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Not all crypto projects are created equal, identifying which crypto token is a scam, and which memecoin is legit. How do you know which projects are safe to step into, and which projects are doomed to fall flat some months from now. The blockchain is awash with promises of quick money and easy rides. But it pays to know if the token you’re holding is part of an elaborate scam to separate you from your hard-earned cash. There are eight straightforward ways of carrying out your due diligence to avoid fraudsters

1. Start from the very basics by
a. Check for social media red flag
b.Check for the token’s address in a Google search

2. Check code is verified on Etherscan

3. Check the Etherscan comments section

4. Check the DappRadar blacklists

5. Check the token details in a token explorer
If you cannot find the token on CoinGecko or DappRadar’s Token Ranking (or a similar coin price tracker), the token is probably a scam. If it is on the token explorer and you see warning notifications like this, proceed with caution

6. Check how many exchanges host the token
If the token is only traded on a couple of decentralized exchanges (DEX), it is almost certainly a scam. Listing on a centralized exchange comes with KYC and additional trust, and the bigger the exchange the better the reputation of a listed token.

7. Check the amount of liquidity in a token’s balance pool
Before you invest in a token, you may want to check general demand and the availability of liquidity. It is very easy to check a token’s liquidity on a platform like Uniswap V2 or other decentralized exchanges.

8. Check third party analysis tools
Smell Test – this does an automated audit of the token. The lower its score out of 100, the more likely the token is a scam.
Reference:- https://dappradar.com/blog/8-ways-to-check-if-its-a-token-scam

All your point you raise here are very valid, but for me what I mostly watched out for is if it's been listed on binance or bybit, if it's not been listed on any of it, I stay off that coin to avoid stories.

Does not all project start off with not being listed yet in big exchanges such as binance? If it is not yet listed, does it automatically mean that it is a scam?

It could just be a newly launched project with a potential to increase a lot of altcoins would not even reach being listed in an exchange but i do not think all of them turn out to be scams it is just that some of them do not reach the expectations to be listed in an exchange

Some altcoins can still pass KYC, have a licence, pass some audit verification, and still be scammed. It's very easy, and it's common during this period to acquire information that could be used to pass such verification. Such verification is common online, and that's why the dark web has been declared a bad place because they sell things like that.
 
We should always do our own research and see how serious those who are offering some tokens to us are and if what they say they are creating is being created and developed as they say they are developing, because most of them are just making fake promises and using that means to raise funds from investors, but at the end they end up using up the money for their own selfish interests.

A project to be listed on an exchange like Binance itself big achievement and 99% of the time the projects won't reach that height but it doesn't make them a scam project which I agree. Also, the points mentioned in OP are good too and let's say it can help us to avoid 60-70% of the scam projects if we follow all those things but a project that has existed successfully here for years can even plan for an existing scam and that kind of scams can never be predicted.

Exactly, scammers can do everything possible to scam people, they do all that to make people to believe that everything is okay with the project and they can even work or be active for some years to do business with customers with a legal and legit ways but when they have accumulated enough amount which have been looking for them they would start the maintenance of the site and from the maintenance of the site everything would went off and your funds would get lost.

And really this guys have different strategies to scam people though what the op said is good but whenever investing in altcoins make a good research about the project before investing.

The only way someone can know if a project of altcoins is fake or not is to make a proper research of that particular project and also check the sponsors of the project, what leads us to venture or invest such kind of trade is because of greediness, because greedy investors will like to invest to a place that they will make a surplus profit, and that is one of the reasons they don't bother to know if the project is a scam one or not.

Waiting to see if it's listed by one of those 2 exchanges means literally nothing in terms of being legit or a scam.  A project and look legit in any fashion but underneath it they are just waiting to scam everyone.  I'd say looking at exchange listing to verify if a project is legit is probably one of the worstrways to determine that.

We always find that most scam projects that invite people to invest in them mention listing their currency on T1 or T2 CEX platforms as part of their promises and roadmap goals. In the end, you find that they did not fulfill their promises and falsely promoted the goal of listing to attract investors who would invest huge sums in the project in the hope of listing the token on Binance and other top CEX and then reaping huge profits. However, suppose the coin has already been listed on market-leading T1 exchanges. In that case, it is unlikely that the coin is a scam because listing it on such popular centralized platforms requires strict conditions and exorbitant fees. Listing a coin on DEX platforms is different from listing it on T1 or T2 CEX, and this is perhaps one of the signs that can be relied upon while doing researching to check whether the token is a scam or not. However, listing the currency does not guarantee the project's success, as it could be delisted later if there are issues or violations.

Usually, it is already too late before you realized that the project is a scam.
Just look at what happened to Terra Luna and FTX, they have been known to the community as successful ones.
Before they pulled the plug of being a crappy project, wherein a lot of investors lost huge amount of money.
If you are not very sure with the alt you are holding, then sell it while you are in profits.
Because if you wait too long, you may lose a lot because most alts decline its value thru time particularly those without valid reason of existence.

Exactly and I tend to agree with this, even though listed on a big exchange the chances of getting scammed are still there.

IMO, it matters on transparency.
Everything should be transparent, from the team, and community engagement, and the last is you can verify on Github because it is an open-source project.  Open-source projects allow the community to review the code for transparency and security.

Another is if it is listed on the market.
Beware the market manipulation, we should understand how tokens are distributed and whether measures are in place to prevent market manipulation.

This is the Crypto Market. And I think only one coin in which we can believe that is only Bitcoin because it is totally decentralized. Otherwise if you see others so they have the owners and they can manipulate their coins at anytime..
Like you have mentioned the two big Projects which crashed and scam people and grab much money from them. Luna and FTX both were the good projects but how they crashed no one expecting that.
So we can't say anything about any project because this is the crypto market.

simply, if you get a free token that you didn't have before and suddenly it is in your wallet. it is one of the simplest first aspects and can be realized by everyone.
just check the transaction, if it looks strange, and if it has been traded on the dex it usually gives a very high price. and users who acquire such tokens are usually interested in selling them. and if that happens, maybe your other assets in your wallet will be lost in a short time.

