurance that you will become profitable once you joined them. But there is no guarantee at all that we will gain money from entering their site or social media. However, many of us are still bait by their fraudulents. Maybe, one way to get out of rid is to be familiar with market strategy so that, we can protect our own capital.

ICO too was not that popular until around 2017, and I think it was Ethereum that made ICO popular, prior to when ICO became popular, I think 2 years had already gone if we look at the time Ethereum was established, so I think IEO is not getting much hype yet because it is still a new system if we give it another 1 year more, I am sure that it will become more popular than ICO provided that scammers would not also scatter it before it gets to see the hype.

We have some terrible exchanges right now that I see already announcing IEO project and most of the IEO project I see is just like some project that could not scam on ICO and decided o approach some of thesehungryexchanges. So we still have to be quite careful about IEO investments too.

You can choose any altcoins for the investment, and I am sure you will found the potential altcoin ;D

Diversification in cryptocurrency is one of the investment right now besides the other investment which we already know. If the altcoin is performing worst in this few years, I am sure that there will be a time for the altcoin to rising up again even if we need to wait for more years. But I see that some altcoin can moves to the higher price even if bitcoin price is down because that altcoin is not depends on the bitcoin moves.

I am sure most people who invest in cryptocurrency know about the risk, so they have a different strategy to prevent the losses that might happen to them. So as long as they can accept the risk, they know how to prevent the loss, they could still choose the cryptocurrency as the investment.

The best possible way known is to use a hardware wallet, I mean is it possible that they could be hacked? Maybe, if you leave your passphrase out in the open and you give your laptop someone and you just happen to leave your hardware wallet right on the table than leave that person there and go somewhere else? Sure. However, to be realistic, there is absolutely no possible way of getting hacked on a hardware wallet, that is how you protect it.

For the dollar value of it though, not much you can do aside from just keeping it on usdt, there is absolutely no coin that will never drop, all of them will drop at some time and all of them will go up at sometime, so maybe you will buy into it right before it falls, nobody can guarantee you won't and that is why you can't really protect it.

The good thing that we will do is to always make a dilligence when investing in crypto. Above mentioned is really true let us not rely for those so called experts because there is no accuracy of their predictions. So it is best protecting your capital by doing your own research as crypto is risks and as long you know how to manage your investment.

But the thing is newbies tends to look for coins, specially in the alt coin market that could bring more money with just a small capital and hit a jackpot, which is not possible because investors are getting smarter and while noobs are getting dumber. And so they continue this practice until one day they realised that it is not a smart move after all.

It is still possible in my opinion.  Manipulation is always around so if it happen that a person timed his investment to a certain altcoin and pump commence, then he surely will get a huge profit from it.  But to safeguard your capital it is always best to invest on a cryptocurrency that had been around for a while and have a huge community.  Possibly those who are on the top 50 of coinmarketcap.

While I agree that ieos will most likely become more popular as time passes by, I have my doubts ieos will be as popular as icos were in 2017, most investors are not going to forget the huge losses they got just because ieos are offering promises that this time things will be different and when we add that many exchanges will have no problem offering fraudulent ieos then any trust investors may have will evaporate as soon as ieos begin to show the same behaviour as icos.

In no time your funds will be in the wallet of someone else if there is no perfect learning about cryptocurrency. Most of the users with the plan of profiting have been earning through the process of trading with the leading cryptocurrencies. Same time capital fund loss happens mostly when investing into scam projects without making any analysis.

There used to be lots of pump and dump coin when altcoins was still very popular, and you could create one little hype and you see many people investing out of fomo, but now, it is difficult to get people to invest in altcoins, not to talk of pumping it for you to be lucky to make so much with little investment.

There are investors now that it is either they participate in IEO or just go for some of these top altcoins in the market because these are still the coins that have real use case and can make your investment really valid when you make it a long term investment. Some of the coins that you are referring to can only be found in IEO platform for now since scammers are yet to penetrate it and Binance has already created the hype that it would use to attract people.

