Bitcoin Forum

Can anyone explain how to analyze a project so that one can escape from getting scammed?

The best is to stay away from new projects, there are still some good altcoins in the first 100 rank that you can invest on, but know generally that altcoins are risky just like luna that was in the first 15 rank that is not in first 100 in just few days. New projects are more risk.

Go to Coinmarketcap and check the contract address of the new project

Follow the developers like on social media, question them and know what the project is all about.

This is one of the most important part, read the white paper, check for plagiarism, if plagiarised, it is a scam.

Even a new project can become pump and dump. New projects are highly risky.

The daily change makes me feel like scams are also sophisticated and there are many ways in which we remain blind to them. Some of the things that I've been through in this space have left me with some choices that I think are safe for me but may not be suitable for others. BTC is the only option, and the rest is just that. Watch them, but the trial plays with more risk. These new projects these days have a lot of ways to deceive us from the team, plans, funds,... things that are not easily verified and people look at the profits they built up to believe in them. They feel very familiar with very large scams when they create a whole system process and link them together. It is very easy for people who believe in such things to fall into the trap. The greed for money makes it difficult for us to keep the profits we once enjoyed.

The only way to know if it's a scam or not is to do some research. all aspects need to be examined, not just one day, but we need to do a gradual check, and endlessly find out about the development of the project.
however, you can't tell if a project is scam or not just in a few times of research. it is very difficult to detect, because if it is a centralized system, then it can happen anytime. the point is that there will be an opening for them to show that. whether it's fraud, rugpull, and others. besides that you will understand the quality of a project when you continue to do research.

There is no. We can only indicate it's a scam but nothing is 100% true. Even if it's right, it's not necessarily the next prediction that will work, because cryptocurrencies really work in mystery. At least you can predict with accuracy up to 80% is enough to get trust for the project, the rest is how you dare to make a decision to invest here, because the risk is high.

It's hard to say that because there are many things that must be analyzed to make sure if the project will be a scam or not. It's started from you need to analyze the wallet that owned by the developers. Sometime when the project will become a scam started by the owner was doing soft rug pull by dumping more and more tokens to the market. I meant when you are seeing it carefully and the developers are silently spreading their minted tokens to the various wallets to be dumped to the buyers.
There are also developer who blatantly saying they are rugpulling the users

I always tell people that social media is one of the best things to happen to crypto. Especially crypto twitter. It's a good indication to check it. Also check the social media handles of the particular project. Scam projects always have a lull in their presence. Also always look out for dev/ team presence and service. Sometimes too the explainer vids are bot voiced. That shows scam

The main indicator is the source of information from where you learned about the project. I am sure the community is very active in all respects. Therefore, it is better to discuss the project collectively and make a decision accordingly.

First of all i would say that you should never ever click on any link that someone is sending to you on telegram. I have seen a lot of such posts going around lately and all of those are scams. Most of the times those scammers are waiting to the day when a big project that people are waiting for gets listed on pancakeswap or sushiswap and then they create their own scam token and a pool on the swap and they spam the telegram groups and even DM thousands of users that the project is live now and can be bought. So never ever click on links that someone sent you in a DM in telegram.
Also always check the team of a project, the roadmap and the backers.

There's no clear indicator about how to detect the scam project, when the developers were doing shady thing and community was starting to realize it and it will become the best time to go out from the project. you have need to know the history of developers, whether the project has some cases of plagiarization or not, and many more. You can try to take a look at the scam accusation sections. When the developers were doing one or two shady things and this can be a sign if the project will turn to be another scam project as soon as possible.
Avoid to invest in a high risk project when you don't wanna be scammed

It will be very difficult to detect a scam project, because now there are many potential projects with clear roadmaps and whitepapers, but still scams. Even tokens ranked at 100 CMC are pretty much a scam. The point is when investing in crypto projects we are prepared that our money will be lost.

It's really hard to analyse in the beginning, nevertheless you may want to look at:

1. the people behind the project, do they have real names or maybe some of them have some shady past.
2. what the project can offer, maybe it is unique, then maybe they will want to succeed and not to scam
3. to good to be true promises
4. websites, it is done professionally? or it may seem that their website by put up by a 5 year old

That's just a few on top of my head right now.