This can be a valid point but not a guarantee because over time the token eventually ends up being a scam, you remember FTX which even has its own exchange with quite large volumes and also how UST is also a token that harms many parties with its scandals, even the big exchanges themselves could end up being a scam. If you want to invest in tokens, you also have to be prepared for all possibilities, that's why keeping tokens or altcoins for too long will also increase our chances of getting scammed, even though there are altcoins that last a long time and continue to provide profits to their investors, but that is very rare.

If the goal is to check if an altcoin is a scam, you better just generalize. That would be a safer approach. After all, almost all altcoins are scam. They only differ in degrees. There are some that are not scam but these coins are not serious enough about their project or development that the prices of their coins or tokens are rarely increasing.

When it comes to altcoins, I can only recommend whatever is in the top. If you base your assessment on the things in your list, there is not enough screening and you are still at risk of ending with a scam altcoin.

It is also important to know the some of the project team members, their history is very important. Have they been part of any project that has succeeded in the past? Check out the team members social media handles on LinkedIn, X or another social media handles. I don't just invest in a project because there is a hype on it as most people are paid to hype a particular project.

Maybe the best thing to do is to treat all altcoins as scam untill they prove otherwise. With that consciousness, you will become more careful and make diligent research before investment.

This is correct. I'm decentralized exchanges many things happen and that is why I do not encourage newbies to use DEXs until they are aware of what they are doing and be strong to take the consequences of their decisions. In Dex people can create counterfeit coins and lure unaware investors to buy what does not exist.

Can't this be manipulated?

There are many method to check an altcoin is probably scam.
I think your method is good to follow

Your simple method is good but usually the coin/token price will increase too much when they got listed in binance.
And i have some token which got listed by binance but it's gone now

That's what I do too. Is good to see someone following the same tactics. What I use is Bitget and Binance.

As we all know that Binance most times they seem to list tokens late. Maybe when it has already done 10-50x they get to list it. But for the other exchange, they usually list token most often and most of the listed ones are usually good tokens. Some of which I have seen do well few days after it got listed

Identifying legit projects from scams can be a real head-scratcher. When I research a certain project, I focus on the problem it solves. Does the project address a real problem with a viable solution? Or is it all hype and empty promises? I also dig into the team, are they experienced, and do they have a proven track record? Anonymous devs are always a cause for concern. I also join their communities to stay up to date, engaged communities are a good sign.
You should be aware of guaranteed returns, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Steers clear of anyone promising moon-shot gains overnight.
DYOR is your mantra. Use your critical thinking, trust your gut, and don't be afraid to walk away if something feels fishy.

I appreciate your work of copy-pasting some texts from websites to give us some advice, but in reality, knowing which projects are scams and which are not isn't that easy.

I've been involved in cryptocurrency for quite some time already, and I've seen some projects in the past who has everything. A community behind it, trust coming from investors, a huge amount of money they got from various investors (through crowdsourcing), and a project with a good use case, but in the end, they scammed their investors. What OP said is pretty obvious, and an investor can know that quite easily. The problem is that there are some projects that at first we know will be a good project, but will scam people in the end. With new projects being created every single day, only a few of them are becoming successful.

This is my motto with regard to projects. "You will never know that a project is a scam until they become one."

It’s impossible to check & 100% come to the conclusion that an altcoin is a scam but you can do some due diligence. First research the team behind the project. Look for their experience, credibility & track record. Investigate the project's whitepaper & roadmap to assess their goals & plans. Analyse the coins community & social media presence. Be cautious of excessive hype & unrealistic promises. Look for transparency & clear communication from the team. Check for independent audits & reviews as well as any red flags such as plagiarised content or a lack of legal compliance. Remember to exercise due diligence & consult multiple sources before making any investment decisions.

It is not easy to know well about the newly born altcoin that it is trustable or not but if someone wants to avoid scame project then before investment they should read all the necessary materials present on the website of that project. Without knowing about the information of project on its website if one select certain token then I think its not about investment but its about gambling so be careful in choosing any project.

People are considering that all type of new project will be full of advantages but they forget that All creators of projects are not real but some of them show their greediness after gathering money from investors. The main point here is that don't be too greedy that without knowledge you are choosing any coin but be conscious as every penny possess an equal value for you so don't loss money but save it through stable and old coins investment.

This is very sad because developers who have the intention to scam investors can have a long term plan to gain trust and when they've reached their expected target they'll just crash everything, while their investors will bear the lose. So it's true that scammers can also follow the due process like genuine developers and fulfill all the KYC protocols, in the end their true intentions will still manifest.

This is by no means underscoring the OP well articulated warning signs that we should look out for when checking if an altcoin is a scam, they greatly help to reduce the chances of involving our hard earned money in scam projects. He has provided us with enough guidelines to carry out research on new projects, so it's left for everybody to decide whether to apply them or use other methods to carry out their research.

Some serious scammers will meet all these mentioned criteria and still scam people. They will make sure they get people’s trust by making good promises and show some good signs of potential to the projects and they will build their social media handles and also make good post and attempt to list the coins in some reputable exchanges just to encourage investors to fall victims.

Do you mean that Decentralized exchanges are not to be trusted? Or do you mean that they are listing coins without potential? Or are you promoting CEX?
Central exchanges are not to be trusted because of KYC. KYC has ruin so many people life and centralized exchanges has gone with people’s money that is why they are not to be trusted with our money as we have seen in some experience of FTM and others.

These are good signs to confirm if a project is legit.

There aren't any specific way that you can tell if a project is scam or legit. But the points that you have discussed here would actually be a valid way to see if something is scam or not. Then again it does not give the full picture. Despite being a good project for years, it could eventually scam people in the end.
Everything we are talking about are centralized and everything could happen to them at any given moment. For this reason, it does not matter how much the research you do, is the people involved in that project our scheming a scam then you can literally do nothing.
It's good to be cautious about everything. But if you send a little bit of suspicious behavior happening in the project, you should exit. Giving a second thought in altcoin market is the stupid idea.

Op you have well to list these steps, they can be added to one's research scheme to hunt out scam project. But I don't agree with your number 6,  because even legit newly launched coins are not listed immediately in exchanges, they have to take some time to monitor the coin for KYC and see if it's really worthy.