Newbies will always fall on this if they don't have a single idea what was the project is all about. It might take too long for them to understand it but once they fall for the trap it's too late for them to realize that they were in the wrong path. It is better to enter the market with a little bit of knowledge on how things would be running or have someone with full knowledge about cryptocurrency with you.

Just invest what you can afford to lose, that's it. We never know what's gonna happened to a project even if developers and ceo are active some projects ended up being scam after all because people are greedy when it comes to money, that's the reality world we are living in. So, it's best to research before engaging into crypto investments.

Yes i agree and it's a very good advice. But now, we're talking about newbie, which means they don't really have much knowledge about them. If you expect them to look deeply into the ico or something, it might be hard since they're not really familiar with it, and don't know what is good and what is not. It might be better if the newbie want to learn and find more, but most only want easy money. And i think following those expert is not always bad. Since they might know better, and they will think thoroughly before recommending anything because it might affect them as well if something happened. But overall what you said is true and it might be a useful suggestion for people.

Definitely having the same thoughts here. ICO's mostly are scam projects and even if they are doing something good by now they will surely die later on, so in the first place what's the point of being skeptical if you can actually "Skip" from it's destruction.

This will similarly applies to "Cloud Mining", "HYIP" and any other obvious "Scam" scheme projects. The key to protecting your assets is by putting it in the right place, considering the fact that even the most legit ways of earning a profit does not guarantee a 100% how much more if the said assets are being put into those "Scam" category. scheme.

This is to save ourselves after we lose the capital but I think this topic is about how to minimize the capital loss while investment and what are the fields needs to be skipped while making investments.

I think most people are losing their hard-earned money chasing  “the next Bitcoin”, by focusing on ICOs. The time for ICOs has unfortunately ended and even the now highly touted IEOs will not cut it. What is needed now are tools that investors can use to consolidate and track the performance and value of a selection of underlying top cryptocurrencies according to reputable tracking websites like coinmarketcap. I would rather invest in an index that contains the top to coins on coinmarketcap that risking on some shitty ICO.

This is the best advice for newbies. So view every prospect as a scam, until proven otherwise.
There are a lot of fraudalent attempts in the cryptospace.
I still remember the time when I was once getting scammed. Even if I had my doubts and I knew that this is going to end badly, the hype of other people who FOMO the scam project made me jump into it.

My advice is to follow your own feeling and thinking before investing. Don't trust others just yourself...

You said the very right things. Many, especially new ones, when they arrive in the cryptocurrency world and see a sea of opportunities in it, cease to critically think about what all types of scammers successfully use.
Always consider that they want to deceive you, until proven otherwise. If you are offered something, even if you did not ask for it, then something is wrong here.
Always dig deeper, always a little deeper than you already dug.

It is our responsibility to take control of our funds and have it protected for any loses that might come.
In a particular reason why we fail to protect our fund is that we never know what we exactly are doing. Scam and fraudulent scheme attractions seem to be more visible nowadays, letting these people come on you will surely be a reason that will cost you in the end.

Loss of money do have 2 possible causes or reasons either you have been scammed or you do make actions like being greedy into your investment which causes for a wrong decision that had made.

Protecting capital is limiting losses and minimal as possible.Its inevitable thing but due to experience and knowledge these risk can really be suppressed.

I still think putting your money into binance is not as risky as people make it out to be, if you take your security measures you are fine with a place like binance, they can get hacked and with the amount of cold wallets they have the hot wallet is actually only a small percent of money they have so even getting hacked and getting all of their hot wallet stolen wouldn't affect them at all (which happened and didn't affect).

Hence, I think if you do not have any api that you open and if you do not give permission to any other place and if you do not click on phishing websites for binance then all you have to do is log in and use it. So, it is a website that you can trade and can reach out whenever you want that is actually quite safe if you know how to use it.