You can't always tell them. Some are obvious but some are good enough to hide it.
One good example is what I saw in the news about students using the face of their teachers as the team behind the project. It looks real but they are caught in the end. They still managed to fool a lot of investors because they made millions of dollars in their ICO.

If you are trying to avoid scams then just focus on investing in projects that have roots. They may be expensive but you are paying not to be a millionaire in a rush but for the assurance.

There are some step which should be followed to avoid scam project
1: whitepaper
Always check Project Whitepaper and use Pilgrism software and sites. Most of scam Project steal idea from other top projects and they have not own idea.
2: Team:
Scam project used fake team picture you can Google it to see if they download from any LinkedIn profile.
3: always check investor and backer. Most of scam project have no backer and investors.

Right, there are no way to detect 100% SCAM project because i've experienced a several projects which was looks fundamentally strong and professional team but team was greedy. I don’t believe all of those projects even which is top 100 ranked in the Coinmarketcap. First of all we have to some own researches to detect SCAM project, team is most important, most of the time SCAM projects team using fake profile.

There are some projects you can't know they are scam until they become scam. To avoid scam projects entirely, you should only to buy btc, then eth, bnb and maybe a few other top alts projects on cmc.
Another suggestion is to join any reputable exchange launchpad (if your desire is to invest in new projects) reason why is, these popular exchanges did the background check for any new project they are launching, yours is to invest. However, it doesn't give 100% guarantee that such projects won't disappoint in the future. You should always understand the risk of crypto investment.

50 : 50

Very unpredictable. Sometimes from a good roadmap and whitepaper, developers are convincing, but after getting funds from an ICO or other fund-raising method, they suddenly disappear and take investors' money. There are also those who are successful and provide huge profits for investors and project coin holders/traders.

Of course there are clear benchmarks for us to choose a project with an investment objective, including developers and founders who have clear origins and have the capability and effort, then a clear and firm roadmap and whitepaper in each milestone, has the potential for large adoption, is unique, useful and able to be applied in the real world as a breakthrough, reasonable, utility, having cooperation with other well-known or relevant institutions that can be proven true.

More or less that, but still some of these points can not be a benchmark for the success of a new project. Be careful, invest with money that you are willing to lose.

Escaping from getting scammed is a general topic, but thinking specifically for a project that uses altcoins, there are many factors to think about.

There is also the dichotomy of scams vs failures. Both end up with the same outcome for the investors.

Is the project a niche one or mainstream one - if it is the second one it will fail for sure.
Copied whitepapers, placeholder images for team members - immediate red flag signs.

Then there are those who use Advisor images of legitimate linkedin personnel but they are never actually involved - check on linkedin yourself to know how much they are involved in the project.

Overall this is a broad topic to discuss, it is better to learn from the stuff that gets reported in the "Scam Accusations" section and see how they are uncovering them. Even then this is the tip of the iceberg, majority of the scams dont get reported.

Hey Dave, that's not easy. They can be hiding it at a better way than other legitimate projects who have better goals.
I have been in this kind of position before when I ask myself on how I could surface whatever their evil intent is, but you may not even see it unless you know someone behind it.
They are getting better at making whitepapers, a fake team, a fake project and so on. I am victim in short.  :'( So I learned. Don't force your way into buying cheap coins because they look to have promising future. Go easy and take the clean route with known crypto's like BTC and ETH.

There is no universal solution! Scams happen all the time, from those pretty stupid and naive to very complex scam schemes! In order to be able to recognize fraud, you must first know something about it, read about it, and research... we who have been in the crypto for a long time have seen everything, and with that experience, we check some projects from all angles, if there's something suspicious we just stay away!

So how one can escape from getting scammed is to be careful and not get trapped! They can't scam you if they don't pull you into their story and you give them some money!

I think that if people can detect the scam project easily and there will be no people got scammed by the scam project. The thing is when you are seeing the shady thing has been done by the developers and you must see that as a signal to go out or not to touch the project.
If you are thinking the project was too risky with high chance to be another scam and never deal with it. So many people are being fooled by the scam project like this.
It's better never try to deal with high risk project and only try to deal with reputable project in the market.