Scam projects are becoming more difficult to identify. The scammers we used to know are now going extra miles to make their scam look very legit. As we advance by tracing scam project, they are also looking into making it look legit. They don't care the sacrifices they'll have to pay to get their coins listed in any exchange and gaining enough market cap. Once they've achieved that, the next you'll know the coin turned out to be a scam. Even your own research could fail you at this instance, so I prefer just isolating myself from altcoins especially newly launched project.

OP, share your opinion. After participating in bounty companies for a long time, have you finally concluded that it is necessary to check projects for reliability? Moreover, you are unique enough to submit for approval an article that you simply copied, although you added a source. Tell us how difficult it was for you to migrate content from the Internet and then claim merit. ;D

For me, in term of new altcoins, any altcoins that are about to launch their project, I always consider those altcoins is scam until proven otherwise, even if their coin is already listed. All altcoin has a potential to end up into a rug pull. What I do is that I only invest the money that I can afford to lose.

Don't get me wrong tho, I still invest on altcoin, at least 15% of my portfolio is altcoins.

The more time you spend researching a project, the more likely you are to find information about the quality of the project, and all your verification methods are working, always follow them before risking your investment. You also need to subscribe to all news sources to stay up to date with the latest news about the project, so you can also stumble upon people’s suspicions about a scam.

How do you consider that you are scammed? In altcoin industry most of the project has their own market maker for their token. That means there is someone from the project team who will control the market. This also gives them manipulative power and most of the time they do that. Just look at the price of ICP in its early stages. It was above 400$ and now look at its current price. Those who have invested early will consider this a scam but if you look at the projects twitter handle and team development then you will see the project is more than alive. You will be fooled if you only look at the price of a project. If the team is developing and they are transparent about their work then it is a legit project.

These are basic check which has to be done for all the projects but from my experience most of the Altcoins project will promise stuffs which would look too good to be true or which will tempt you to invest only by looking at the return on investment as scam projects focus more on monetary bait rather than sharing details about their projects and what they have to offer. Also we need to reach out to validate their dev team members to see if it's genuine or not and some just morph the pictures hence it would be better tying to connect with them or their previous organisation or associations to know if they really exists. But sometimes it's difficult to identify scam projects as few of them looks legit but they aren't really legit.

Your points are useful to prevent scams but as far as I am concerned if you choose the right coin and the right exchange site you can stay away from scams. Coins which are not listed are more scams because no one knows when they will come to the market. If the coins are not listed I do not consider these coins safe.

  Take a look at his tokenomics, and if there is a whitepaper, read what the road map plan is. Then also look at social media platforms to see if they have built a large cryptocurrency community. Then, see if, from time to time, they give updates to their crypto communities.

  Although I'm not saying that what you mentioned is wrong, it may be true and helpful, but I didn't see what I said for that matter in what you posted here. Just always keep learning in this matter.

Check the team behind it. If they are not shy to post their faces and their profiles then there's a little chance they will scam their investors.
People are still afraid to go behind bars and as of recent news about cryptocurrencies, there are rich people who are getting sued because of their scammy projects. A team that is not trying to be anonymous has their faith in their projects and they will pursue to climb greater heights to the top 50.
But of course, we are not stopping there. Even if they are legitimate people behind one project we still have to make sure their platform can be a successful one in this new era. Some developers are just recycling projects from the ICO era and it's not good especially if those are trashed years ago. Check the whitepaper, it's very important.
From the past years, most projects who are climbing up are those that can trend, might as well check the marketing team behind them because they are also crucial in inviting more investors to increase the demand.

We are in the same. I do buy altcoin because I believe altcoin can make you a sudden millionaire. Although he can also make a millionaire to become a poor being within seconds. This is why it's advisable to only invest what you can afford to lose on altcoin.

Include also some exchanges that have listing fees, so for sure they don't care anymore about the project if it's legit or a scam because they only care about the fee they will get in the project, and last part, the users will be affected because these scam projects will just dump to retails.
But now there are some exchanges already improved, they have some research team to verify before listing, but for me it is still better to verify also it by yourself.

With my meager intelligence, I feel that I am not capable of understanding the cryptomarket until today.
Here everyone is saying one thing, the market should be researched well.
My question is how to research the market?
Market research is a project team members, their future plans, roadmap can be seen other than all these things?
Already we have seen many good project scams. All investors considered them as prestigious projects.
So I think if you want to invest in altcoin you can't be greedy. Don't get cheated by greedy overinvesting.

At the early beginning of cryptocurrency, scammers were less available in the space but nowadays scammers has put their eyes on crypto. They make use of the advantage of no way to trace token receivers to perpetrate their scams. There isn't any measure to avoid being scam in the space than for one to do his/her own research and invest less in altcoin.

Assume all new projects are scams, this may seem to be unfair for the few good projects out there, but when scams are so prevalent you cannot really afford to not think this way.

However if you are interested in one of those coins you need to do your due diligence while still assuming it is a scam, what you need to do is to try to find anything that does not match, like stolen pictures, inconsistencies with the resume of the developers, plagiarism and anything that may indicate they are not who they say they are, and if you find anything wrong with that project you need to assume the worst and not invest in it.

In my opinion, these checks are vital and necessary. Notwithstanding, new projects may be genuinely started with high prospects. But things may not go well as hoped for due to some circumstances.

Identifying whether an altcoin is a scam or not is not an easy task but it can be a good challenge for us not to be fooled and if we can recognize the altcoin is a scam, this is a great practical skill.
And in my opinion, the first thing to do is to carefully read all the white papers of new projects and find out whether industry experts believe that the project is legitimate or not. And we need to be able to do that because this is one of the most important aspects and initial coin offering, and the white paper should explain how their altcoin is designed and how it works. And if there's something strange or doesn't make sense, you should be aware of it.
And there is much more that needs to be done to find out whether an altcoin is a scam or not, but what I mentioned are the main factors.

I don't know but it's too hard to determine if that new altcoins is scam . Maybe some research can help to determine if that altcoins is legitimate or a scam. Anyways some altcoins will be successful for the first time but when time flies it will lost. There are many investors who are actually join new altcoins and then if they can make s profit they will leave once the coins getting lower . And it's a wise choice once we got a profit already then we can try another one to avoid such losses.

