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When most people evaluate ICOs, they consider the advisors.  However, most are looking for big names in the crypto sphere.  In my opinion, it's more important to look for industry experts outside of crypto.  The goal of most blockchain projects is to gain usage and adoption in the real world, and expert advisors with credentials in major industries open doors to new markets.  At the end of the day, when projects exhaust their ICO funds, they must earn revenues.  What do you think?

ICO advisors, while helpful aren't something which should force people into making an investment in a company or not. Advisors can only do so much, and in most companies they're only around for someone to get a nice paycheck, plus you don't want to have too many advisors as you're just wasting capital on too many people who are doing nothing.

They're important, though but people should know that a big name isn't everything. Everyone has had their own array of failed ventures.

It's useless to listen to their advice ...
These people are already so rich, and they are paid to make them praise a company.
And if something goes wrong, they just shrug their shoulders.

At the time of the 2008 crisis, many advisers to the head of the Federal Council gave advice, as a result, thousands of people were left without housing, and they were not even judged normally.

It's very important to have advisers in any new industry as they guides the team to understand the underlying challenges and how to solve them.
But unfortunately nowadays the ICOs are listing advisers like a Fish market sale and most of which are not real so do  your due diligence and see to it that the advisers those who are listed are really the part of the team.
Most of the time the advisers are being listed just because of the big fat famous name but the need of the advisers are in every company  has specific role
* Tech and development adviser
* Marketing and sales adviser
* Financial adviser
* Operations adviser
see to it that each adviser listed are related to some of the above roles or else don't bother to invest your hard earned money just because a Actor or a sports player is a part of the team.

this sounds more like a new version of the same old scams known as "Pumping Groups" where they pretend they are giving "trading signals" and use fancy words for it but in fact they a scam pump and dump group ripping newbies off.


ICOs have been around for a while now and they have been receiving a lot of money. show me ICO that actually gained some real world usage and not just remained on exchanges and got pumped and dumped then we can use that as our own point of reference for analyzing ICOs.

...but the problem is such ICOs do not exist!

I think what is really important is to distinguish between advisors who will actually assist a particular project and who are there just because they've been paid a handsome amount to list their face on the website.

I don't think advisor really give any advise to any ICOs nowadays, i think its more like their brand ambassador which being paid to promote their ICOs rather than giving advices about how the project should go. Anyone can become an advisor and i think recently John McAfee become the hottest advisor in ICOs and i think he already endorse a lot of ICOs not to mention he become advisor to ICOs such as UTK (Universa), or Bob's Garage, etc.

They are not really that important to me. They just fill up the ICOs' websites and an additional payment and funds will be slashed off. Most ICO failed even they have good advisers on-board.
It's best to hire more developers and paid to work fellows out there than people who do nothing and just waiting for the payment. The best adviser would be if there is, none other than Satoshi nakamoto, he can foresee the what relies ahead, but I guess he won't do that.

I think advisors are not that important as we are discsuing here because ICO is something that is not in the hands of advisors or they can’t predict the right things for it so surely. Though they might speculate few project path very surely then also it doesn’t mean the path will follow like that until the end. It’s all about the public buzz when it comes to the ICO selection or project roadmaps. It must be know what majority of the people like or dislike and the final decisions or advisory must be taken from that voting. So this is why I believe advisors are not that important.

Personally I don't really care too much. Let's take Kyber as an example. They have Vitalik as an advisor which bought them a lot of hype in the ICO stage but since then you really wouldn't have any idea that he was an advisor. Ultimately a project will be evaluated on the final release and an advisor won't have too much say or input in to this, they might help navigate a few situations but won't make a bad project in to a good one.

I think they are very helpful but you still need to do your homework and do your due diligence if you really want to invest in a certain ICOs. But I don't know though if experts outside of crypto would be helpful. The only experts that I can consider to be helpful are those who really know their stuff. So I have to disagree looking at experts outside the cryptosphere.

There are a lot of in deep experts out there and most of them have really a good background and experience that you have to consider what they have to say.

This is what I mean when I spoke before, advisors can be used to hide a company (or in this case, a coins) failure at having any value at all. So if the coin in question is simply stacking advisors, it'd be fair to notice that they might just not have anything going on and might screw you due to them not having a working product and just wanting the hype to make a couple bucks.

Don't put all your trust and faith in a couple peoples faces, names, and titles. It could all be a sham anyway.

I agree with your point of view. Advisors are very important anyway for marketing purposes too, because if people see that "big names" are advisors, they are more prone to invest...

If you are searching for flipping ICOs, you should probably consider big name crytpo advisors as they will create hype and will be a good way for marketing. But if you want to hold the projects, instead of looking at advisors that are well-known in the crypto space, you should look at industry experts outside of crypto as you said.