I'm sure all bitcointalk members have joined the project and the result is a scam, so it's very difficult to guess a scam project because every fraudster prepares material in detail as if it were real, I'm just sure that an ordinary project manager will choose a good project for him to hold,

unfortunately this method is not very useful. since the luna problem happened, i think this way is still not good enough to verify a project. experienced team, 100% original whitepaper, strong community, it was all in the luna project, but in the end this project became one of the biggest shit projects in crypto history.

Scam projects cannot be predicted with 100% accuracy, nor are there any assistive tools or websites to track real scam projects. That's why here we are always warned before investing should be DYWOR, because it involves the risk of loss if the project is a scam. The recent news is that even ranks above 10 in CMC can just be a scam, with a price drop that can't be recovered, so those who really know the scam for sure are none, but analysis is mandatory, at least it helps you to believe in the project have potential in the long term.

It was just unfortunate for Luna, it seem more if a ponzi scheme but it was just what altcoin can bring and lead to losses but luna is not a scam coin, it was just a coin that want to become a failed project. Generally altcoins are risky, even the good ones among.

Most of the scam projects have poor development and poor solution to their project and most of them are copy cats, some doesn't have complete information like no infromation of team member but some projects are complete and they are improving with their scam scheme and honestly it is hard to detect if the project and scam since it is hard to differentiate it nowadays.

ya.ya.yo!

It's quite difficult to identify a fraudulent project or not, because initially they use the same way of running any project, that's why don't easily believe in new projects that don't have team quality and are launched when market conditions are correcting, look at the way bitcoin, Ethereum and BNB in running the development, they don't really expect a large community, but the utility and stability is maintained for them, find out more sources, so that we don't get caught up in fraudulent projects

Team is one of the best factors that represent scam project. Lack of information about the team is already a bad signal. Lack of information about past and experience of a team is another bad signal. I strongly believe, that a no-name developer can not create a successful project. I will never trust a developer, who is creating his very first project and promise to compete with market giants, to become big, successful and revolutionary.

Team behavior should become the main consideration. i see that in so many case you must also trace the wallet that probably owned by the team members. If you were able doing it and you will find the team was trying to sell their own tokens to the market to drain the liquidity and this project will become a scam. You can also try to identify that through the function from the code. I guess this is very hard for the newbies that known nothing about the coding and smartcontract programming but this is also the best way to know whether the smartcontract has a rugpull function or not.

We have to get detailed information about the team and its history of expertise on linkendin, although not really verifiable for data from valid history but at least already know the ability of the team to develop that project, I will usually look at all developer data first before analyzing the project in whitepaper.

But nowadays many scam projects use real people as their team, and most of these people don't know that their data is being used for scam projects.

Its not just scam projects its also incompetent teams and pump&dumps.

Find good projects as KoinOS with proven track record (their previous project was Steem) and look on youtube if they have interviews with the devs (KoinOS has) and then see if they work on a project that makes sense and is a serious competition to ETH and will replace ETH some day. Then look at the price. The market cap. If its over $500m forget it, you are too late. Millions of people got it cheaper than you and will sell before you.

I think you can check some of the reports on the Scam Accusations (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=83.0) thread because many projects have been exposed with finding fake team data from using other people's identities, so be careful choosing investments out of hype because using fake team data is anonymous because it's definitely the purpose of creating shitcoins.

So forget the projects that want to over-concept to replace the ETH network even though they also use smart contracts from the ETH network, lol. Many projects are upgraded to illogical utility plans because they want to trap investors in shitcoin investments and then they will leave because surely their abilities do not achieve the fake plans that have been planned.

Koinos is the most decentralized Blockchain since it uses proof of BURN so it has the security of pow with the low electricity use of pos.

Its the future literally. They currently have not launched the mainnet yet so thats why they are on Uniswap(ETH).

It is difficult to identify any scam projects because we will not know in the beginning phase. But if the project is almost done and close to the launch, some projects can delay anything they want and the team will not online without any news or message, and that can be a sign for a scam projects. But that does not always like that because some projects can run away with the investors money in the middle of their phase. We just do not know how the new projects can turn to be a scam projects. The best thing you can do is not join in the new project as the investor.