I agree that common sense and intelligence is the way to go, most people are missing out on that part of the deal. I get that it may not look that great, and I get that it feels like we are going to end up with some trouble, but the reality is that it's very normal and not a big deal at all. I understand that we are going to end up with a trouble if we get in without checking something, but if we are given enough time then we are going to end up studying something and figuring it out. What prevents people is not their stupidity, people are on average "smart" enough to see something as scam or not, if they are suspicious of it.

However, there are a lot of people who get hyped so much that they see the red flag and still want to believe in it. That is the biggest and main reason why people do not end up with getting scammed, because they want to simply believe a thing. This is why I believe that we should be careful with what we are doing, and be suspicious about it all.

New altcoins are constantly being born in the market along with the number of scammers. Except there are some established altcoins in the market, almost maximum altcoins can be scams. I think no matter how much testing we do, we can never know for 100% whether an altcoin is a scam or not. We often take a lot of information about the team behind the project, experience, credibility, roadmap, media. These are the right ways to know if an altcoin is really a scam. I assumed that the altcoin was good, invested there, kept it for a long time but never saw the pump of that coin, it turned into a scam at some point. Where altcoin assurance is questionable, how do I know it's not a scam.

It is not that hard to identify or guess which altcoin could be the next scam. Actually you should stop looking for scam projects and instead try to verify whether the project is legit or not. There are a few things that will tell us a project's intention in the long term. Look at the team behind the project and their past record, also understand their project concept and why their service is important. A legit project won't try to attract investors into their project or trap them in a certain price by manipulating the market. A legit project will work on developing their product and they will sell their product to their community not their token.

Thumb up bro. The truth is we cannot clearly identify all scam projects, some might look very obvious for us to identify by simple study and reading. While there are others that even your study won't point out the spots that makes it a scam project, just like what I said earlier, scammers are becoming very smart and they might want to make their coins pass through all the verification process to be considered as a reputable coin before they stike. However, we cannot tell for sure all the scam projects in the market. But I'm certain that there are the crypto network is filled with mixed multitude.

do detailed research and see who is behind the new project. Binance Labs is now the backer that will make the altcoin project successful. we can see projects collaborating with Binance Labs being successful and listing on binance. So the main reference is Binance Lab Backer and the rest see how the project works and what the benefits are.

Even if you check the social media of a project they seem to be authenticated. There are cons that are good in projecting their image in the public very well but the intention that they have is just to scam people. That's why all of the factors that you can use in figuring out a scam should be done in all sense as long as you're doing your end. This is applicable to those that are investing mostly with altcoins and are diversifying there that much, you need to double your effort in research.

The circumstance we found ourselves today will be prioritized base on our levels in the system, can we be able to spot out good work or called scam or illegitimate projects. Scams have turned to be the orders of the day in the market, we should apply precautions in all that matters and also try our best not to be over trading because that will definitely ruin our plans of solid goals in the market. I'm not trusting any new projects, I'll first of all do my analysis and ensure they're promising and not withstanding the present condition of the system.

this is a good suggestion, but for me it's too complicated  ;D
the easiest thing is to choose the top altcoins like ETH and BNB because there is obviously no doubt whatsoever about these altcoins.
Maybe I'll just add a little, also check social media such as Telegram and Twitter because there we can find various kinds of comments about the project.

I agree with you on this one, it might be difficult to know which  Altcoin is a scam but doing a careful research on the project will help identify the ones worth investing. Trying the  use of social media to verdict my not be too accurate because now getting the blue thick is very easy and can be afforded by this scammers.
From what you listed might not be sufficient enough to identify scam like projects cause they might get a 100% in all this but yet a scam. To identify a scam project you just need to go directly to the project, observe and try as much to see the future at which the team is working on if there is anything you think worthy then you invest, also watch out the hype, too much hype might indicate to be scam.

The best altcoin to invest in  and to take serious are  Ethereum and BNB, this two altcoins are very reliable in the market  compare to other altcoin. If one will consider to invest in other altcoins it should be with an amount that one can afford to lose because most of the altcoin in the market does not have market value , and it is not advisable to invest much amount of money in project that are not reliable in the market.  Some projects should just be seen as gambling because they can't be predicted.

Though it's true that tokens and coins added in centralized exchanges are more credible, however, this shouldn't be a metric to mark a project scam or untrustworthy because some serious projects might also struggle getting a spot in a centralized exchange and it also takes some time to work on all these things such as collaborations and agreements with different platforms and exchanges, and I know this because I have worked with cryptocurrency projects in the past and I know the process.

I think two of the biggest indicators of a project being legit or scam are its team and the social media presence. One should check the team first of all, if they aren't satisfied, they shouldn't invest in it. If satisfied with the team, one should check their online presence and how much interactions they have with their followers and whether they have bought followers or real ones.

You're correct mate, the rate of scam project in the market now, should be watched out for. Because, even after using the precaution measure we can't tell if we are in the right track. And apart from the scam project we have in the market, the volatility of some coins which are legit, can at some point be discouraging. Some coin after having enough increase, within a short period of time, they'll just go down as though they were about to crash back to price price zero. If you watched closely during the time Bitcoin got to $45k with just 6% increase some coins were having up to 46% increase, but yet after that they just came back down as though nothing happened.

Research the team behind the altcoin: Look for the developers, founders, or team members who are involved in the project. Check their background, reputation, and any claims they have made in the past. Signs of scams include poorly written white papers, excessive marketing pushes, and get-rich-quick claims

Examine the altcoin's contract and technology: Analyze the altcoin's contract and the underlying technology it uses. Look for any signs of manipulation, centralization, or potential vulnerabilities

Check for scam alerts: Use websites like BitcoinWhosWho or Scam Alert to look up the altcoin's address and see if there have been any scam alerts associated with it. These websites allow users to report scams and check the history of a specific Bitcoin address

Investigate the altcoin's community and marketing: Look for signs of a strong and engaged community, as well as genuine marketing efforts. Be cautious of projects with little to no community support or marketing.

