Bitcoin Forum

Few months ago, I discussed the distinctions between Altcoins, Shitcoins, and Meme Coins. And how likely we can easily get good alts on cex. Not like those coins listed on Cex are fully safe but you know what to do when you see a token get listed.

if you've time, you can read it up here; https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5472568.msg63092909#msg63092909

DEX is also a place where we can get a series of rugpulled projects and also a place where we can get good tokens very early. But I'm not here to drag between DEX and CEX which is better. I want us to educate each other from our experience and what we have learnt so far over the years.

One reason for falling victim to rug pulls is our tendency to buy coins when the hype is overwhelming. When this happens, those who bought earlier use the advantage to sell on those who got FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) and use it to their benefit by exiting with the liquidity provided by those caught in the FOMO cycle...

Another reason is Influencers: Some influencers are paid shillers, not genuine with the project they're calling on their members to buy on. All they focus on is the pay they will get after shilling or dumping profit made by their users

Lastly, fake promises. This is one of the major problems faced while buying a coin. When you check most project white papers, you see that some of the developers would promise what is too real to be true. The project will be this and that and as time passes by, nothing ever happens

I know there are other ways we do fall victim which I think is ok if we share our experience as well but then, how can we bypass this?

1. Check their community: check if their community is active with real humans, not bots

2. How many followers they got

3. How often do they post on social media

4. How many exchanges got them listed? The two qualified exchanges I check, which I have mentioned frequently are Binance and Bitget. These two Cex usually list quality tokens which from my experience I have benefited from

For instance, consider ICP (Internet Computer): How familiar are we with this coin? How many of us have researched this project? A thorough investigation would reveal the untapped potential of some projects, unlike the more well-known ones.

What about COREUM, an intelligent smart token designed with built-in smart contract functionalities, suitable for businesses of any size.

Have we explored ZETA? What about HOLD? There are thousands of promising altcoins waiting to be discovered.

I know most people's challenges lie in how much time is dedicated to research new coins regularly. Often, we focus on well-known projects for quick profits, but what about the long-term utility these newer projects might offer? If we do a consistent 3-4 hour research on new coins daily or on coins which get listed (which I do on the above cex I mentioned) you did see that we can bypass some problems of getting scammed or rug pulled.

Well, that didn't help with FTX and LUNA crashes, but this definitely can help with most coins and tokens. I'm simply buying coins that were tested over time.

A large percentage of new altcoins/projects do not have any utility, they are basically pump and dump coins that are only influenced by hype and nothing else. How many news coins have real world utility, something people would need and use in the society? Nearly zero.

Having said that, you can research all you want about these projects and still buy a scam coin or a worthless coin, because these projects always have a lot of promises in the beginning, but 9 out of 10 times it turns out to be fake and unrealistic promises, thus i think it is better if people stick with known and older projects.

Exactly as the first comment said, all of these criteria you have given to watch out for when chosing a coin to invest on were all found with FTX and LUNA still they all got rugpulled or should I say collapsed that it affected the investors of this tokens that for some they lost their life as a result. Something about this listed token on exchangers wether CEX or Dex we can't certainly know which token would stay for long as possible so investing with amount you can afford to lose should be a key principle to abide with when dealing on altcoins.

Even though what happened with LUNA and FTX was something completely unexpected, I would say altcoins are not to be trusted for very long-term investments, but they are only good for short and medium-term trading because even if a project does seem promising at the beginning, it might have everything you are looking for in your research, it will still have the possibility of going to zero if things don't work out for the team.
That's why, one should either use altcoins only for short and medium term investments or simply accept the risk and invest amounts that they can easily afford to lose in them just to try their luck and see if the projects actually turn out to be good in the long-term.

Do you know why I refuse to talk about the coins that have stayed for long? Is because people might say yea the project was indeed promising. Ok, let's look at the crash of SOL to $8 and even this ICP I talked about, fell from $1k+ to $10 or less. What happened? They keep rising..

If you did check out the things I listed on how to about getting scammed or rug pulled you did see where I talked about community and developers. If the developers are genuine, the community will be active, and when the community becomes active, that's when the project will rise.

