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Hey, this recently published article on how to avoid risky investments and spot frauds mentions our forum  8)

Link: https://medium.com/@Peter_UXer/how-to-identify-cryptocurrency-scams-813c32816ddf?source=friends_link&sk=da150ce8128c348da4b0dfdbf57e8e12

I checked post on Medium. A bit sticky to the topic of scam, but can include more issue that can also help to rid out of the scam.

Never invest in investment sites that offer a smart incentive for referring. Because Referring can bring promoter little money against an investment he brought from investors.

The second thing never gets involved in network marketing (Pyramid schemes.) Because Cryptocurrencies itself don't have definite value as it all depends upon the price of BTC against fiat.

While investing in cryptocurrencies kindly check out in detail report of specification, projection, roadmap, and crew member. It can help to make a decision while investing in cryptocurrencies.

I do not have enough experience, but I have read in a few sites to avoid :
phishing  emails(receive an unsolicited email  )
Avoid sites that are not trusted (do not contain https :) study the team of project
check the the White paper

Thanks, I think it's a nice article. I mean, fake twitter accounts and give us a small amount of money and receive a huge one are well-known scam schemes, but I did not know about Libra's fake Pre-Sale, for instance. At first, I even thought the article is bold enough to mention Facebook's Libra as a new form of scam :D. I remember that when Telegram announced an ICO that there were scammers pretending to collect money for the project, though.
Scams are all around us, and it's not so easy not to fall for them. Not being greedy and being generally cautious about everything that involves money can help a lot, though.

The article is well researched and talks about the technical aspects of identifying scams. However, I believe common sense is the most effective way to avoid the scams! We just need to keep in mind that nothing is free in this world, so if anyone talks about free money, avoid like plague!

However, I didn't like the way it has mentioned our forum in the article! Bitcointalk houses people with top class experiences in crypto world! Such kind of scams mentioned in the example are deleted within minutes!

Good article, provides experience for beginners to avoid scammers because it tends to be a lot of beginners who are stuck on scam investments because of the lure of big profits, many points may be added to the article but some points on the article are also important to know to identify scammers

This article is a must-have for every crypto or non-crypto newbie.

Agreed. But actually all these things are so simple that even a child can guess them before investing.

Thanks for sharing this article. But in this crypto space if you are a lazy person who can't make spend some time to research, you will definitely get scammed. If you are lazy to read and research about any crypto project, you will get scammed..

And because its so simple to understand wether its scam or not, so more people proceed even they know that it is scam, since they knew already how it works and how they can profit especially in ponzis.

If you apply some common sense, almost all scams can be detected easily, nothing is usually free. Yes I know giveaways exist out there but even those are not free, they usually require you to do some small task like retweeting something. Classic scams like: Hey I'll send you 1 BTC but you have to send me 0.01 BTC first, are clearly scams and if you fall for those, I don't know what to tell you.

ICO's on the other hand can be quite tricky. Obvious scammy ICO's exist and are easily detected but they are getting more and more sophisticated. It is really risky to invest in ICO's right now even if you do your research. Some ICO's have scammed in the past even though their team was real so that's not always an accurate way to determine whether the ICO is a scam or not.

Very first think need to be considered is the https, even this will be left insecure by some projects. Beyond this need to consider the product and its real time usage. Further on development, team performance and various other factors make way to identify whether it is a scam or legitimate project.

That's right, it's very helpful to analyze the project. I got a lot of new techniques and it really helped to strengthen the analysis. Moreover, there are many fraudsters at the moment.
One of the easiest tricks is to check the social media accounts belonging to team members, if they are fake they will be easily detected.

I have read the article. Good thing they provided those fake twitter accounts for us to be vigilant whenever we see them. But giving away huge bonus is somewhat suspicious hence many still fall for the huge money they are giving away. And scammers are using big exchange's name to get the trust of the crypto people.

Fraud people can do everything now and I did not even think they may fake transactions like that. I have entered such websites before as that and it made me think now that i have entered a phishing sites as well.