Evaluate the altcoin's roadmap and future plans: Check the project's roadmap and future plans to see if they are realistic and achievable. Scam projects may have vague or unattainable goals.

What I check first is whether the token is listed on a big centralized exchange or not. If it is not then what OP wrote is the correct way to check if that altcoin is a scam. I do check the roadmap of the altcoin project to see whether there is a future or not for holding the token. As in altcoin the project being dead after a few months is considered to be a scam.

In this case of scams, Knowing which coins or tokens are already scams and which coins may be scams in the future are two different things. There are lots of websites that you can use for knowing that the coin is scam or not. You can use this website- https://honeypot.is/. And there are lots of way to find out a new coin who is maybe scams, first of all we should notice that if they are giving higher profit offers, and then the support systems.

Checking the whitepaper of the coin is also a way to find out if a coin is a scam or not, and if it is not listed on big centralised exchange that means it is not reliable project one needs to invest money in. Their many ways to know if a project is a scam projects or not. That is why it is important to make research before investing in any project because their are lot of scam project in the market.

Despite a lot of threads discussing How to avoid scams or to know scam projects still, a lot of individuals have fallen into their traps. I don't think all the tips really work, not for greedy souls and not those who think about easy money.

Perhaps, it was necessary to have an idea of which one is worth investing in and which one is a scam. But the big question mark is how to determine them when we don't spend time searching and knowing more about a particular project. To determine if that project is a scam, that lies on our capabilities.

Some of the things op had listed can be available on crypto project and the project still ended up to be a rug pull.
Many of these devs that are always creating new projects in the market allowing investors to put the money and withing a specific time, the token disappears and the liquidity drop to zero. Many of these scammers that are found of creating multiple project knows all these things and for their project to have large number of investors they would do everything possible to lure investors to put their money.

Exactly majority of features listed by the OP is not a yardstick to determine a real project care to know that some fake or scam projects do hire social media influencers to hype their project on various social platforms yet ended up as scam unfortunately crypto market is unregulated thus any Tom, Dick and Harry can create a token promote it vigorously such that it would look real and collect investors funds thereafter disappeared into thin air without a trace, I had personally experienced such a project in 2018 it developers created an impression of being a credible project unfortunately ended up as scam

Yes by checking the team member and originator of token you can easily know about the project future but a newbies cannot do this activity easily because he is new and he Don't know about any team member of any project. In white paper all the details are exist about project so we can read it to see whether this project is based on scam project or is real.



Yes visualizing the goals of a project can help you to see about scam project because some project managers describe their goals only but are unable to fulfil them so keep an eye on the roadmap as it clarify about the team members and that of project  nature.

Neither Binance nor Bybit defines what project is a great project. Do you know how difficult it is to list on Binance? The requirements is a lot that some really great project still can’t meet up with it. It’s okay if that’s your assumption, however, I’ve invested in really good projects on DEX like Pancakeswap and Uniswap. And don’t you forget that Binance actually delists projects too, and that tells you that even their judgement isn’t always right because they were the same people who listed the project for trading.

Right now the problem is sometimes those scammers share fake airdrop url to hack users wallet and many users are falling for it. If we don't want to be more skeptical about clicking any airdrop link we found in the internet and cross-checking them from the project's twitter handle or their discord account then there is no way we can get rid of this kind of activity. Same things will keep happening and there will be nothing we can do. We need to spread awareness about it.

The steps listed by the OP are not bad, it is just that scammers are too good at what they do and they can create a bunch of projects that at first sight may not seem to have anything wrong with them.

But it is precisely because of this we need to be very cautious, since a project that may seem to have everything in order could turn into a scam without any warning, and by the time you realize what is going, it will be too late to do anything and whatever money you invested in that coin will be lost.

These people are most likely a willing victim. I think they know the possibilities of a certain project being a scam, but they still want to take the risks because of the very attractive profit the project were offering. We may have a long lists of indications of a scam project, but any project could eventually become a scam regardless of how good the whitepapers is or how active the team behind it.
Not only that, most of the new alts created were terribly fail, which means it didn't bring any profit for the investors. This can be considered good as being scammed lol.
With hundreds of alts being created every year, it will be more difficult to make a research on what projects are most likely to succeed or the scam one. It's like 1 out of 100 ratio which would most likely to give you a good return. So, you need to find that 1.

This time around, I am in very conscious on how I participate in airdrops. Scammers and hackers are utilizing different skills to make sure that they steal by all means from people that don't have the full understanding of what they are capable of doing. It is good when we choose rightly and not to become some how greedy when we are making decisions. It is obvious that everyone needs this money and we have to be calm and thinking well when we are questing for more so we can earn more.

Absolutely and I almost fell for one such scam!

I saw a wallet's private keys shared in a telegram group where some tokens were kept worth like $1000 and the tokens were indeed trading on reputed exchanges. Now here comes the catch, the tokens require some ETH/BNB to transfer them. As soon as you send the amount for gas, they move it out and repeat the process.

Some of these scams want you to connect your wallet and wipe out the funds as you mentioned.

New projects may not always bring high potential. Be careful before participating in new projects that can be scams. New projects must research different sites. All the information about who is managing the project can be found out and then it can be said as expected. New things may go well in the beginning but may also face tough challenges later on.

They are usually scams and fake projects which is why they just fail. A reason why we should have carefully checked the background of the project and have suspicion is because scammers are too clever and smart, they use known personalities to hide their identity. Extra caution must be practiced and avoid investing in projects promoted by influencers as they are known for such things - scams.

But the best thing to do is to just only invest in old projects, they have records and use cases that are enough to think about earning a profit.

One thing you must know is, all this points just helps a little bit to increase ones security or aid a bit in knowing where we are putting in our money but it doesn't guarantee anything. because tokens can surpass all this points listed by Op and yet be a scam.

I have seen tokens that are pure scam but lasted for a long time in order to prove a point that they aren't scam just to bring interests of investors and as soon as the target is gotten they disappear from the chart.

The only thing we have to do is (DYOR) do your own research on anything you wish to invest in and because of the rate of scam project that is why we hear most of the time that only invest what you can afford to lose, hence nothing is guaranteed.