You can never be 100% sure that this is not a scam, but there are a few elements that I always pay attention to to minimize risk. The first is the devs/team of the project. It is important that they are experienced people. I don't trust projects whose devs want to remain anonymous. It's a big red flag. Another thing is communication. If they promise that if you buy their token, you will get 10x more in 3 months, stay away from such a "project". It's worth paying attention to the project's website, whitepaper, documents - if it's plagiarism, it's probably a scam.

Actually, it is very difficult to predict a scam project and we often get caught up in the project because we do not know that at the end of the project they cannot give us the slightest profit and we also experience losses, actually research is one way that we can find out the performance of the team but at the end of the day we are also often disappointed by them, and currently there are very many new projects that are experiencing scamer so we must be careful.

If the team member is really experienced and skillful, then he has participated in other projects. He cant just be a prodigy, whos very first project becomes world famous and demanded. Anyway, if he is really talented, then the internet knows about it. He, his works, experienced definitely got mentioned somewhere. His name must have appeared somewhere, he must have achieved something. He can not be a phenomenon out of nowhere. That is why team and its past is most important indicator for me.

Sometimes scam project is not transparent the team will hide thier true identity always be careful on that next is that when project is no progress a lot of excuses being made and no development for so mnay years, sometimes there is also a legit project and turn into scam because it was abandoned by the developer or project turn into shit project because of the bear market and it will end us unsuccessful project. The best way to avoid being scam is invest in project or tokens that is already tested one example is the bnb or eth and many more.

Learned from Luna coins as top 10 in CMC become scam and price from $80 become $0.00013732 really shit and scam coin, but better you can buy some altcoin have own exchange like BNB, but have reach higher price until $300 but you not worry when investing with BNB coin how protect our investment from scam project, but usually have other chance with new project launch become scam coins and always be careful when investing, should better with short term investment than become long term, afraid will be like Luna coin when trying become long term investment.

We can check in here https://scam-alert.io/ if the project and the team look suspicious.

Before I'd look at their market review and feedback but to know that these aren't reliable enough to say if they are legit or a scam as they are somehow manipulated and mostly paid review for the sake of making it good to read.

and also we have to consider these things,
 - transparency
 - liquidity
 - use case

Analyzing whether a project is a scam or not is crucial and challenging. Indicators are some kind of one size fits all, in assessing if it is a scam or not. Although, we could specifically look on the team, its dynamics, and other stuff related to checking its credibility, some projects require thorough investigation. Some may even require time specified observation to see its performance and all.

We usually do an in-depth analysis before investing, such as reading the whitepaper, the team, and analyzing the project as a whole. That will at least have the potential to avoid a scam before you make a decision to invest, this method is always used by investors because one of the most effective ways is to look at the fundamentals, roadmaps, and project documents. But if you mean a scam calculator review website, it doesn't exist, if it exists it's definitely not accurate.

If you avoid scam projects, you should little own research, if you want to check already listed projects in coinmarketcap that or scams or not then you need to check their rank and their exchanges some listed on Dex like pancakeswap or low-rank exchanges where trading volume increasing with the bot and pumping with a bot you should not invest low-rank project and check their social media and partnerships and also contract address should be verified and audited by companies. If the project is not listed in coinmarketcap then you need to invest in the project very carefully because most the projects pump their altcoin after that is gone, you should check their community and contract address are verified or not. so you can detect scam projects by your little research.

I am amazed that you have some points of analysis before investing in a new project so it really should be understood by everyone to avoid scam projects, because many beginners are only attracted to the hype of new coins for instant profit but are not aware of the risky investments.

There is no concrete indicator regarding how to identify a scam project, when the creators were doing shady things and the community was starting to understand it, and when it would be the ideal moment to exit the project. You must be aware of the developer's background, whether there have been any instances of plagiarism in the project, and many other factors. You should look into the scam allegation areas. When the creators were performing one or two dubious actions, it may be an indication that the project would quickly turn into another scam enterprise. If you don't want to be scammed, don't invest in a high-risk project.

Therefore, try as much as possible not to be in a new project, if this type of person does not want to risk being cheated. The concept is simple, the habit of new projects is more vulnerable in case of fraud, which is caused by several factors intentionally or not, but in the case of old projects we rarely find fraudulent projects intentionally, but that does not mean we want to say that new projects are more likely to be fraudulent and when compared with old projects, these are just most of the examples we found in crypto

It's mostly your own personal judgment at some parts. Like is the project reasonable, do they have their roadmap set and can fully satisfy the conditions set at each part, is the project even feasible in the first place, is there something backing up the project or is the idea even worth backing up kind of stuff. It's hard to be one of the early investors since 99% would be scams, but if you find a legiit and good project, as an early investor, the returns you could get would be pretty insane imo.