Nice link I have saved this one since I am gathering this kind of thing to keep safe from my investments,and from the time someone put this kind all I do is read analyze and if I found legit I instantly apply to my self and added as safe keeping material

Also, when a site gives you any kind of guaranteed or fixed long-term return on your investment, then you should be worried. The long-term performance of Bitcoin as an investment is not guaranteed. I also look for the so-called "downline" referral network to spot the Ponzi scheme behind these scams.   :P

About a month ago, I experimented with a site, where they buy and sell Crypto currencies on your behalf.... you only tell them what percentage of each coin you want and they trade on your behalf to make sure you always have that percentage of those coins in your portfolio.. <What they do not tell you are that these micro transactions are generating a lot of trading fees for them and those fees quickly start to chip away at your total investment portfolio.>  >:(

It still looks legitimate, but the transactions are done on their internal ledger and actual coins are not traded, so they just pocket the fake trading fees that you are being billed for.  :P

Yeah, this is really important article to read.
Today we have only on coinmarketcap over 2000 cryptocurrencies...
and to be honest, we have to say, that most of them will be a shitcoin in future..
Shitcoins are good only to fast trading and run away - no longterm vision, no holding.

Interesting article.

Although I would imagine someone who wants to invests money into crypto will do their homework first irrespective of whom is marketing it be it male or female.

Only new thing in this article is Libra Scam, and whoever falls on this deserves to be left without money. This FB coin is just idea on paper for now, and it can easily happen to stay that way.

Twitter, FB, Telegram and any other social media scams are old as cryptocurrency, and any crypto user with little brain should stay away from such things. Pretty woman offers you an opportunity to earn 0.10 BTC, but first you need to send to her address 0.05 BTC to confirm your identity - how this can be true? Someone is offer you 5% daily or 25% monthly on your investment, do you think this can be true? It can be, but only in some wicked fairy tale.

If it is unrealistic and too good to be true, in 99% of the cases it is a scam.

To determine the safety of any project, you need to check the entire social of that project. Check if the development team information is published, whether the group participates in any major competitions or meetings. In particular, check the membership information of the project because the fake projects fake information of the team members.

Actually, when I first participated in electronic money, I believed in fake hash photos. Now it seems that scams are still going on a lot, but I think the success rate is very low because we have had experiences with scammers since 2018. new people, they need useful information

It is not easy to identify cryptocurrency scams, and I think no one will know if finally, one program or project will scam the people. We cannot detect them until they reach some phase, and they open their identity by running away from their responsibilities. When we see that, then they are scam people, and we cannot do anything because they are leaving us with their promises. But they will come back again in the future with the new idea to scam people and once again, we will be hard to know them in the beginning.

Many project or forum are out there trying to scam and get ride of people hard earn , which I find very difficult to understand as many are sitting somewhere to steal from people and some are trying to protect people hard earn which are words and opposite , I think we need to be very vigilant regard our way of investment.

The article has gave a good advise and I read all them and it will be usefull for some newcomers if they intend to choose cryptocurrencies as their investment place. Indeed, that is common thing when bitcoin and cryptocurrencies price goes up there will be newcomer and start to invest and we called them to come here as a hype factor.

They didn't know about cryptocurrency before and they only focus to create a wallet on an exchange and even a few of them didn't know an exchange was scam or not. Sometimes I got confused when there still a people who got scammed, whilst the source/guide how invest in cryptocurrencies is really much such the article that you mentioned. This is pointed out that only few newcomers who make an analyst or find more about cryptocurrency first before they spend money.

Until now, I think I have difficulty in identifying cryptocurrency scams because of all of the projects almost similar between each other, and I don't know which of them that is a scam. That makes me careful to decide to invest in their projects, but fortunately, I don't invest much money with them so I can save my money. I don't think that other people can identify them too because it still hard to find those scammers.

Countless number of people are deceived when using cryptocurrency. Although the agreed stigma has been inherent in world cryptocurrency, not all cryptocurrency users use approval.