I found myself in a similar situation when I tried to exchange tokens from a spam airdrop for Uniswap. Fee for the swap were debited from my wallet, but the swap was not made. Selling wallets (seed phrases or private keys) directly is stupid and naive because both the seller and the buyer will have access to such a wallet.
From a recent scam I also remembered zkPEPE - a well-advertised airdrop with beautiful profit, which ultimately “sucked” money from the fee.

Nowadays, most new projects are low quality projects or scam projects. It is rather difficult to find out potential projects. Sure, we must be very careful to analyze the new projects and decide to join them. We can't focus on analyzing the whitepaper of the projects only, the developers become smarter to create good whitepaper. Sometimes, the whitepaper of the projects look very convincingly but in reality they are just projects with no clear improvement. And it is true that in some cases, the projects stopped suddenly and there are no more updated information from the teams/developers. As the results, the investors lost their funds because it is stolen by the scammers.

Because of this fact, I suggest to prioritize investing in old projects that have good reputation. The top projects can be the main target of our investment because they must be safer than the new projects.

I also agree that some are difficult to detect because at first they do it according to plan, then after getting the money they do things that investors don't want, basically all the money is turned back into the market.

I agree with your suggestion, although not all tokens can be on their blacklist, loading all the data takes time and I think the best thing to learn is to pay attention to the etherscan regarding supply and holders, comments usually occur when someone has experienced something bad/ Good.

New projects are usually scams and even seeing that a project looks so promising but can't guarantee its success. Because many of those projects turned into scams and ended their journey shortly. Some are gaining hype at the start but after a few days, they're gone. And this is the reason why we can't blame investors for rejecting new projects and with their bad experiences have made up their minds and decided to just choose old coins instead of new ones. In the end, only newcomers thought that new projects could be trusted and regretted later.

thanks for all the heads up about how to check them as scam or legit but for me if ever
i consider investing in one altcoin? Will just drop the name here and I will let the community answers
this for me because we have lots of great altcoin checker here , those bounty hunters and those
airdrop hunters  are mostly great at these so they will surely help me out about how to find and
what is the faith on that certain project but thank you for this sharing.

You are right, most of this scammers they know what investors are looking for they try to imitate what the standard of what Real projects exhibit.  People just need to be very careful with the project they are looking up to, some projects looks real but always end up to be a scam project.

Scammers can do anything just to capture the interest of investors,  some projects that claims to be good can end up to be a scam project.  Investors just need to be careful.

Scammers mostly target retail investors because institutional investors have the resources and manpower to research a project before making any investment. So there is no way an institutional investor will fall for some high-paying farming contract by some scammers. There are mostly some retail investors who chase high rewards in multiple project and end up being rug-pulled by one of the projects along the way. The most common way for scammers to attract retail funds is by providing a high incentive for joining the project.

That's correct, since institution investors use higher funds for investment, they make sure they are focusing on the right project before puting in a dime. I have never heard, a whale in the market got scammed by scam project. So if only we can dig deeper then you can find the right coin to invest in. But since most scam project now have so qualities of a legit project, it would be difficult to just differentiate them by doing small research.

As an individual, even with enough research you may still fall in as victim for scammers. Crypto scammers are just becoming more expert this days. They make things so real that it becomes difficult to identify a scam project from the real one. But my question here is "how do this institution investors make their research?" Do anyone here know any institution investors that one can follow for good projects?

every popular investors like binance labs and so on always announce their investment in their blog, or if you want to know which project are invested heavily by some big investment company try dropstab this platform present you with the data, but for larger insitutional investment company that manage billions they usually just gonna stick with the major coin like bitcoin and ethereum since they have big capital investing in it worth it for them because 30% increase alone already grow their billions dollar capital and will easily give them hundred millions of dollar increase.
its simple math really, the big investment company always stick with relatively low risk asset.

That's according to dappradar what about your experience? I think everyone has experience and scrutinizes every project that will be followed, especially a dapp that is connected to a personal wallet with a foreign website beforehand to buy altcoins. I read in this thread maybe I'm not the same because of the views of some people, I agree that altcoins also have the right to show the process, including the initial purchase on dex, even many have profited from this initial purchase, because if it is already on cex in my opinion people's trust is enough and that's where trading takes place, not for investors to buy cheaper, some people may believe, but it doesn't have to be listed on the favorite cex instantly because many dex also behave and have good character until now. the most important thing is that the web is secure not cloning phishing. Also many altcoins have become giants starting from dex and following in cex. if in doubt I make it a habit to use a new wallet or can revoke / disconnect completely even with the service.

It can indeed be a reference in analyzing a project, but I think there will be pros and cons because everyone has their own opinion, unless the project really has clear shortcomings, then I think the opinion you will get is do not invest in these altcoins. However, you also need to develop research skills so that you can also make decisions at the right time, because sometimes, accurate opinions come not at the right time.

One just need to be care on the project they embrace, lot of scam projects out there , very attractive that investors would really want to invest think it is a project worth investing to make gains . Despite the rate of scam project that is in the market if good research is done be for investing altcoins it will help and prevent people from scam project.

Whales also become victims sometimes due to hacks and exploits, but institutional investors take certain measures to protect their investments from being scammed. They use a multi signature wallet and custodial service provided by top companies that also have insurance. So if somehow anything goes wrong their loss is nominal and they don't feel the pain much like retail investors do. So as a retail invest we needs to be careful about our investment and work with our investment strategy.

Many people have different ways to check if altcoins is real project or a fake project, but to know that this project is a good one you have to make a properly search before you can conclude and this particular Project scam Project or not because many people does not cross check they can of Project there are into before they will be able to access it or be able to check it.

So it is advisable for someone to at least make a necessary research concerning imported of any cryptocurrency or investment but the many people they Rush to invest because it is a new one that is being launched so that is why some of them and up of losing their capital during investment of this kind.

What I would advise any person who is interested in any crypto investment to check the project first and know the person that is not the project if really the owner of the project or the team who is on aching the project there are from reliable place when I come they comment to any person to invest in such Project

There is a common way to check for project legitimacy. Look at who is backing the project, who the team members are, and their past experience and record which can be found in their LinkedIn profile, also look at their social media to ensure they are transparent about their development with their community. These are some common things to look at before making any investment in a project. With all these, a project can still turn into a scam but the chance for that is low.