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The real problem with the ICOs lies in the false representation of the fake advisors. Some team( most of the teams) are showing the large group of the popular advisors and in the end, it is revealed that these certain advisors are not even aware that their name had been involved in the promotion of the certain projects. Scams are popular nowadays and every investor must be very careful if he wants to pick the proper project that is true and believable. To find out the real truth about the connection of the big names with the ceratin ICO projects try to search Linkedin, Twitter or every social network and try to look the connection between the advisors and the team behind the ICO. If even the slight mistake or false advertising is found step back and run.

As for the ICO developers who are looking for the big advisor I would recommend to choose at least 5 advisors because every advisor has his/her own perspective that is vital for the ICO success. Advisors are the must-have factor if the developers want to succeed in their project. They don't have to be big names( even if the big name will attract a lot of investors it can cost you financially).The advisors with the proper knowledge are crucial for the certain ICO success but false advisors are leading only to the demise in the end.

I think that most part of those advisors usually don't even read the project's White Paper and all cooperation probably consist of a single skype call where they discuss only the basic concept of the project. Also the result of working with advisors us almost always not disclosed. Which means that a decent and experienced guy could take a look at ICO, say that it is garbage (or something like "your idea is bad but to start working on ICO you need to do..."). I wouldn't recommend to put much attention on advisors unless there is someone like Vitalik Buterin among their list.

I think ICO consultants are more like brand ambassadors, because ICO is not in the hands of consultants, or they can't predict the right things. Most of the time, consultants are more focused on marketing purposes.

They are the key of the project, they matters especially on making decisions, they are the one's that can tell whether such action will have an impact, it's their experience that the companies paying for. And we should also know the Advisors background when looking at an ICO.

Within reason yes, I think mostly you need to consider the advisors and their reputation, I don't think the example I gave is in line with what you thought but there are definitely some 'advisors' who will just back a project for their own gain instead of because they actually believe in it.

Of course advisers are important in any project. They can create an high interest in the project. But when you see famous people on the site, do not forget to check whether this person is really relevant to the project. In fact, the Advisor is an advertising face of the project. A vivid example of Ian Balina. But this does not guarantee  the project is not scam. And don't forget that all these people do not work for free. This is good, if someone of them is reading a white paper or at least can explain the essence of the project.

Consultants may be to provide a reputation for the project protection
But not directly provide value In my opinion, the proportion of consultants in evaluating a project should not be too high
And now many consultants for projects are not experts in cryptography More is marketing and management

When a well known bounty manager is saying it then maybe I should pay more attention. I always felt that it was more of a marketing trick than anything else and that they really had little actual involvement in the ICO.

What's surprising is still how many ICOs make huge errors in judgment and are really poorly run despite having the expertise of advisors to call upon. Simple things like changing the terms of the ICO in terms of whitelisting or KYC at the last minute are really poor but so frequent.

It's very important that any ICO project have advisor because they are the key where they can go and make a decision about their project but before that, make sure that their advisor was legit and part of their team because nowadays there's a lot of ICO project that they use the name but they did not part of their campaign.

Advisor is only person with high skill to remand the team how to built project in the right way but have value ( mostly just follow the trend ). Most project will use this person to help them catch the trend, so the project look's not difficult to follow but have great performance. But some project decides not to use this person because has high fees and sometimes their decision against the project concept. Good luck to you bro.

They are important but you should know how much are they really involved. Most important factor of an ICO is their team. So do check the background of each team member. Because they are the ones who would work on the project and make an ICO successful.

It would be more a much better option than on focusing on having an advisor which we dont even know if they do contribute into a particular project or just purely doing nothing and just only making exposure on a project.This turns out that they are just useless to me when project do have advisors with big names.It might help on boosting up the exposure and buzz but not totally an important role into project funding and development.

Advisors helps any ICO to improve their project that is going to open in public and I think it has an effect on the project if the person are well known, it can be an advantage but it doesn’t the project will succeed. Again the investors are also looking on this side, its a plus factor on ICO.

I just want to reply like this.
personally, i never see advisor in ICO as important factor when i want to invest. that's only plus factor. good, solid and trustable team are more important for long term development

Almost all ISO ideas only on paper and they will not be implemented for a long time, if at all. Advisers are giving advice on how to attract investment when you have everything on paper. A lot of Scam given the x's only through tough advisers.

It's a big gamble actually, you won't easily get the success investing in ICO.
But, with a reputable advisors, you have a little light that you can see in the future because this advisors
especially if they care for their reputation would not join a team that has no future potential.

Advisors will help them throughout the project from the idea and from how will it be beneficial to the users. They have much knowledge on what to do. Their experience matters as well their previous projects to know if they are effective.

For me, ico advisors is important because they have tome anf expertise with reviwing ico that they knew will be good tovthe market. Ratings is also impotmrtant or feedbacks a good ratings for ico is investos will boost his knowledge to the coin that would like to invest. A reputable ico advisors is essential to avoid some ico scams and other not so good ico and you know that many or some ico has not good fundamentals so keep on eye and do research.