The rise of people who failed because the cryptocurrency was just a spy because they preferred the science of investing in this digital currency. security is a serious problem that will be solved by all countries, not only for Bitcoin but all cryptocurrency. tips for applying a coin scam or ICO scam.
The trick is to see:
1. Team
A company can walk and develop with a reliable team. The success of large coins will depend on the experience, expertise and teamwork in the team. This "team" is one of the benchmarks for investors to assess the level of a coin, however, many lay people do not pay attention to the part of the team, and only focus on ideas and touting coins. There are several ICO, Bitcoin and AIOS coin-companies that have ghost teams. The ghost team is not a team consisting of ghosts, but the ghost team is a company that does not exist, or, a little information about the creator or his team, can also be interpreted as a team of ignorant. This is the reason why they have to take your money away, because nobody knows who is behind the shopping.

2. Roadmap
The Coin or ICO website will display a roadmap. A roadmap is a schedule where companies will try to complete their travel targets. The roadmap will usually announce targets and missions that will be done specifically on a quarterly basis and will ask enthusiasts with:
-Product being worked on.
-Products to be released.
-Pre-sales and sales to the public.

3.Whitepaper
Every old and new coin must have a whitepaper. Why? Because the whitepaper will notify investors about the Coin in detail, from the mission, the team, to the technology that will be used, the Whitepaper can also be seen as the "proposal" coin for ICO to investors. A fake company usually between not having a Whitepaper because it is not professional enough to make a normal Whitepaper, or the company cannot describe their company, their vision, mission and ideas reasonably, companies that usually promise sweet dreams find it difficult to explain in detail and logically how they will achieve their "target", remember that they can also copy the whitepaper from the company that has gone.
In the absence of a whitepaper, it is necessary to consider whether the company really intends to carry out the idea, their own vision because the Whitepaper is one of the important things for investors in deciding decisions for investment, Whitepaper not only provides information about the entire company, but it is important to know that the content and quality of the Whitepaper can also be a measure of the team's professionalism in running a business.

4. Multi-Level Marketing (MLM)
MLM is a pyramid scheme where sales people will get money from product sales and also recruit members and also sell the members' benefits. They will get more compensation from recruiting members than selling products.

very useful article for everyone to digest, as an investor with little knowledge about shady project that could possibly turned scam, best bet will be to invest in some of the very popular project among top 100 coins in cmc, it is much safer investing on already establish project than investing in ico's as fresher in the cypto space.
All the same good wright up, this could go along way to assist many not to fall victim.

The best way is scam is never to invest any bounty that just pop-up through your email and you didn't register for their newsletter. The article you shared is really helpful for novice investors cos you can't tell the legit cryptocurrency

Yeah, people always want easy money. In times of hype on crypto investors are vulnerable as their judgment might be clouded. 

Indeed, it is not easy to identify scams in crypto, but the way shared by OP is effective enough for us to avoid scammers. Although we do not fully know what is behind the new project, at least we can consider more deeply to join after analyzing the project.


The point is don't invest if after you analyze it you are in doubt, but invest if after you analyze you are still confident about the project. That is the point that I always hold and consider, so far I have always invested in projects with high trust, projects that I doubt are few, I will not invest. Well you have to be firm about your beliefs.

You are being dumb here. If some new project looks like another project, then that is an obvious sign of a scam. See a copied whitepaper or team pictures is no doubt a scam. There have been projects which target the similar concept or a similar market but that is a different issue.

Just saving your money is not what this forum was made for. Bitcoin itself is considered an investment and by all means I consider it the best of all other crypto-currency investments. Keeping your money in a bank only means you get a small rate of interest and nothing more. Consider looking into the top10 coins on any website except the forked coins and decide what is best for you to invest in.

Scammers will always be there. But you have learn to be vigilant and alert. Fear, Greed and Doubt are three things a scammer uses to blind its victim so watch out for such attempts.