I do believe some alts are still good for long term regardless and trying out new ones would be helpful

I understood you though with the first commenter but what was the news behind these coins before the crash. You know, there's something we all need to know before a crash of any coin. There usually use to be rumours.

Its sad to say but I was victim of LUNA crash, and I learnt so much from it. We all need to be observant or at alert with every news we come across

You can't rely on the rumours to save you from getting rug pulled and that is why we call it as rumour. Honestly we can't know for sure until we got rug pulled which means we can never know but we can stay away from the projects that are shitty, useless and hyped by shitty people or the team behind is completely new.

I would do the same but I know that there are a lot of people out there who are still holding on to that hope that they might be the next billionaire that the altcoin they have invested into is the next Bitcoin

Hope is a dangerous thing more often times than not even if we see something that is too good to be true, we are still hoping it might be true because if it is then it would give us tremendous amount of benefit so we jump into it even if we know it is risky

Time and time again we are reminded that the key to investing is being objective and keeping a clear head you can not let FOMO affect you accept your losses and plan your next move instead of trying to reach for what has already been hyped

Play stupid games, win stupid prices. Don't invest in shitcoins, don't get rugpulled.

If you only invest in safe coins like btc, eth, doge, ltc... You will never get rug pulled because these are proven to be safe projects. If thy go down, flash crash etc, it will be a buying opportunity because they usually recover not long after. People bought the dip with LUNA and it crashed, they bought the dip again, then it crashed even more. Shit like that won't happen with the major crypto coins because it is the mass adoption that keeps them alive. LTC for example, even though it is down a lot from its ATH, it is still being used a lot in the casinos because it is cheap to make transactions. It simply cannot die.

I always try to avoid bad project and i choice always good project for future.

and those investors are really that confident of the popularity of the projects after all the celebrities promoting them. the stories of these two will live long in memories.
the one general rule of thumb i think that should be followed to avoid getting rugpulled is to sell everything whenever the bear market comes.  dump it all and forget crypto, you can buy back the crypto investments you have whenever the market is done dumping it all.  

I know that Rumuors can't help 100% but that's why it's rumour.   Ok, let's use Binance issue with SEC and regulations as an example. When we heard the news about CZ going to court and all that, what most people did was withdraw their money out of the exchange to be safe till they were sure they were safe. The same rumour happened to FTX but we weren't careful enough.

While for the token, I would still say, be observant of the developers.

That's why I said community and developers matters. There are a lot coins aside LTC that crashed from their ATH and still yet are been used regularly. We all are saying the same thing still

Well, what is happening behind the scenes cannot be anticipated or predicted. You do your best that you do not fall for crypto projects that may rug pull yet things go nasty sometimes. Investing in crypto is risky and one of the risks is what you are discussing on this thread. There are trusted and accepted cryptocurrencies that have created their brand name and I think investing in them always ensures that the risk is not that high.

Indeed crypto investment is risky and you have to be careful when making your choice of coin, the fact that a coin get listed in the cex doesn't guarantee that the coin is absolutely not a scam project in fact, scammers do their best to make sure their scam project looks legit so as to attract more investors. That is why I advise we stick with few project rather than picking multitude of projects in your portfolio.

In my own view, there are no known ways and means to guarantee that a certain project would not go south - or rugpulled as they say which is presenting an image to me of people holding empty bags as the coins/tokens they trust suddenly lost value. Well, I have to admit it that am one of the many victims of rugpulls even with those I analyze well and seems to possess no red flags prima facie. This is a big negative reality in the crypto industry as people show their greed either get the money or lose the money. I am looking forward that there can be solid solutions to this problem.

Would like to agree with this since on other hand no project will show some signs that they are going to scam there supporters that's why they always present good so that they can attract a lot of people then also they could get a hype to more bigger audiences that's the reason the less thing we can do with this is to take good precautionary measures like don't try to believe so much on many things they say especially if they claiming to get a huge pump in future and they would go the same what bitcoin gets.

For now the only solution we can get from those project who do this rug pull scheme is not to hold their tokens and sell then find new project which usually have been done by other investor so that we will not get scammed by those scammers.