In addition to the calculations and analysis, we need a better understanding of the history of fraudulent and successful ICO types.
Reading will help us gain more experience and help us gain good knowledge to avoid fraudulent projects.
Financial management is quite important in the 4.0 era. we should read it more.

Personally I'd stay away from ICOs but if you really want to get involved then do the appropriate research and consider the money gone so you don't feel bad should things don't pan out well. Monitor the project closely so you don't end up a bagholder.

As for HYIPs, they're guaranteed to run away with your money. I suppose some people still need to get burned at least once to learn that lesson.

The idea of trying to invest early in the next bitcoin was quite popular during the recent years but the truth is that any upgrade that a coin could make over the code of bitcoin is something that could be added to bitcoin at a later time, so most coins even those that show potential and have decent and hard working developers will eventually disappear as the characteristics that makes them unique eventually appear in bitcoin and those coins become obsolete.

If everyone stay away from ICO, there is really lots of things that would suffer for it, and I have to be selfish a little here, there will be no campaigns again, no airdrop and no signature campaigns, so everything will just be empty like it never exist, although we have scam projects a lot in the market, but we cannot endeavor to stay away because it would really make cryptocurrency market a bit boring.

The best we can just do is what you have said, we should make some research and ensure that the project that we are investing in has real working product, and that the product has a working team that will continue to ensure the growth of the project and be creating awareness constantly for new investors to come in.

Many people got scammed by fake ICO`s, what is not a strange in my opinion, we know that many people don`t do any kind of research before they invest their money in new projects. I agree with you that people should be disappointed with ICO`s, they just need to do a better research about project before they invest money in them, or they wish to participate in their bounties.
We have so many stupid examples where people invested in ICO`s where team members having cartoon images, people invested in ICO`s that promise too much in return. Let`s be real, there are many fake and scam ICO`s, but also there are some very good and successful ones too.

Nice advise indeed!!!   -- "All Scams until proven otherwise" --
And even proven be skeptical, they can do a very good job on faking all info like events, team, followers, likes, partners...anything can be faked!

How to prove ta project in not Scam?
and, if they are not Scam, have they any imperialistic ways of handling?
See Binance, looks like legit, but behind the scenes they are doing do much Scam...

So, be triple skeptical!

Good crypting!

That is difficult to prove the project will be a scam or not, and there are no exact indicators to determine a scam. But it will prove in the middle of their journey, and they will get a slowly moves in the project, they will hard to survive in the market and in the end, they will scam their investor and their participants. Many projects are hard to get listed on the exchange, and usually, after the project has finished the first phase of the token sale, they will delay giving the reward to the participants.

Indeed, we will not have an exact criterion to clearly define a scam project because this is the crypto world, the projects are based on ideas, the information provided about the project is only from the developer, no one has confirmed this information, and if we fall into a scam, we can only accept it in silence, can't complain to anyone. The general situation is like that but somewhere, from some people who have experience, they always advise us to clearly check the information and community of a project, it will limit a part of the scam.

I was talking from the likely point of view of someone who is going to invest their income from their dayjob into crypto rather than someone who make most of their income from crypto-related activities like trading and yes, campaigns in this forum, etc.

I think the crypto market can survive without new ICOs, it did for a long time. With all the failed projects in the past we can't blame people for being cautious. If I know someone new who wants to get into crypto, I'd probably just instruct him to buy and hold btc. That is just my opinion.

There are many ways. The first thing you need to do is reading their whitepaper or whatever they have to describe what's their project is all about. You can easily spot a plagiarized content on the internet via plagiarism checkers tools which is not complicated to use. You can also check how they are rated from their users through forum or whatever platforms.

Right, it's all research that should at least be done before starting an investment and other additions that might help, if they run a campaign or anything on this forum then at least you can see who manages it, if it turns out someone trusted manages it and or people who already have experience and good reputation here, then it is a more valuation that becomes a belief for investors so that the capital that you prepare to invest has a good opportunity later on to become an expected profit.