Really helpful article and thanks for sharing with us. It's very sad that scammers eating crypto industry everyday. When crypto industry try to rise up some scammers just use their sh**t brains and fraud with investor. Not just in this industry, actually scammers are everywhere. It's out duty that be careful when we step forward and alert everyone about scammers. 

sadly even when people are informed about this details, they still join schemes which are too good to be true and possible scam in the future and worst part is they recruit people to ride along with them. The true scammer is the greediness inside all of us.

If its too good to be true then its most likely a scam. Imagine someone saying your money will double in 24 to 48 hours. If its true, then how come not everyone is in that scheme, how come the government is not supporting such investment venture. Furthermore, if anyone offers something that is higher than traditional banks can offer, better stay away from those.

Sincerely its really annoying when you fall into the hands of scammers. Sometimes we normally say its shear negligence that result in such dupe but trust me the are well experienced people on the platform who often done not get duped. Lets all try to learn and upgrade ourselves to avoid such short falls.

If this line is always on the mind of most people then getting scammed would be lesser yet people are way too greedy when it comes to huge ROI of their money.
Where they do directly think off on making easy money on a short span of time which is very impossible if we do talk about on legal and possible ways.Earning money on ridiculous high rates is 101% scam.

I think when I think about scams and things most of the times these things are *too good to be true*

I think that's why just staying away from the things that doesn't add with equations and give weird highly profitable returns for the future and promises things that they cannot even keep even if they are the US president

Also you should understand that you should think about investing in things that are highly thorough with what they are doing and at the same time they are providing you with a proper KYC of their employees and their business is well beyond recognized.

This may be a good resource https://venturebeat.com/2018/03/13/how-to-spot-a-cryptocurrency-ico-scam/

I have been on many scam projects and it's easy now to spot from now. Just check the team profile validity if it's real or not. Some fake them and edit it to trick people that they are real accounts but must be vigilant about. Look for clues like their social media accounts and even on forum links that will give hint whether it's a scam project or not.

This one big problem withing this expanding industry and yet there is nothing we can do except to tell or educate people on the pitfalls of easily believing others online. I was a victim of many scams before and I lost some Bitcoin because I was then made to believed that those program i participated will survive and give me the dreamed income I am looking for. Alas, my dreams crushed like a falling star to the ground. Now, I am so careful in dealing with anyone or anything online especially in the world of cryptocurrency.

Never saw an article like this before or I just don't know where to look at. The author was able to discuss things that even I can't even think about. A good read indeed since there are technicalities when it comes to identify cryptocurrency scams.

Today that's Not so easy anymore, Try To Stay in contact with the Real Team members (LinkedIN and so on) And Check their GitHub. But even here you will find Scammers. 90% Of the Scams are anyways very obvious but for the 10%. Do not focus on the Things they give away focus on the Thinks they don't (Faces, Addresses, etc) 

Not a bad read but this information as far as I can see should be for the inexperienced users knowing and learning about cryptocurrency investments through platforms like twitter where investors get lured by shills but honestly I for one know that investors didn't get to where they are by investing blindly, due diligence will always be there.

There are many basic things that you need to know and also, you have to be careful in believing what you are being provided by some site that is always created to list some projects. What I mean is that you need to do your own research. avoid making a decision base on what you are being told or hear. If it an ICO project, you can go through the whitepaper and ask question related to the core features from the team to show maybe they have perfect understanding of what they want to achieve. believe me, many project do not have money to develop a fully functioning website. If I were you, I will avoid those project. there are many online based plagiarism checking website. you can use this to check maybe the whitepaper is being plagiarized

Why not identify them before they happen with proper technology like those provided by Ciphertrace? They're working much more closely with exchanges and ATMs now so hoping that gets scams down before they approach people

Not all them that require your personal data or/and money in advance are scams. Some ICO's or projects are legit and they will ask your for your personal data and/or money in advance. They are asking for it because they also want's to protect themselves from those who just want to get something like an airdrop. Perhaps if the promise is too good to be true then we should worry that its a scam.