Thank you for this, but I must say that they can guide us but are not the sure ways to avoid being the victim of rug pull. The surest way is to avoid being greedy, wait for the listing of a good project and know the brains behind it as it is in some. Rug pull is happening regularly in cryptocurrency and outside it and it is mostly because the projects in question are either scams from the beginning or the developers and the brains behind it just decided to be greedy at a point. It could be a failed project in some cases too. But what is important is for us to ensure that we are not too forward due to FOMO. However, this advice could one one-sided too as some people have been greedy and too rushed to buy some projects and they are now millionaires due to that. Without risk, no one can be outstanding, so let's keep on taking risks but just be wise with it.

All what you mentioned is not a guarantee that the project will not end up to be a scam. Even the early buyers of those shitcoins might not make profit from it after the hype, especially those that want to keep holding it, thinking that it is a good project. It is only the dev that hype the coins that knows when the coins will dump. This is why it is good not to invest in new projects if you must buy shitcoins, rather you should invest in coins that have stayed long in the market and has a big market cap. However, it is better that you stay away from shitcoins if you are just new in the crypto space, because it is like you are gambling.

I make sure to thoroughly research projects to avoid potential risks., two mentioned projects by OP that caught my eye (ZETA and COREUM). In particular, Zetachain has been generating buzz for a while now. It's listed on major exchanges like Binance and is currently featured on Bitget's Launchpool. It's been some time since I've seen this much hype surrounding a project like Zetachain. With all the traction it's getting across platforms, It seems worth looking into.

As far as I'm concerned if you are new to the crypto space then it's best not to use these coins. The coins you mentioned are not trusted by new investors easily. Investing in crypto is risky If you don't choose the right project you will be exposed to a lot of risk. Do market research There are many good coins they are of good quality and trusted investing in them will be low risk.

We need to have good knowledge about the project we want to invest in and some common sense to avoid any rug pull. If you look at any recent project that was rugpulled then you will see that those project had little information about the team, and their whitepaper is mostly copied and paraphrased. Some projects even don't have any working websites, but their tokens are already listed in dex. We need to keep in mind that a token's price appreciates when that price is derived from token utilities.

The best way to dodge being rug pulled is to avoid investing on shitcoin. It’s very hard to determine rugpull unless the devs already committed because not all scam project is very careless to show the sign that they will abandon the project later.

There’s a lot of instances that a good project turn into scam after the CEO decided to run while other member doesn’t know about it. So the best way to avoid being rugpull is to completely stop engaging on it. Purchase only tokens that listed on high reputation CEX with good amount of volume for a long time.

Should they choose to, stick with known or old projects? Most crypto investors are mainly drawn to projects that would provide them with immediate financial gains. Projects that are beneficial to them in the long run do not pick their interest. Their sole concern is the gains it brings, disregarding the fact that not all altcoins can withstand the test of time after going through one or two bearish markets.

The lesson here is to avoid investing in altcoins just because they are new and have a rising price because these are not good reasons to buy them. Investing in altcoin should be because you think it's worth gambling for, nothing more. 

Yes that's right. If you are new to the world of crypto, the wisest move is to avoid new coins because usually new coins like this will not last long, even if they are launched like good coins or something. However, the large number of new coins makes beginners trapped, causing them to lose money. The risk is too high for new coins for beginners, so for beginners, the safest move is to invest in CMC top 10 coins.

However, for those who are very familiar with the crypto world, this new coin could be the right step to get multiple profits, of course it must be based on serious research. And in general, to make a profit from new coins, never miss the moment, because if you miss the moment you usually won't make a loss.

We need to be prepare to face whatever outcomes that the marker or our investment in the market triggers, it's really a top choice for everyone to master and enchance our ability of becoming more safer when dealing with the system. We know the market is filled with volatility and most of us can't stand the heavy losses that would be recorded in our portfolio when we make the wrong decisions. Getting the complete information regarding a project should be our first step because that's one of the basic techniques to keep winning in the system.