I think it's still very difficult to find out directly which projects are scams or not, because there are some good projects but because they are still new and indicated to be scams, I think automatic checking via bots is still not optimal.

You can use all these methods that you have listed, but it is also still worth to observe the project, and its stability. I discovered TFS token in this way, and I can say that I am still happy with its high APY.

There are quite a lot of existing scam projects and so many are being created daily, thus i just take every new project to be a scam until proven otherwise. I don't invest in altcoins that's why i do that, but i know it would be difficult for an altcoin investor to do so because they have to buy coins early and sell them once they have made ROI.

It is what it is, and if someone decides to invest in a lot of altcoins, they must understand the risk and that it is even akin to gambling, you might think a project is legit and be completely wrong, and the reverse could also happen. Every altcoin investor must be ready for things such as these, thats why i buy only Bitcoin.

I think the same, it may seem to be too negative to think of all new projects on that way, but I cannot really afford to not do it, since the consequences of investing in the wrong coin can be devastating, a thing we see very often on the forum and that will become even more common as the halving gets closer.

So anyone that wants to invest in those coins needs to approach their research in the same way, as someone that is overly optimistic about the prospects of a coin will miss out several red flags that could have allowed them to not invest in a coin that eventually turned into a scam.

The sixth point is what I often use as a benchmark if I want to know whether a coin is good and worth considering. A coin being listed on a large centralized exchange has a great impact on the future of that coin. So it could be said that it deserves to be included in the list of coins that should be held for a long time

Big investment company and larger institutional investment company sounds the same. And both will prefer less risk assets because like you said, they are investing huge amounts of money and then they are hodling their assets for a very long time. Those who invest in risky assets were maybe a single individual only but they are still richer than the most of us here.

Binance Labs is a kind company that can investment in risky or newer assets but they are different because they are a crypto based company. And their terms are also different. They can be able to hype up a project and they can eject on the ship easily if they think they already reach their desired profit and/or if they think the project is starting to go bad.

I don't really understand this. Is this "dropstab" an app or a website. I will like to know how it works. If it a website, kindly send their link to me. I wish to invest some little amount in altcoin and believe this and some other research can guide me through the process.

We can't overemphasized on the negative impact of greed on our overall financial decisions, because greed have limits alot from gaining the right information and knowledge about a particular projects, sometimes, due to that greed, any have lose large amount of money and some are still losing, so the place of greed in investment as a negative tool is quite large, because greed have been the reason for the whole crisis and loses that have occured in many projects and this is still continuing to some certain level at some point, when you talk about investment most especially in crypto market, you have to look into those projects that promised alot but give the gambler's near to noting when the reality down on them, this is what haveade many altcoins project to look like a red spot for all of us some time.

So if you want to select the right coin for an investment, you have to first of all check out all the necessary components that make up for the team and how realistic and futuristic Their are in their approach.

We know what to do what to check if these coins are scam or legit enough. There are more coins to buy in the market, we just have to maintain consistent actions when dealing with the system, I know it's not an easy job but with good performance winning becomes very very important and a priority for everyone of us in the system.

Even with all those step, even when everything is checked, I always assume new altcoin is a scam until proven otherwise. When I choose to invest in an Altcoin especially the new one, I always put in my mind that I am ready to lose the money I have invested, I only invest what I can afford to lose. It doesn't mean that I didn't do research, I still do research but if my research was wrong and my money is lost, my financial condition wouldn't be affected too much, I will still be able to continue my life.

Indeed, using frozen money to invest in new altcoins is important, remembering that sometimes we have carried out in-depth investigations but in the end it doesn't match the analysis, and projects that look good, but don't turn out to be in accordance with the analysis, therefore prepare yourself and don't expect anything more. on new altcoins will help our psychology in investing

It's not that there won't be a risk if we entrust it to a new altcoin, even though it looks good, but of course it hasn't been tested, so there is a possibility that something will happen that goes beyond predictions and analysis, which is expected to be fine. Analyzing can be done, but sometimes the accuracy of the analysis we carry out is not appropriate to the situation due to limited knowledge.But trying to speculate can be done, and I agree if you can use the extra funds that are available and not interfere with daily activities if something happens that is actually detrimental.

Well, Although investing in Altcoins includes high risk but if you want to verify the project check project activity are they active in the community? check their social media handle to stay up to date if the team is not working actively and not reponsing the community it may be a bad choice to invest in the project So, always invest in altcoins at your own risk. Always invest your big capital in bitcoin and short in altcoins it is my opinion but you should do your own research.

Talk to the Community. That's the Best way. Or Learn Everything about it, and Take it over Yourself like the Telegram TON Coin and Chain.

These are all great tips but in the end a well disguised scam will get through all of these checks.  Always good to look deeper into some of these that you pointed out it can at least detect the lazier scams.  I'm more worried about the long game scams that are disguised as good functioning projects.  Those types usually bail with tons of money vs the lazy ones that don't even pass the initial sniff test.

depends on which community we are talking about if we are talking about the community behind the scammy projects its either filled with people who have no idea, or people who are working together
behind the scene with the project owner.
also it reminds me certain rugpull that just happened not too long ago in certain L2, the scam project raised few hundred ETH then suddenly vanished into thin air, that is the thing with investing in a new project.
you're basically just betting your money away and see whether this random stranger gonna held true to their word or not and thats most certainly a ridiculous way to bet your money because we are not talking about odd, we are talking about whether certain person behind the project actually can be trusted because we all know some random people over the internet definitely 90% of them can't be trusted.

To tell if an altcoin project is legit, you've got to do your homework and check who's backing it. But why do we jump into these trades? Well, it's often because of greed. Greedy investors just want big profits and don't bother to check if the project's legit or not.

All your points is trues how to check with potential one altcoin is scam, its most important talk to the beginner when start investing in altcoin exactly many useful points describing about altcoin has chance to be scam. I like with several your points and seems based on my experienced when facing scam altcoin, there are altcoin listed only at decentralized exchanges (DEX) and developer easily removing liquidity with their coins and the investors can't sell the coins until becoming scam.
I think if developer braveness bring their coins not only listing but in decentralized exchanges (DEX) but also CEX exchange are available for trading its less chance to be scam except delisting by the exchange its self.