There are some points that are not included in my criterias like the twitter analysis, I'm not looking on Twitter when I want to know if the project is a scam, I look on their whitepaper if they copy a big portion of their white paper from past or existing projects, we have reason to doubt the project's concept and roadmap, whitepaper is very important because it is the blueprint of the project, if they copy other concepts, they should at least stated it and they should have permission from the original creator, but they should infuse their own concept .

Another point is the blockchain forensic, they use it to deceive investors, so they will think that investors are coming in to invest thus creating a domino effect scenario.

May I ask if there are any "Pre-sale" for Facebook's Libra? I saw a lot of people from my crypto group chat said that they already had some libra in their crypto wallet and convince me to follow their instruction to buy Libra...
I am a newbie in crypto so sorry if my question bothers you. Thanks

Your explanation is interesting and I think it's true. but the question is how to identify whether crypto is a scam or not, not how to safely invest. what I mean is, an explanation of the scam crypto criteria, for example I took the example in the middle of the project, the team suddenly stopped their project and said there would be a continuation but in fact there was nothing.

could it be like that? I only catch questions from the creator of the topic and I express my opinion.

Thanks

It's very difficult to identify cryptocurrency scams currently and this is deception. Many projects may look  authentic with their team members and probably advisors. However these projects may turn out to be fake or scam hence you should not conclude so easily that a project is authentic based on the benefits they are offering.

It's too easy to identify any cryptocurrency scams and this is happening mostly in altcoins/ICO campaigns. Regardless of the fake team, WP, etc., we still cannot guarantee the legitimacy of a coin depending on the team and their dev, since they could actually change on or after the campaign is done. Greediness will change any human behavior once they saw the money in their hands and this is mostly happening in most projects out there.

The second thing never gets involved in network marketing (Pyramid schemes.) Because Cryptocurrencies itself don't have definite value as it all depends upon the price of BTC against fiat.

While investing in cryptocurrencies kindly check out in detail report of specification, projection, roadmap, and crew member. It can help to make a decision while investing in cryptocurrencies.
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A lot of pyramiding schemes have an pretty great promises and benefits they can get. But most them are scamm project but not all is scam some of pyramid scheme are legit but sad to say only the people in tough psoition can get huge profits.

Thanks for sharing this article. The best way to identify cryptocurrency scams is having knowledge and understanding the purpose of every crypto projects in the crypto space. With this, you can easily spot scam projects just by the glance of the platform or the whitepaper of the project.  Knowledge is the key element needed to identify scams in the crypto ecosystem.

Although you have enough knowledge and know much details about the project, that is not guaranteed to see the project will be a success in the future. We see many good projects in out there that have a better plan, but in the end, they are a scam and run with the investor's money. There is nothing we can do if that is the case because we don't know and we cannot predict what will they do in the future so I think we need to know about how much money we will use to invest in their project.

I have watched a video on youtube on how to spot not only cryptocurrency scams but all of the investment scams. There are 2 things that you must aware of before you invest your hard earned money.

1. Guaranteed Returns - Every investment guarantee is only as good as its guarantor. There is no such thing as guaranteed returns in investment. If the company says that it will give you guaranteed 30% monthly, this is a red flag already and you must stay away on it.

2. Ridiculous Rates - The stock market's average rate per year is at around 10-15% and for bonds it is at ~1% per year (numbers may change in different countries). If the rate is greater than this percentages, it is most likely a scam.

Watch it here to understand more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFHGQcqg6wk&t=165s

Please don’t follow that story, I learnt that we have some group of people already using the Libra coin to scam people by claiming that they are the ones in charge of Libra. When Libra coin would be released, you will surely get an official statement of it from the developers which I dint think there has been any announcement as regards the Libra coin.

The last time I got an information on it was when they declare that till 2020 before the coin can be launched and a piece of information that I got recently stating also that they might not successfully launch the coin because of the series of backlash they are getting from world top leaders standing against Libra coin and its use. Those who have been buying that fake coin will end up regretting for not making their research before buying.