Sometimes shitcoins are well disguised as something really valuable, they lure people with advertising on social networks, offering favorable conditions. First of all, I look at the activity in messenger groups, if the activity is suspicious, the communication filled with bots is not productive, then I avoid such projects, sometimes it helps to avoid bad experiences.

all these things you mentioned are actually being used by shittokens to rugpull innocent investors. getting a lot of followers in social media and active community is very easy with little bit money nowadays. they pay some money do some marketing. build a community. get hundreds of thousands of followers then innocent people like you think that is a legit project and fall fo them.
the only way to avoid ruggpuls are to not invest in any project in early phase. only invest when you see the project is properly launched with a working product and listed in reputable exchanges.

In my humble opinion, one of the best ways for anyone to see whether one can get rug pulled or not is getting a look at the economics of the coin itself. The concentration of the coins and the amounts of whales is something which can be easily verified using a Blockchain explorer, if the explorer show little massive concentration of coins in few hands, then there is less possible for a single entity to pull the rug under our feet.
Though, it is a good method to have a glance on a coin one would like to invest in, it is not a panacea against scams and fake projects. One needs to also take a look at the code of the project, and look for suspicious commands, anything which would help scammers to drain the liquidity of the coin against other coins which are more reputable.
For example, there was a project based on the Squid Game, a series which used to be on Netflix. The coin/token was specially programmed, so holders could not sell their invested after buying it, making the price to spike to very high levels, so scammers could be the only ones able to keep the valuable Binance coins of the liquidity. Those featured or lines of code which would not allow holders to sell their holding is the kind of thing I would first try to find when looking at code. I am not an expert can code, though, it takes experience on it to spot those traps.

Your list are quite right but just one wrong decision you can destroy the plan and process. This doesn't give full trust about any project cause I have seen few projects that went well from start and all of a sudden the project got crashed and investors where left with no option to accept the fact. Altcoin investment is just took risky to joke with so if you're not ready then don't invest. You can still decide to take those risk and make some profit so it depends on the kind of coins. You listed the step investors should take before buying any coin, I will prefer to buy a coin that has gain trust or rather has influence, secondly don't trust any coin easily with few testimonies we hear online cause those testimonies might be false, sometimes people who share those testimonies are part of the project. When dealing with altcoin we need to be smart

We cannot use followers on a new project's social media account as a reference for whether the project is a scam or not. especially if the project creates an airdrop campaign, it can increase followers by tens of thousands in a short time.
If a community is built from an airdrop campaign, we can't be sure if it's a bot or not. because I'm sure every person who signs up for the airdrop might create more accounts to join.
it increases the community as well as followers. it can even increase trading volume after the token is launched on an exchange. but most of the community will release the coins and not hold them. if project marketing does not get support from a strong market. it will be very difficult for new projects to compete or even survive for long.

The best possible way to make something like that would be just realizing you are not going to end up making as much profit as you think you could and when others suggest there is a way to make more money than you could ever imagine, considering it a rug pull. That has saved me a lot, all those places that promised me 5000% return a year? I stayed away from them and without missing a beat, all of them turned out to be a scam.

Nobody and nothing in this world could guarantee you a 5000% return a year, and that should not be really a big deal, it is simply just staying away from them that could make some sense. I hope that we could move towards doing something much bigger, like sticking with some solid good investment in the end.

Even with real people on their communities, no one has the idea if they're going to rugpull but only the developers of it. That's why even if with good conversations and active developers informing their communities about the updates and stuff, you'll never know if they're about to do it or not. That's why at most times, they're just surprising but right now it seems that they've become lesser because the success rate has increased for most projects and that's due to Bitcoin's upcoming halving that will result into a bull run.

I guess part of the reason why RWA projects will be very popular soon and become investors' choices to avoid getting rugged by these shitcoins being created on an hourly basis.
If you can not identify which project is likely to rug pull better to stick to Galxe and sort out what project to interact with reason why is most likely all those projects on galxe have undergone some form of vesting to ensure the safety of the investors.
So many projects out there but only few are actually here to build long term.

Just don't participate in them. I think thats the only way to avoid rugpull. If everyone does that, then they won't have enough people to scam and this trend of rugpulling will become dead.

