Bitcoin Forum

Investors have been milked over and over again by these three.
- ICO and Coin Ranking Websites
- Crypto Exchanges
- ICOs and existing project Teams.

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https://i.imgur.com/4ocWNUz.png

1. ICOs and existing project teams.

• Hype up their projects through different ways so as to be recognised by investors, this is by getting listed on coinmarketcap and other ICO ranking websites such as ICObench. This is represented by arrow A
• In return, they provide coin ranking websites with their data such as coin details or even some fee to get listed. this is represented by arrow B
• This is mutually beneficial to both(project teams and coin ranking websites) as investors will search through this coin ranking sites before they invest thus increasing the website traffic for their ads. Listed Coins/ICOs, in turn, get exposure on these websites.

2. Coin Ranking websites

• Crypto Exchanges sometimes get listed in this ranking websites for a fee or in exchange for details such as trade volume, coin details etc represented by arrow F
• They gather daily trade volume from exchanges so as to rank them up, this is represented by arrow E
• Investors will checkout coin ranking websites such as coinmarketcap for exchange rankings in terms of trade volumes so as to decide which exchange to use thereby increasing the site's traffic
• Exchanges gain from exposure if they are listed on the ranking websites

3. Crypto Exchanges

• Charge ICOs and coins a fee to get listed as represented by arrow C, This gives more fluidity for the coin/token thus more users and traders of the token/coin.
• More coins listed in the Crypto exchange means more trading volume and popularity of the exchange as represented by arrow D, thus more traders the due to the popularity of the exchange.
• Crypto Exchanges make a kill in listing fees, Trading fees, Withdrawal fees etc
• ICO/Token/coin creators enjoy the popularity of their coins and thus can be able to dump their coins to the unsuspecting traders as time goes on

4. Investor

• Looks up a project/coin/token from coin ranking websites thus increasing their traffic and sometimes viewing ads displayed in those sites. Certain websites even go ahead to charge a fee to view premium ICOs that they claim will be very profitable as represented by arrow G
• Based on the data viewed, the investor ends up buying tokens or a coin, again, the investor spends money represented by arrow H
• In hope of a making profit, the investor deposits the coins to the exchange to trade them off, ends up paying trading fees and withdrawal fees

The cycle continues...
Do you see how the investor is getting ripped off right, left and centre?

This is just an eye opener on the current state our cryptoworld  :D
Cheers.

excellent points here but I wouldn't really call them "investors" because an investor usually has some minimal experience and some brain function that he uses to analyze and research the thing he is putting his money into. these people who keep investing in shitcoins and ICOs are more like a bunch of desperate people who want to make profit so bad but they have no idea how to do it. the result is of course disastrous. and the damage is not just to their own pocket but also they are damaging the whole market with them giving the scammers the boldness to continue doing their crap.

I think that the reason that this circle of sham and scammers keep growing is because new people who are inexperienced will keep patronizing in wrong places. I wonder who hasn't made a mistake in this business. I remember buying loads of shitcoin that has gone down the drain with no active social channels. Of course I didn't realize it was out of market then... My bad ::)

;D what term should we use to call them?
Anyway, you are right, as more money keeps flowing to those three, market manipulation becomes much easier by them.
For example, am very sure some exchanges can now do wash trading to create more fake trade volumes just because they have now gathered enormous amounts of money.

As for shitcoins, imagine someone being a CEO of 3 different ICOs and clueless people still continue contributing their money into them.

Sorry, but I think it's because you had joined during the time when there was a lot of hype. had you joined during the bear market, scam is easy to identify right now.
So many "projects" with no working product have been exposed and motive to develop have been exposed during this period of time.

most of them are speculators. wanted quick profits, don't care about the project at all. never read WP, just trying to buy which one has a lot of hype so they can sold and made easy profits as early as possible. a lot of project are still being sold without any actual product atm, what a joke, if only there are more people who use their brain before they throw money around.

That's why STO is born and is being adjusted to become the most perfect mechanism. ICO really lost faith in me very much and I think this is really one of the worst.
I fully support STO when investors become important and have the right to vote on the business of the business.
That is what investors need and STO can also eliminate many of the fraudulent components.