Another thing, most scam do not have an office or uses a fake office and phone numbers.  They are not registered in SEC or if registered they registered the company offering other services and not as a financial investment.  They often times have people shilling for them and create lots of fake accounts to vouch for them.  They fake data's and often times uses a networking approach to lure more people and spread fast so that they can maximize their scheme in a short period of time before  being found out.

Those two things are pretty basic. Since we have been here for quite some time, I would suggest those for the very much newbies and for the more advanced modes of scams that we see these days we cannot control without stopping investing in ICO/IEO and other such scams. I consider all of those as scams because nowadays dev teams force KYC on a previous done ICO in order to get all their details. This goes against the ideals of crypto and thus newbies must also know this.

I believe the boycott of investments in any altcoins based crypto project is the only way people can save their bitcoins from getting siphoned off. But then again a healthy investment is a good thing to participate in so it also takes away the whales who invest. But being diligent is what I would advice everyone.

There are certain unique traits of a cryptocurrency that includes decentralization, full transparency through a public ledger, and an open source code that anyone can see. Scams and Ponzi schemes do not possess these common characteristics and are usually centralized and opaque.

The best way to avoid falling into this various scams and shady schemes is to identify common characteristics as listed above. More importantly, Arming yourself with the right knowledge would safeguard you against these Scams.

First thing that you will notice is how the website looks like. If it seems to be like created by 7 years old child, it might be a scam. Then, url link, lot of people mentioned that. The most important part is to read some articles, find opinion about particular platforms, ask questions at forums etc. 

Where you'll experience such ICO's scammed project is mostly in airdrops. They'll  advise everyone (thousands of users)  to send a particular amount of gas fee for them to send you their tokens or you've to have about 10 referrals before payment. By so doing many would like to invest and fall as a prey

The most reliable way to get profit is trading. If you will be analyzing the market for its own you can get good income. If we are talking about investments, its really needed to avoid financial pyramids, but it’s better to pay attention to IPOs that are held on large exchanges, it has minimum risks

airdrops are mainly free , they dont ask for a certain fee therfor you cant reall call it a scam . i also heard a kind of airdrop that ask to send 0 eth transaction but this arent also a scam because like i said earlier , you will only be sending 0 value transaction  . its only for activation purposes i think  . lastly , i also came across to an airdrop that requires invites and referall but they are also verified and not scam   . scams oftenly occur on investing schemes and its hard to catch them so we must be aware and take time to ask for others suggestion before entering it yourself

Yeah unfortunately scammy project have mostly multiple faces, it is very hard to tell if they are genuine or fake, except one really dig deep to find out in details about that project,  sometimes you come across project with full transparency and decentralized yet still end up a scam, you never know with scam project, they device new means of catching their prey.

Simple but there is something that make people blind and proceed to invest though doubted that the site is scam because of good offers. Still simple reminder can help to be more cautious on every action when investing and be alert on choosing the sites where you enter. Scam is everywhere, do not be careless on every click you do.

Yes exactly. An airdrop cannot be a scam in it's self just because it doesn't pay. To scam you need to get something out of it and with airdrops they get nothing. Unless... The project runs airdrops they never plan on paying just so they can give their scam project one last push before it dies.

Thank you for sharing a useful article for us. This is an article that provides a lot of attention to help investors avoid risks. I am an investor, and I have invested in several Scam projects, and that makes me quite disappointed. But if you spend a lot of time analyzing the project and verifying the identity of the project development team. This will help you get closer to success and eliminate a lot of investment risks.

It isn't always easy to know a scam but people foolishly put support and interest and even their crypto into projects that are no more than a few screenshots or fancy graphics and some advertising and a simple turnkey website and then social media. That is not enough. Every project has that. You need to have something to show. Without something to show I assume the project is a scam. Projects need to take themselves seriously, how caN YOU TAKE a project seriously if they have nothing to show?? You will believe just promises from someone online?