I know these didn't work with two major projects FTX and LUNA which were rugpulled and people lost huge amount but what OP is trying to do is atleast listing out certain check we need to do in order to avoid falling for other such process, because if you randomly check any new projects which are getting launched everyday they will lacks the features or we can judge them by using the methods OP has mentioned but there are few projects like FTX and LUNA wherein everything will be 10 out of 10 but still they would cheat the users and this is something we cannot help as no other verification method can give you 100% results or accuracy but atleast we can avoid those scams which can identify.

Better to stick to established crypto coins.

I think we can avoid getting rug-pulled if we don't fall into FOMO. When a coin/token suddenly shoots up in price, most of us are enticed and speculate about significant profits, imagining that it won't go down. In such scenarios, what we should feel is fear of entering because there's a high possibility that the price will drop, no matter how legitimate and promising the project may seem.

We should focus on researching potential, legitimate, and genuine new projects. During the most unexciting phase of their project, such as when the coin/token has a very low value, lacks attention, and hasn't been listed on major exchanges yet, that's the ideal time to invest. Since the token's value is still low, we can acquire a significant amount even with a small investment. This way, we won't constantly worry about being rug-pulled because we entered at the lowest point.

I agree with number one. Though sometimes some innocent groups get flooded with bots, if their telegram group isn’t flooded with bots, it’s a good sign.  For the second point, I don’t think it’s valid. Remember that you’re talking of rugpull which the team of such projects normally look for a way to convince people that they are worth it. Like the follower count you mention. The third point is just the same as the second. They will do anything to make you believe them, even if it means posting every single day. And lastly the fourth point is a good one because rugpull projects RARELY get listed.

just invest in something that youre sure know what the team are made up of, the thing is nowadays majority of people when investing more specifically in new project they always find dev that have history of creating successful project and at least getting backed by them, as well as having some good seed round funding investment from various angel investors and venture capital, that way we can be sure enough that the project won't rugpull out of the blue otherwise they would get themselves into legal problem.
investing in random project ICO for example, that create ICO by their own and never get funded by angel investors and venture capital instead pose significantly higher risk of rugpull.
thats why coin that launches through various exchange launchpad usually thrive after listing, if not, its selling like a hot cake at the initial stage.

Well, it's the risk when we choose to invest in this cryptocurrency space because cryptocurrency will outperform stock in the most gains performance and we should be ready because that more high profit comes with more high risk too so there's no guarantee that our investment in cryptocurrency always increase. Getting listed to the best exchanges out there only increase their reputation and gives a more safe feeling to their investor, it's not a bad idea to invest only to coins that are listed in top exchanges but we should always be ready to expect something that could happen.

How to avoid getting rug pulled ? in most of the simplest way, just check their LP token/Liqudity provider token from the Decentralized Exchange like Pancakeswap. New coin nowadays created on top of other chain example launched on Layer 1 like Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain or Launched on Layer 2 like Matic optimism and arbitrum.

After the token launch there will be the first person who provide first liquidity so the token can be sold and buy if the team burns the LP or lock the LP its gonna be safe from rugpulling but there are still other downside like the coin going to 0.0000000001 or anything like that.

So just avoid token when the LP is not locked or burn if the dev freely move their LP your token isn't safe

You have opinions and principles like that, usually people who are very careful in making decisions.

The cryptocurrency market is very risky business that one need to make research before investing in any alt-coins, accept Bitcoin and top alt-coins in the cryptocurrency market that doesn't rug pulled anywhere, accept Luna and FTX Coin that shocked people, where many crypto traders get liquidated for being position on the period downtrend of the Coin, just few trader make a profits and up to date the both alt-coins have not been recovered from ATH.

Yeah crypto is a risky business, hence the slogan "DYOR" was formed. over the years I've also had my fair share of rugs including memes or perceived projects with good utilities. But they're still altcoins that have done well in recent months.  TIA,INJ are some examples and I think ZETA might follow their footsteps. Though it seems have a minor retirement rn..
https://i.ibb.co/ZcgDKWD/1706988401581.png (https://ibb.co/HGP8Yn8)
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Altcoins are cryptocurrencies other than Bitcoin. So, whether it's meme coins, shit coins or other types, including various types of tokens, they are still included in altcoins. While there are some altcoins that are quite good and have good and strong fundamentals, there are many, even the majority of which are shit coins. As is often the case nowadays, namely meme coins with extraordinary hype, they can really become part of the shitcoins.