Why cant we just called them as desperate zero-knowledge investors?  ;) With that diagram I do really completely get those points which are actually
real-life scenarios on where these 3 things are really milking out investors in between.What can we do? Theres nothing we can do yet we don't have any options
but to use them.

STO's will become the next meme, just like how ICO's have turned this whole space into a pile of rubbish.

It doesn't matter what fancy name a new way or raising money has; when there is a lot of money to be made quick, you'll see the same con artists pollute that whole ecosystem. In the end, it all comes down to how people are simply begging for scams due to their promises. We have enough history to figure out that things don't improve, it's just the name that changes.

The cycle doesn't continue because the ICOs are dead and the coin ranking websites deleted some shitcoin/ICO token listings.Some crypto exchanges are a part of the problem but nobody is forcing the crypto investors to use small,shaddy platforms.They do this at their own risk.Decentralized crypto exchanges are the future.

To be fair bitcoin really did look like a scam from a normal person's perspective.  Some anonymous person keeps 1 million coins to himself while bitcoin is promoted as the new currency.  Really looked like a pyramid scam from the outside and many big names still call it a scam.

Warren Buffet is one of the smartest investors and calls bitcoin complete shit so........

Call them novice gamblers!
It fits better the picture.

They are the ones throwing money around on the best-rated horse in each race, knowing that for certain most of the best will fail but they hope at the end of the day the winnings will be bigger than what they've lost.
And just as I am typing this, I realized most times they investment is indeed made of two steps, putting the bet and hope it will rise above the ICO prices, if it fails in the first months..it's doomed.


Nope, it goes on, just the scams have new names, new teams, and new projects and enough funds to make the scam more attractive this time, finding more "investors", bribing more exchanges, paying more shills....

Of those you mentioned, the greatest scammers are some developers. Most of those guys don't give a damn of what happens to their coin after ICOs. Don't be surprised that some of them are the first set of people to dump their tokens ones it get listed, followed by some bounty hunters. This is more reason why we need maximum regulations of ICOs.

Yes they can only be the first to dump because they know they don't have nice project, so as soon as people start having interest at the end of  ico, they go dumping. They are just there to make business out of investors.

Yes, when people are complaining about price, some smart investors are taking advantage of the technology itself and making money from it. We have seen a lot of people who have made millions from ICO, i myself can even testify about making a lot of money from some ICO which includes NEO and REGAL COIN. I make a purchase during presale of $50 and that amount of money got me up to $1000 profit when they hit the exchange.

the points that you are mentioned in your topic was definitely important and useful because we need guidance about what to do next so some of these points where definitely very useful for me to get clear mind about what can I do next in this field with the investment that I made and it will also be trustable one.

This is why everything is hopeless, whatever it may become, from ICO to STO it will be just the same shit over and over. Just look at the current situation of coin offering, most are failed and some continue like forever and people who invest leave hanging.

Basically, we don't need anymore of new token to be created, we have seas of shitcoin and only few are worth holding. Don't bother to create more.

OP, it is easy to point the blame to someone, or something else. What you should be doing is find a way to be good at making more Bitcoins. For plebs like us, I suggest working hard, earn fiat, pay your bills, and buy Bitcoin with what's left. HODL.

The cycle continues whether you want it or not... Ever heard of IPO's. Ooh yeah before ICO's it was also a thing and now with the STO buzz, don't you see it moving on already.
And who told you decentralised exchanges cannot be shady? Why do you think they are not even so popular?

Of course, everybody who really understands cryptocurrencies and the genesis of Bitcoin sure has to love BTCTC, Problem is Bitcoin cannot solve everything that's why people opt for other altcoins depending on what they intend to solve.

Quite a suggestion and this happens to be a way forward though but I'm sure these hoodwinkers won't stop. They will keep developing shits for innocent people.

That is why we all have to learn to be an optimist, while lots of people are seeing the negative part of it, some people are seeing opportunities in this challenge mentioned by the author and taking advantage of it too to enrich him or herself.

After all they are not scammers and they still deliver just that they are not being considerate in their charges and operation but despite all these, lots of traders like me are still making money trading and using their platform. Anything intellectual property, this is what it does.