It is really not easy to know cryptocurrency scam? Some scams are really making a great offer to convince thier victim to invest to buy etc. I believe that the only way is to know or study more about crypto currency and how does it works.

It's a really nice article. Well created and a helpful one, especially for newbies... And I just wanna include that trust must not fully given easily. You must check first if the site or the account is a legit one. But right now, there's a lot of new way to scam people. Knowing that scammers would do anything just to scam others. That's why we should always be careful

The article well reveal various aspects of fraudulent projects. In addition, I want to note that often fraudulent projects are easy to recognize. Usually they offer to get easy money without doing anything in return. Although even Airdrops suggest the fulfillment of a certain condition for obtaining coins.

even serious projects also try to convince investors to invest immediately by offering interesting things. it can be said that the scam project also has the same movement as a good project.

on personally, I find it quite difficult to distinguish projects like that, even when I see a team and others. it's just that, I see the response of people and the information involved in the project. always looking for information about it will show the project is a scam or not.

I have my own qualifications to identify scams and project who will become fail, for example there's coin launched around two weeks ago in altcoin announcements. I give him comment, and they replied my comment. From those post, if you think like i think. You will predict that those coin will become failed project and then it's true now. I saw in coinmarketcap that their coin only have few thousand marketcap, and trade volume so small. I believe that this project won't survive more than 8 month.

A universal tool to recognize scam does not exist, because the team of such a project until the last creates the appearance of work and tries to show that everything is fine. Sometimes a project literally disappears in one night, social accounts are deleted. Networks and forums, the site close and all contacts with developers disappear. In some situations, the team makes the appearance of work. After all, most cryptocurrency scams are ICOs.

This is a great article, I commend the writer,  he/ she really buttress the point about latest scam,

The problem with most people falling for scam is that they are lazy in reading about what they wanna invest in,  no adequate research is being carried on by such people, 

The truth is, it is not easy to detect some of this scam project at first glance, some of them have really worked on there presentation that when you see them for the first time you can immediately believe they are genuine, best place to start looking is from the team, if team are shady then rest of project will be shady as well.

What about to just forget easy money? This will fix all the issues. The problem is that people are looking for easy money where they just deposit in some seconds and then money comes in wallet automatically. Don't fall in nice words, even on neutral ones. Just search deeply what the project is about, what benefit do they have from you and why they benefit you, this is main question, why they benefit you. You have to find logical answer here.

Edit:
Startups are a great things to invest in because most of them are innovative, the teams behind them put huge efford in projects. A lot of innovative idea was startup and then developed, money has to be put where it's needed, it's great opportunity for investor when he has money and another person has ideas because they can unite and create something great.

A must thing to be think on not only on online investment but also in offline investments as well.Easy money doesn't exist because if offers are too good to be true then they are mostly scams and frauds.People do really fail on realizing the truth behind this one that's why the cycle continues and scammers do continue to exist.

If people are just sensible enough regarding into those easy money schemes then they would easily detect and point it out and avoid themselves on losing money.

Many people who know little about crypto become victims of scammers. Extraneous sites, spam, newsletters, calls, and more wants to fool you. Trust trusted sources. It would be nice to create a list of trusted companies or projects in which you can safely invest, but it is incredibly difficult to implement

IMO,its simple to identify most of the crypto related scams.

When you see someone saying your going to get huge profits then its scam.

When there is assured amount of profit margin then its scam.

Fake project team or copied whitepaper then its scam.

Check media tools, community chat addresses, mailboxes, websites, contacts, ... Besides, be careful in using data from the internet when downloading ...

Apparently, even the most legit looking projects are now turning as having an exit scam in the end. It means the real challenge for traders and investors is to profit before  we end up as lossers. We might have did great on doing our due diligence before joining the project but we can;t guarantee on how dedicated the team will be on the project's success. They might be very inspired and enthusiastic at the first years but you will feel like they have abandoned it and just selling their own tokens after the lock-up contract period ends.

This is a good link to help us preventing to be a victim though I had stopped investing I other areas in crypto like IEO and ICO instead I focused in ranking Cryptocurrency to keep me safer ..