If a scam coin gets listed on CEX, that means the process may have convinced many investors to join in the project development. and the victims may be even more numerous if that happens.
The case that we often encounter today is as you said, developers take away their coins with lots of profits, and investors will only become victims and complain about the losses they get.
It is highly recommended for beginners in crypto investment to join new projects. some coins are already quite large in the market and they can practice how to invest well with coins that already have a large market.

Yes you're right altcoins needs a very deep research of the market and trends. It's more suitable to invest after some of the time has passed because then you get some information and graphs to get an eye on the ups and downs of the project

moreover you will get to know how the team of the project is performing and how much they are serious about their project because the use case of the project in future is very for its growth no project can survive without having some meaningful and technical aspects.

If you want to invest in alt coins, you should analyze its market trends in detail. Many of us have a tendency to invest in a new coin when we see it listed in the market. Before investing in these coins they should observe well how the project team is performing or working.

Among the most scammed alt coins are new coins that have recently been listed on the market. The owners of these projects earn enough money after the token is listed but those who invest in these coins end up money loss.

This seems for me is more on advertising/promoting their site but yeah still this is helpful so I am gonna save this for checking.
thanks for the tips and thanks for sharing that link so I can save it easily now.
it is given above mate, almost complete advise for everyone who don't wanna get scammed.

First, of course, understand in detail what altcoin you want to choose.
Even though it's an old altcoin, if you don't understand the ins and outs of the coin, it will certainly confuse you in making investment decisions.
Don't just because of the hype then you decide to invest with a lot of money. At least you know clearly what and where the altcoin is heading.

OP the points you raise are correct, but out of the many alt coins it's really hard to tell which coin will actually be the most comfortable to invest in. New coins are born in the market constantly, I think it is not possible for a person to analyze thousands of coins and invest. I have noticed that in most cases new coins start pumping a lot in the initial stage, many people are attracted to invest in new coins without proper observation, judgment analysis. Many times the new coins entering the market seem good after researching them but later the coins turn out to be scams. However I always prefer to invest in the top coins in the market to avoid scams and risky trends.

Thank you for the update of checking process not to fall a victim of scam project, but I still see alt-coins as a game of investment in which after all the checking, Coin that we dump, we still dumped one day, as far as Luna, FTX Coin and some other alt-coins can break people heart and up to date have not recovered from dip. I still prefer Bitcoin as the best, reliable Coin and stress free investment for a long time holding.

Most of this scammers has a better of making things look real they read the mind of investors and give them what they expecting like trends in other to draw publicity and widespread adoption, their is no guarantee that any project that meets up the characteristics listed above can not a scam merely.

You just listed a lot of normal stuffs, how do we know those social media red flags, if you really know what you are saying then I guess you would have given more details.

The only real thign on your list is to check if they have been listed out on any big exchange, big exchanges mostly filter this scam projects out but even thonsome of them with bad managers that are scammers still find their way in, not all tokens listed on binanve are good projects and worth to invest your money on.

I would have said for you to read whitepaper and check out for their team members, but scammers are getting innovative about this they now hire professionals to write their whitepapers and its very hard to find our faults in it, but checking out for team members is still very valid.

Just pray that you don't get unfortunate and fall for scam altcoins. Those responsible for these crypto scams are now so smart that they would spend money to make their platform look so real and even list it on one of the tier 1 exchanges just to win the trust of investors. The money that would be scammed would be times ten of what they have put in to achieve the goal. Which is a brilliant idea. In my opinion, the best way to avoid scam projects is to invest in coins that are only listed on Binance and Kucoin. They are more trusted because they have gone through a deep investigation of the project on Binance, and they know how much it costs to list your projects on Binance; it takes only legit projects to get listed there.

It's like I have emphasized on this so many times so I know quite to wear that you must make a research in any new project before you can be able to understand or no if the project of altcoin is a scam Project or not a scam Project that is why it is necessary for every cryptocurrency investors to make a proper research to know available coin and the non-valuable coin so that when they invest on it they will expect to make a profit but when you have not make a proper research and you invest in a coin that is every tendency that that Project might be a scam one because you have not go deep to make a possible research concerning the project before investment. To know a scam Project can be only be possible when you have cross check the furtherance of the project very well.

You are very correct. There is no length the founders of scam project cannot go to make their project look legit until they achieve their aim which is scam people of their resources. There have even been several cases of altcoins that that did KYC, pass audits by many reputable auditors, raised big amount of money and even did solid marketing yet they left their investors crying at the end. I even learnt that some of the KYC data they collect are sold in dark web, they scam people of their funds and still sell their data. Like you said, it is always best to do our own research about projects to invest in to avoid regretting anything. We should also be mindful of the level of information we release so we are protected from harm.

not all tokens or coins I call tokens because if a coin is one that has its own network, for example, bitcoin and ETH itself. so if you check the scam coin or not only through etherscan, obviously you can't. because if the coin does not use the ETH network, it cannot be checked on etherscan.

ROFL. Use eth to check if an altcoin is a scam when eth itself is a gigantic scam. If an altcoin has a huge majority of the supply premine like eth then it is 100% a scam.

Most at times, merely looking at the project one can tell the project is actually scam like and it's quite enough reason to avoid them. First go through their social media platforms, read and understand every little detail sorrounding the project using their white paper and as well check out the hypes and trend if anything suspicious before probably investing one's money.

You don't know if a project is a scam by merely looking at it what does your look have to do about scam projects will you discover a scam project that has been well programmed by profession scammers by looking at it without making proper investigation? Apart from using their white paper to make more findings a good research and looking at their social media handles can also help to find out the history of the project and to monitor the news and information they pass across their social media platforms will give you more insight if you should invest or run as they are scammers unseen.

I maybe wrong by using the word merely looking at the project one can tell the project is actually scam like.
Most at times I don't have to first go through the project white paper to read most trash, I just go to their community handles and do a close observations, it often turns out to be scam at the very end.