Well, the purpose of any business is to make profit just that they are being too greedy in their dealings. If we are to take these 3 people mentioned out of the crypto currency business, then there will be no crypto currency world again, sometimes we just have to play smart too as an investor irrespective of all these their activities mentioned by you not to really dupe people but to over make profit.

Things like these do happen in business, if you are to open a business and need to sell shares, would you not overhype our business for investors to come in? This is the same method they are using.

I do not think that scammers have a strong negative impact on investors. Investors have learned to research projects and learn how to choose promising ones. So I think that Scam soon does not remain. Investors become are smarter.

It seems to me that the ICO will be able to rehabilitate. Let now the situation quite adverse, but this can be solve somehow the way, I believe. If this problem is solved, the ICO will get another chance.

Can you really call an ICO that has no working product but promises you worthless tokens in exchange for your worthy BTC/ETH/USD a business?
No, I doubt you would call it so.
It is a scam!

The smarter investors get, the smarter the scammers get as well, they have devised numerous ways to brighten up their project, making it look legit and attractive to deceive investors into investing in it. And definitely it's working as so many are still losing money through scam projects everyday, despite the numerous research made prior

It won't change. First it was fake mining companies that were making money then fake cloud mining followed by ICOs. Now there's gonna be another era of STOs and in the sidelines there are always fake exchanges and thieves waiting to get your personal data. There are also fake casinos and other smaller fish.
As long as there's greed they will profit and you have to learn or get burned. There's no other way.

I won't say this if I were you because we can't all have the same knowledge and I have seen members of this forum which got scammed not to talk crypto investors which enter the market because of the benefit involved.


Scamming issues does have negative impact on the market and investors because crypto scamming was one of the reason why some government in the South America banned Bitcoin during the last ATH

Agree with you, the cycle keeps going on and on. Don't forget ponzi schemes and HYIPs.
Right now there is some much hype around decentralized gambling games and casinos and exchanges that do wash trading to fake volumes to attract traders and coin owners

Illegal movements or shady stuffs do really happen anytime behind even on the most reputable services/platforms out there and the cycle would really continue no matter what
and i agree to the thing that as long there's greed and the people who are being fooled continue to feed up those people will really continue the entire cycle.
This had exist since the beginning of time and to avoid this is just to be smart on what you are doing as an investor.

Yep for example I used think the idea of Ponzi schemes was just born in this generation of the internet but i was shocked that the idea stretch as early as the 1800's or even earlier for all we know.


Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzi_scheme

This is just one example of scam that was carried out those years

The only thing that helps us is the experience, and sound judgment. The more experience, the more money you can earn. If you also know how to properly apply their knowledge, then you have a certain will succeed.

yeah some exchanges can manipulate trading volumes at any time, I think $ 1M is enough to make fake volumes haha ​​lol, this ecosystem is common in the world of cryptocurrency because it is seen that very hot competition makes people greedy to be superior to their opponents, and do what just to be able to win, exchanges and investors can work well if the two parties are balanced.

would appreciate 2023 version

Replace ICOs with DeFi's, NFTs, or what shitcoins we have had this time round, and you will have the same narrative

Each bull run, it's always the same scenario. Just different token names.

I totally see how investors are being taken advantage of in the cryptocurrency world. It seems like everyone is trying to make a profit off of them, from the ICOs and project teams hyping up their projects to the coin ranking websites and crypto exchanges charging fees to get listed.

I think, it's important that investors do their own research and don't rely solely on these ranking websites and hype to guide their investments. They should look at the fundamentals of the project and the team behind it, as well as the potential for real-world adoption. By doing their own due diligence, investors can make more informed decisions and hopefully avoid getting ripped off.

I see what you mean. The crypto market is already heavily dependent on exchanges, so we can use them as an opportunity to grow and give good service for customers. The problem with exchanges is that they are not profitable enough to survive without them. The exchange platform has an enormous risk. So, I don't see any reason to worry about them.

For ICO and Cryptocurrencies there is always the risk and the result is always the return. 
 
Traders are always earning in the future and in the future it will always look as if they can buy a coin for a higher price than what the ICO prices are currently. 
 
 
Investors is becoming more dominant in the industry, the fact that they are getting more interest in the market and not being paid, it's like the competition is changing the trend to new highs where the winner is the best at the moment.