No one should be trusting anything they see in this crypto space cause there are lots of scammers here and there. I have seen some projects that looked too good to be true but at the end they all turned out to be nothing but fake, and some people also fell for projects like these and got scammed of their hard earned money which is very bad.

You shouldn’t trust any projects that doesn’t show who the devs are. There are also those that makes use of identity, claiming to be those that they are not and at the end you will get to find out that they are not who they claim to be. So as long as you decide to invest in cryptocurrency, you should always make sure that you’re aware of all these kinds of problems and avoid them. If you decide that you’re not going to do your research then that’s your own problems and you’re only going to end up getting scammed and that’s it.

There are still some projects that you will easily spot out from the beginning through our research, that is if we are the type that do research, it is not every scammers that you see are that smart and you could sense from some of the things related to them that they are scam, in fact from their team, you will know if the project team are going to be smart and if they have the potential of developing the project to a performing one.

For the ones that are not easily spotted through research, we will surely know as you said, this is why it becomes necessary for investors to just be patient and then wait for the project to be launched first before getting to buy from the exchange market, at least through the exchange they are even listed on, you will know if it is a quality or low project.

My advice is to protect yourself, don't trust and trade based on the bitcoin news and their predictions.
You can save a lot of money. Here is why:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5176891.0

I think in this way as well, to me all new coins are scams until those coins can prove it otherwise, I know it is unfair to the developers that are real and want nothing but the success of their coins but the number of such projects is so small that I have not found other way to protect myself and my money than to think of all new projects as scams, however if the developers of those new coins are honest they will eventually prove their worth to the community and they will get the recognition they deserve.

You are indirectly condemning fundamental analysis, but I think part of what controls the market is news, and most time, the market really responds to news, look at recently that Bakkt is intending to launch by September, even if it will not later have any effect on bitcoin value, bit because many news came out speaking of its positive influence on bitcoin, many people started buying and investing ahead of the launching, and we can see the effect yesterday on bitcoin, so I would not really go against trading by news, but we can only say we should not rely on it alone, that is, we have to make sure that we mix both together to trader our coin, both technical analysis and fundamental analysis. Bitcoin is a speculative market, and I think news really works a lot.

If you lack experience then try to earn more knowledge.

To know more things you know, the more profits you will be able to get. Experience can be earned while you get by so while waiting for those, you need to learn more about it. You don't have enough experience but studying some might help you when something will happen.

OP using this type of attitude you would have undoubtedly thought bitcoin was a scam back in 2009-2010.  Some anonymous guy creating money while he stockpiled a huge supply himself.  That whole thing looks like a scam.  Sometimes you have to believe in "fairy tales" that do come true, the mind can be too rational at times without believing in magic.

Always find the good projects that have complete information,documents and their planned for their project in the future so that we can sure that this project that we are gonna put our investment it is not a scam project in order to protect our capital. Do not trust from others people says make your own research.

Let's not forget that people should as well be very careful with their wallet,cause the wallet you make use of is another very important. There are wallets that are not safe to make use of these days and making use of them puts you at risk of losing everything.

Your private wallet is where your money rest after traveling the blockchain, exchanges and all that ,at the end it's all about your private wallet and that's where you also store the larger amount you have and you wouldn't like to risk hackers having access to that as well. So, anyone that is making use of digital assets should be very sure that their wallet is really good. There are good wallets like Exodus that puts you in control of your wealth. All you have to do is make sure to be backing up your digital assets and also keeping your keys at a safe place where someone won't have access to it.

And of course you do have good points here. These are things that you will have to bother about when you start investing in projects and like you have said , we all should not be quick to trust any project we see. It is best to be careful about it and do research before deciding whether we should join them or not. Most of the projects you will see these days are just pure scam.

Basically, don't be quick to give them your money if you're not 100% about what you're investing in.