ICOs advisors in the ICOs projects is very important due to however the ICOs projects is needed experience of Dev team in expand of the businesses to be more grows up in the future, i think must there are ICOs advisors in the ICOs projects, it is something important for the ICOs to be sucessfull and it will gives trusting for the investors of ICOs due to they have experience of Dev team.

ICO advisers are very important because with ICO founder ICO advisors can improve and get good direction and ideas to help make their ICO successful.

Some times, some of the advisors don't see themselves as part of the team or project and they might not really be committed to the project. I don't really believe in them to do much. What the ico has to do is to be true to their promises.

Blockchain can not be separated from the real economy alone, and those consultants should understand both cryptography and blockchain knowledge as well as understanding the real economy.

Big names are what investors look into and this makes the project more attractive. It’s a marketing strategy and although looking into the credibility is more important, ICOs get advisors because it attracts more investors. Additionally, having advisors affirms that the ICO is legit because there are numerous scam ICOs these days. Advisors may have a minimal function but it definitely can be said that they are essential.

In my opinion advisors is not important in ICO but the more important think is the purpose of the project, unique idea and what problem they want try to solved. I see some advisor in more than 2 different ICO so they become advisor just want to attrack investor.

It's not important because you can actually invest on some by just using your head. Though I don't have an experience investing in an ico (in which I don't even dare to invest) but google is enough to decide whether to invest in a certain ico or not.

Advisors just give the ICO a good image especially if they are well known and it actually does help raise the needed capital faster

but on an invistors point of view I think this means nothing especiallly if they are not know to them because they advisors arent taking the risk as investors entrusting their money with the ICO.

Little assurance is what we called it, they needed advisors to look very professional and with he help of those people the project will got some
good investors who always looking for such project, but this past time inside crypto even the project have good advisors investors are now wise
and always look into a usage, a purpose of said project to be able to last for long and not just a quick bucks project that will only last for a short
period of time.

Most of the companies are looking for advisories in order to make their project most effective one, but we how an advisory will join a project based on the previous experience. But as an investor, we don't know who they are, what is their major roles previously taken by them. For the company, they give guidance in terms of marketing and how to raise the money in the ICO.

Depends how much time they devote to the project and how much they are actually helping. Most advisors just bank coins because their name is know in the field and they can afford to do it. Its a win - win for both the project to have a reputable advisor and the advisor gets free tokens for not doing much.

I wouldn't recommend on trusting advices given by because most of them take money and take advantage of their position , this wasn't the case always last year there were few advisors but all the advices given were actually true nowadays these signals don't work

Advisors have experience that open your eyes to new approaches. They also have connections that can extend your reach. You should have at least 3 to provide you with diverse connections and experience. If they are well-known in your field, they will give you credibility, and provide you with advice. You need advisors who others trust, unfortunately these people have been approached many times by now, so finding them and actually getting them to advise are very different things. With their connections and industry expertise, their pitch on your behalf can give you a leg up. Will they contribute as well as ‘sell’ for you? Especially to large buyers in the presale? You need your advisors to reach out to their networks, build publicity, and speak for you.

As a newbie, I have been wondering about this. Thank you for this post and useful replies. I had my suspicions about this trend, also. I Wonder what the alternative could be? Does anyone else think that there must be some flaw in the system or the way these new ventures are rolling out if this is the fact, that we cannot trust that the recommendations offered by advisers are genuine and not merely self-interested, based on salary and a chance of short-term returns.

very interesting question, i also have wonder the same whether do these advisers really do their job, if yes how often they review the project and give input? what the frequency of their commitment?

or they only serves as promotional figures to give assurance and boost to the team?

and most importantly, how responsible the advisors on the project they have stake their name on? a person can be an advisor of 20 projects and have 19 failed projects, and just shrug it out... well thats certainly a figure i would avoid

i rather to follow advisors that have 2-3 projects and all is succesful and he play quite important roles in guiding and advise the team

Definitely ICO advisers is important to look into if you want to invest in a project. But is should not be the major factor. This can only be a reference to ar least build some trust.It will be best to review the major factors such us the team, the company, the partnership and the project itself. If they already have an existing product and trying to tap the blockhain arena and their project is viable, then that is a great sign. Goodluck :)

Certainly, they are searching for these people, who will help them to make a sort of a hype about their project. These advisors are usually for some PR.

It depends on the project and the aspirations of the developers if they keep a percentage of the coins for themselves they do not really need to create revenue for their project what they need to do is to develop the project and their coins will become more valuable, in my opinion the most important advisor for icos should be the one in charge of marketing, I have seen some really good coins with almost no marketing and no one knows about them.

They are of atmost important as why people go to advisors,to get proper information.ICO's are many but it is very difficult to find which one is real and which one is fake.Soo people need someone who follows day in and day out these ico's and someone who can give them trustworthy ICO to invest.Your point is very valid to reveal what they got as fund which will create more transparency in transaction. Advisors are really important in making any ICO's success or failure.