Bitcoin Forum

Here are some tips to avoid getting scammed in an IPO and to avoid any kind of problems.

1. Stop Sending funds directly to developers, Use escrow, there are many available who charge low fees.
If developer is legit he shouldn't have any problem.

2. Read escrow agreement carefully.

3. Stop sending funds from trading/exchange sites, it just creates problem in verifying investors identity and giving refunds.
(Use wallets like Bitcoin QT, Multibit, Eelectrum, Blockchain.info, Armory, Android wallets)

4. Don't go on fancy images,logo or GUI looks, sometimes reality can be different.  (for example: Edgecoin,numus,stackcoin)

5. Stop jumping on the bandwagon, think twice if coin is worthy or not.

6. Read what developer is promising you in ANN, Escrow will just protect you till you get your coins,but after that you are responsible for any kind of loss. ie: wallet not working properly, fork or some other issues.

7. Check source code.  Developers are coming up with new algorithms but what if it's not what they promised.
Frankly how many of you check source code or try to know about algorithm before investing funds in an IPO ?

8. Check if common services are available for coin at the time of launch or not, for example: website,social accounts, blockexplorer etc
I've seen people doing IPO's and launching coin without having a block explorer website.

9. Ask your escrow to release bitcoins only once you got what you were promised.
I've seen developers coming up new ways to fool users, ie: Giving coins on alternate client for eg: numus (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=543503.0) or by asking escrow to release bitcoins right after giving coins to him for distribution before launching wallet files publicly.

Escrow provider should avoid this until they get confirmation from users or they check source code themselves, since every wallet looks same, developer can give you a normal scrypt wallet and transfer coins but those coins will have 0 value without the features etc he promised.


10. Steps for signing a message on blockchain.info, electrum and bitcoin-QT  (I've made this long time ago)
http://pastebin.com/hEf3EP4L  
Images: http://imgur.com/a/z9DzX#0

Fools and their money..

Escrow.ms is really awesome. I personally recommend him for every incoming ipo. ;D ;D ;D ;D

Great tips Escrow.ms, I will print these out and paste them by my monitor  :)

Hehe thanks but I guess people never try to learn from other people's mistakes.

What do you guys think of Safecoin that is launching on Tue? I love the fact that the devs are working on a "safe internet", but now I've been reading some FUD about the whole involvement with Mastercoin.

Thanks a lot for the tip list! I was planning to do something like that myself, but I'm glad to be overshadowed by someone more knowledgeable about the tricks.

Allow me to add an item: watch out for glibness from the promoter! Silver-tongued people have a talent for writing evasive answers in a pleasing and satisfying manner. Glibness always says "pig in a poke!"

Unfortunately, thanks to me being singed by Edgecoin, I have to add: don't let yourself be lulled by enthusiasm by the promoter even if it's honest enthusiasm. Some scams are the result of a promoter, who doesn't know what he's doing, finding out that he can't hire a real dev - so he chickens out and steals the IPO funds.

If anyone reading this has some pull with the mods, it would be a great help if you could lobby them to make this a sticky in the Announcement subsection.

Very intersting. I think it helps me with future investments.

I hope it does :)

Nice article , its always wiser to know about the coin before putting  your money into everyday pump n dump coins.

why create this topic ? don't deal with IPO's at all this is not a regulated stock exchange
it's an unregulated scam coin ponzi scam industry.

anyone that takes part in that shit get what they deserve.

i can never understand why people would even consider this shit seriously.

Because Half of this shit on this earth is a scam and people still invest their funds in them.. as for regulated stock exchange,you should read this article.
http://www.master-of-finance.org/10-most-outrageous-stock-market-scammers/  or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harshad_Mehta

Bump.

can you explain how to sign a message on a wallet like Multi bit, if you know. Also how to get private keys?

I recently felt forced into sending BTC direct to IPO cause I'm a noob who doesn't know how to do this.

I don't think i've heard the term IPO being used correctly once in this forum.

in the 'real world' a private company seeking to go public attracts investors with strong fundamentals:  cash flow, business model, paperwork of incorporation.  IPOs are for already functional, profitable companies.  Initial Public Offerings are guaranteed by underwriters, who have combed through their paperwork with a bullshit detector.  Anybody seeking to invest in any IPO ask basic questions like:  "who is underwriting the IPO?  what country is the IPO based in?"  "what type of entity is this business?" "are they profitable, and for how long?"

Another red flag are if the 'IPO' is for an Limited Liability Corporation:  LLC are based on state laws, and most USA state laws make it impossible to do an IPO of an LLC.  even if an LLC were to have IPO in an IPO friendly state (e.g. delaware) no underwriter would touch an LLC with a 10 metre cattle prod.

If an underwriter cannot guarantee an IPO, then everyone stay the fuck away.  

https://multibit.org/en/help/v0.5/help_signAndVerifyMessage.html

11) ALL IPO's listed on this forum are a scam.

Not exactly true. If you hit NXT jackpot you can lose everything in the next 10 IPO and still comes out a winner. Not every developers have the connection and the opportunity to go to conferences to promote their project.

Great . Thanks for your shares.
Most iPo coins are scam,just used to get money from the user.

making fiat out of or hitting the "jackpot" doesn't make a crypto not a scam  ???

Underwriter? Are you aware of where you are? Behave yourself and go back to your University law books. This isn't the place to try to impress with 'real world' financial jargon cut and pasted from your Uni textbook.

Yeah I was hoping for a more laymans terms visual understanding especially of private keys which are requested by Escrow services.


I can click on inport private keys and it creates some kind of file, which it seems you can make many of, but how the hell these then get used to unlock an account or how you send them to an escrow is beyond me.

Umm well which escrow ask you to give private keys?
If someone have access to your private key he have access to your bitcoins which are on that address.


Ps: You need to open that file in notepad.
Check this.. https://multibit.org/en/help/v0.5/help_exportingPrivateKeys.html

bump.

the IPO jargon is what it's suppose to mean ..not what it actually means in Crypto.
in crypto it means  = scam .
in a REGULATED market it means something entirely different lol

change the topic title to Don't invest in IPO's they are SCAMS !

/end of topic
Spoetnik has spoeken .

Then you should request theymos to BAN IPO's on this forum because without that people will still invest and get scammed and by the way not all IPO's are scam.

Look here.  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=494229.0  17.5BTC ( 50% of the total IPO) was donated to thewaterproject.org by dev.

Anon1 when i was buying into Qora. Is it not standard procedure?

No he just wanted you to sign a message from your bitcoin address and it's only possible if you have private key. (In other words, If you don't have private key you don't own that bitcoin address)

thanks for sharing this useful information.

This information was of great value.  Thank you for your assistance.

Ah ok, cheers for clearing it up.


One last thing. I did actually read through the multi bit info before I sent some BTC, I signed my payment (or thought I did) But no name  turned up on the blockchain above my transaction address, should it of? That's why I kind of assumed I didn't do it properly.

bump.

Very helpfull for newbies, so we won't lose our bitcoin that so difficult we made ;D ;D ;D

he already knows about them.. and yes ALL of them are scammy bullshit.
if it isn't obvious why your a scammer or brain damaged.

i thought i ended this topic already ?

A good list of things to avoid
But unfortunately people will lose their money knowing all to well the risk
Still doesn't hurt to try