The best way to protect your capital is financial knowledge. We need financial knowledge to better manage capital and make reasonable investments.
Especially in the crypto market, there are always many risks, so we should analyze it further. Or we can cooperate with some people to make a more accurate decision. That's how I protected my capital in the last 2 years.

Cooperating with people is more like relying on people’s opinion then, and if you look at one of the point the op gave which I also agree with, he warned a little bit on never relying on recommendation, because he believe that any individual has the ability to be responsible for their own action in a very responsible way, and the approach is simple, it is one of it that you mentioned.

We have to have the full knowledge of whatever is surrounding that which we are investing on, financial knowledge, trade knowledge and every other knowledge that is necessary for us to get to make sure that out capital is protected. I see many people advising on wallets, yes, it is one of it, the best way to protect your capital is just to simply eliminate the risk that is surrounding it.

Eliminating risk completely is not possible but somehow it can be lessen and this is thru our sensibility,awareness and experience.If we do know how to sort things up and do know how to decide things basing on what we have learned in the past then its the best way on protecting something.Risk is inevitable but if you do know how to handle this then you are on the right path on making money and avoiding losing it.Never ever listen on someones decisions or recommendation but hearing them or trying to compare to yours isn't bad but if were you its much better to rely on your own ways or methods so that incase if there were losses theres no other way to blame but your own mistake which is more better than
losing money because of others is really a stressing thing on my part.

Hey! In the conversation above I expressed my opinion that diversification is the best approach to protecting your capital.
Found an article that confirms it and illustrates it from the real estate investing point of view:

https://realtybundles.eu/learn/blog/11-property-investment-strategies-and-trends/466-how-to-diversify-your-real-estate-investment-on-one-platform
Hope it will be helpful to someone.

As an investor, we know that it is not the easy and fast returns when it comes to this crypto investments. Also, I agree to all of your tips. Not every projects that we believe that are good is really worth to invest. A hardwork, a serious background research is really important to identify whether the one we are goint to entrust our money is worthy enough to put our efforts and money.

Yes. We must do good and diligent research in order to know those things behind that we ought to know to end up in a successful project. Even if the bounty manager is the most trusted manager that manages the campaign, there is no guarantee that the project will really end up being successful so we should always protect our capital and do things that will make us safe and secured in the end.

Not only to protect our capital from scam environment but we should also see to it that the certain ICO has a higher chance to be a successful project so that they will probably hit their target fund. Ensuring their commodities are feasible to masses so that they could attract more people to invest resulting a good profit for you too.

"Forum activity increases, as people get more interested, up starts try to take advantage of the surge to launch their projects, and scams also increases as Bitcoin ans cryptocurrency becomes a more frequent discussion across social medias, and the target is usually newbies."
This make sense, most of people who always complaining about financial loss because of ICO are newbies. People should have enough information before investing.

"So view every prospect as a scam, until proven otherwise".
Isn't that too harsh? I think there many honest people who want to help the development of cryptocurrency by creating project.

"- Never fully rely on recommendations; always to your own diligent research on any prospect. Do not simply follow the ideas of "experts" or "influencers"."
Maybe the more apropriate sentence is "never thrust recommendation by people that you don't know in real life who don't have enough experience and skill"
I always look at my senior's decision before decide project that I want to invest and almost all of the project always give me profit

- There is no guarantee;  no investment is a hundred percent fool proof. Even Bitcoin which I would say is the safest cryptocurrency investment does not guarantee profits.
Always keep tabs on your portfolio.

Don't be too pesimistic, we only need to be more carefull and optimistic

I am certain that many people have learnt by experience because most people that fomo in 2017 are still regretting their action right now, and majority of us have learnt from their actions which is why you see that bitcoin and some altcoins has not grown more than this out of fomo.

So many cryptocurrency users and so many investors are seriously protecting their capital right now, most investors are being careful as to which project to invest in, and they research carefully before investing in any of them. So I am sure that it is already gettingdifficult for most scammers now and even bad project that have the intentions of coming through ICO as they are not being funded any more like they were being funded in 2017.