If you're new to investing though, just avoid new projects. Go for the low risk ones, they may offer lower rewards, but at least it's much safer than investing in a new project.

This is the best time to be investing right now because you can buy L1 chains that have proven themselves as being blue chip investments at a two year low price. I'm investing in HBAR and ICYp right now but there are a lot of good buys without the risk of investing in something new that might turn out to be a scam.

This is not true. I believe that these days scam projects usually end up with much better development. I have seen plenty of projects where if the scammer didn't just do a scam project but went with a real project, they could have actually gone to a good level. But at the end of the day, they prefer quicker money and that ended up with people with talent to end up building great scam projects.

This has caused a lot of people to get fooled into thinking those projects are real, because of how much effort and talent put into it but that resulted with basically just a pure loss. I hope that there will be a clearer distinction, usually KYC is that thing.

That's very difficult in my opinion if you mean a new project.  Because there are many factors that determine whether the project is real or a scam.  But if you want to invest I suggest following experienced people.  You can learn from social media or telegram groups.  Or you can try investing in the top 10 coins/tokens in the crypto market.  The conclusion is, I think 90% of people can't tell if a project is a scam or not if it is a new project.

to be honest, that's true. the fate of the new project is hard to determine. in this forum alone, we have seen well-written whitepapers, well-prepared projects but at the end of it, the team disappeared after collecting from their investors. this is why am not investing anymore in this ico, ieo or any other crowdsourcing projects. even if you do your research or the project is promoted by well-known BM, it doesn't stop them to screw people if they want to. as most are anonymous, you have no way of tracking them. if you want a lil bit peace of mind, just keep looking at the top alts which are in the market for years.

I tend to agree with what @AmoreJaz said.

To avoid getting scammed 100% of times, one would need to stop investing completely. But of course that would not be the case because we are here in this forum after all. So we can only minimise the risks that have the biggest impact like not revealing private keys, keeping your devices secure.

Beyond that we need to investigate the suspicious projects like many other users in this forum are doing and reporting in this forum's scam accusations section.

It's really hard to analyze the project even though you check their website, whitepaper, the team behind the project, and social media. They will hide anything that can against them and take down those who will accuse them that they are scams like on Discord or Telegram channel.

That's why you will need to check the supply, market cap, and how they communicate to their investor since they will surely have a lot of fake accounts to provide a good reputation to them.

Much better to invest in a solid project that really has the potential to increase their value in the future.

We can analyze it in many ways, but in my opinion the simplest is how the dev or their team develops their project and then does regular updates every time specified. Usually scam projects don't have progress on team work or applications, they only offer public sales with big discounts on their social media, until the public sale ends and not long after the list is on the market they disappear.

Stop looking at things that promise and give quick profits as they are not suitable for new entrants to any field. What we are lacking is easily absorbed and the flashy information that comes with it only blinds us. With the top things, it takes time and the process to fully experience them. To get the right perception of failure and success, As for myself, participating in this market, I always give advice to those close to me, buy BTC if you can buy it without worrying about personal finances, and only BTC if you don't want to complicate things with circular information.

Simple analysis in terms of daily news updates on twitter, although regular news updates are not an indication of project progress because it depends on the reputation of the project and the concept being developed, so there should be many other important analyzes to note from a quality project before we invest.

Well, I think that's the only way to minimize risk so that people avoid being scammed. however, if we want to be completely safe, we better need to find a job that can pay us every month. very true that investment is a risky place to increase the assets we have. in fact, no matter how well we research, it's still there. it's just that people don't realize it and don't want it to happen. It is very true that the way to avoid scam investments 100% is to not invest, because when you have invested, the percentage will decrease.

To analyze fraudulent projects when it is very difficult because they have designed the whitepaper well and no one can be suspicious so they look like a project that has potential, then in this case we can see a little bit of the performance of the team that manages a project if indeed they always respond to every investor who experiences complaints then the project is usually worth following.