This doesn't really guarantee. Because many scammers hire project management to manage their social media accounts so that they look very natural and genuine. So it is quite difficult to differentiate between genuine and scam, even accounts that have a very large number of followers or memes do not necessarily mean that they are not scammers. So what is certain is to be very alert and careful with various new projects. Because we can say they are at very high risk of becoming scam projects, shit projects, or various other types of fraud, including a high possibility of rug pulls.

So, it would be better to focus on the main coins that are already top coins. especially for long-term investments, make sure you have Bitcoin. .

One of the ways we can always avoid rugged pull is to always amkw research when we are investing on altcoins.
There are some projects that are meant to be in the market for few months and nothing more. Most time, this project can make user to lose there funds if they are not quick enough to sell there holdings and move to the next crypto project.
The risk can be large but a successful project can make us become million.

Altcoin are just too difficult to rely on. I wonder why people will put all their life savings on altcoin. Most of this trick as said earlier may not work out. It's better one invest largely on Bitcoin and less on altcoin to avoid the risk of losing money.

Yes. I agree with you but do you know the good thing about this FTX and Luna fall? That it opened our eyes to be alert. You know when the thing about the developer and SEC were having some misunderstanding we didn't flinch about the issue. Now, it makes us wiser to know what is happening around each project we invest in and prepare for the worst

Now! This is another good point that people should keep in mind. Greed has made so many people lose money in both ways in the crypto world. More also, I didn't mean that is all new project we should dive into. I just don't know how to place it so it will be more understatable

The importance of conducting research on a project is very necessary, quite a lot of new projects cannot last long, the trend of increasing the price of the token that was launched only booms instantly.  Deciding to take the right steps before losing a lot of money, of course we have to do it by taking advantage of the situation if we try our luck to invest in new Altcoins that don't necessarily have good potential in the future.

now, i think manipulated or attracted to something, feeling persuaded by others is normal. Some unscrupulous people can use social networks to spread, manipulate and advise unrealistic things, easily being taken advantage of to make mistakes and mistakes. To limit that, I think it is important that you equip yourself with knowledge, research, and reflection before doing anything. If you are told sensitive issues, know how to refuse. Some projects have taken advantage of this so that they communicate with their power of influence and keep other things behind the wall - it seems to be problems related to the scam project.

I agree that the best choice for us is to invest in projects that have been on the market for a long time. I was never tempted by promises that the project would get 10x profits if I became an early stage investor. I am more comfortable putting my money into old projects and never being hit by negative issues. In fact, to be honest, I am more comfortable putting my money in BTC, but because this is a discussion about altcoins, I can say that I prefer promising layer-1 projects such as SEI, ADA, and MATIC.

Specific altcoins have performed well in the past 6-8 months and are expected to continue doing so. The key is to get in at discount zones, this is where your knowledge of technical analysis comes into play. My altcoin portfolio on Bitget has grown significantly by 160% in about 6 months. This demonstrates that, if you're careful and follow the rules, you can make gains with alts both long or short term

Guess you're getting the point now. When a project promises a lot, the moment we need to recheck why the so many promises. There are things we need to work with our instincts for sure with

These things are common. Rugppulls are unpredictable simply because you'd only know when it is already happening, and not with when it is coming. Communities, followers, posts, are all things which could be easily done by anyone who has an intention whether it is good or bad. With being listed to exchanges that simply means the token has temporarily succeeded. Bottomline is the difference of rugpull to failing projects. If the project have failed meeting its roadmap or plan then that is because of many factors and not solely because they are a fraud. If the audiences won't be interested to invest then it will be hard for project or token owners to improve their platform. Scams and frauds are just worse; you'd only know they are doing such thing when it already happened. No matter how systemic you are checking these possibilities, they will always do it simply because they are after investors' money. This is also the reason why I just wait for its token release date for leads, more than the long progress of the project itself.