Always become aware that you can never protect your capital a hundred percent because of inflation so you need to do things in order to make it multiply. Investment is all about risks and having guts to do it is the best way of  protecting your resources. Dont let your emotions make your guard down.

Especially an emotion to have an instant result! an instant profit! That's a wrong way to start investing.
Managing your portofolio never been easy ... you need to gain a lot of knowledge also experiences so you might have a higher chance to keep your capital at the safest level.

The common mistakes that people make is to put the money all at one place! These people have no plan B to anticipate the unexpected outcome. They are acting overconfident,  ignore the fact that they are wrong and sure ended up busted!

Just take it easy, play it safe and don't worry to gain a very little profit, it's just the beginning... as time goes by you'll level up your knowledge and mastered everything in investment world.

inflation ? but we are only talking about cryptos here . afaik inflation only occur on fiat the most but on cryptos were are only dealing about fluctuations but still no matter how we fully secure our assets offline or on a hardware wallet and cold storages thier value is still volatile i guess but there is also a way to make them stable  .

protecting a capital is indeed more important than earning a profit because our capital dictates our potential earnings .

I am a safe investor with the most reliable options at all times. I only invest when the market falls and not when the cryptocurrency is growing or recovering. Only invest in Altcoins which have a high popularity and belong to the top 50 CMC. And should not venture into low-ranked Altcoins and be traded in small volumes.

If your strategy works well for you it's good to continue using this system, the market volatility is really tough to followed as there's a lots of factors that will influence the market movements, it's better to make sure that you are using good set back plans in case you need to adjust with market behaviors, it will be better to also work with progressive projects that might bring you great outcome.

i need that advice as well but for me i know my faults if i could just follow the advice my head is telling me
is that i need to be more patient and focus coz at times i tend to burst and haste with my trade thats why most of the time
instead of gaining,i am loosing my capital as well. I admit im a hard headed i know what to do but not doing it.

Investment in bitcoin is really a safe haven and I think that is the best way that one can protect our capital lie you said because every other investment in altcoins is one which you make investment and sleep with your eyes opened because you didn’t know what might happen to the price of the altcoin at any time without an assurance that it will ever be revived again, but when it comes to bitcoin investment, there is an assurance that even if the value declines as at the time that you out your money, there will be a time in future where you will surely be able to cunt you money out exactly with so much profit on it, so if we are really looking for a coin to keep our investment securely without any fear, it is bitcoin investment really.

Unfortunately, scammers can hardly get anything or something reasonable from newbies, as newbie are not opened to bounty participations, but probably only trading. And any newbie that would have known how to trade must only carry the newbie status not as an amateur per-se.
Newbie that wouldn't want to fall prey of scams must always keep an eye on details of the experienced either here online or physical guidance.

A very informative post. So there are good and bad people mixed up in this world. You should invest in capital that will not be a problem if you lose it. Here is the Fake Project 70% I think. Those who cannot survive in the market. And because of this, everybody loses the capital.

Save your capital in a safe capital will be the best advice to every people to protect from the thief.
You can read on how to protect your money so you can do it with ease.
Don't tell other people how much your asset because that will attract them to try to know more about your asset.
If necessary, you can buy tools that will help you to keep your asset more safety.
Don't trust people who you don't know.

No wonder they easily fall from suspicious sites because of the lack of knowledge they get. A newbie should refrain from investing in any project as long as the knowledge of investment is fulfilled. Moreover, many hackers are currently getting smarter in committing fraud and traps.

Just like malwares and viruses are getting updated regularly, and we have to also do same to our device protection apps. That's the same way we have to regularly be on the lookout. Scammers regularly change their strategies. As a long term investor or a trader always be up to date with the happening around the cryptocurrency space

P.S; I'd be locking this thread now, as it seems to have run it's course. Thanks to all for the advices and suggestions.