We need more like this now as scamming is really creating this community to be a bad impression from newbie investors and to old time as well

The copied and plagiarized documentation that projects offer us is a big problem in the cryptocurrency space. Moreover, this problem occurs not only in scam projects, well-known projects copy some ideas word for word, this happens very often, they literally rewrite other people's achievements for their needs.

Indeed, only a small number of startups have truly ingenious concepts; these startups become the pillars of the entire cryptocurrency market. Basically, only these ingenious ideas have a chance of success in the future, the rest are either scammers or loss-making investments, both of which lead to the loss of investor money.

To avoid all these plagiarized projects, it is best that we just allow them to be fully established before we think of investing in them, at least by the time they enter exchange, one problem would have already been dealt with.

I mean the problem of scamming us before they get to enter exchange, from their entrance into exchange, we could now filter it further to projects that are on quack exchanges or projects that are on reliable exchanges like binance, kucoin, bittrex because I believe that project that would have made use of these exchanges will still have some level of integrity in them, even though they can also fail when the developer is such that is inexperience and lacks the enthusiasm to push a project forward.

This is the common signs that a project is a scam.

But still, a lot of people are getting scammed.

And as long as this keeps in going, as long as people are getting scammed, scammers will never stop this. So as an investor, please, educate yourselves about these projects. It will not just keep yourself from getting scammed but also to stop the scammers from getting scammed.

This is the best description. If it sounds to good to be truth it's a scam ;-)

lucrative offers are the best way to catch gullible users. sometimes they dont even ask why they can get such returns, not even checking the background of the offer!
 the link op posted is very clear how those scammers get their potential victims. if you are a long-time crypto user, you should not fall on those tricks. you should know better!

Most scam projects always looks good in the eye with highest offers you can't find elsewhere just to get better attention to the scam project others are
1. Btc doublers xxx
2. Phishing attempts
3. Fake wallets with inbuilt spyware Etc

Nice article and it is really true most of us falls into the trap because we panic or buy the fake news ,
Most of us never really check where did the source came from,This fake news is created to pump or dump the market.
And most of the time it always works because of those people who falls into it.

In recent years, even at the beginning of 2016, not only a lot of junk coins appeared on the cryptocurrency market, but also a lot of information that is distributed not only by competitors but also by fraudsters themselves.  Based on this, it is very difficult to separate the grains from the husk and determine where the fraud is, and where is a really promising project, with a professional team.  If we take new projects as an example, then not all companies that are not active today are fraudulent, because unprofessional teams are to blame for their failed prospects.  If we can check the White Paper of the project and analyze the value of the project for society, then we cannot be sure of the professionalism of the developers.  Although in many cases, their consultants and partners can be authoritative.

Hello,

always check the White Paper, check the Team, check social media, do some research about the project and if the project promises an extreme high safe profit it's often a clue that the project is probably a scam. It's an effort, but it's clearly worth to take this effort and check the project thoroughly. Rather do a little bit more research than too less.

not all new into the crypto world are highly going to get scammed . what if they are already an existing trader or investor of stocks but they also want to try cryptos  . these guys have an adequate experience to know if the project is scam or legit   . 

same as when there is a complete newbie that does not have any experience on money making business but as long as he is a wise guy , he will look for guides and wont easily trust a stranger

There are various factors to consider when running checks on a project in order to identify its authenticity. The common factors to consider include;
1.The whitepaper: The whitepaper is checked for layout and structure. Whitepaper full of typos tells the experienced level of the team
2. The team; Study the team of the project by visiting their social media outlets and crosschecking if the provided data on each platform is coherent with the other. This can be used to identify fake or scammers.

Not only “Some” but almost all of them are scammers and runs by organize groups here in this community,we an see the pattern of projects that almost the same with others and sometimes released also at the same time

If I were you OP?prevent your self from engaging with this ICO and IEO instead put your money in bitcoin and the top 20 at least from the rankings

Dozens of fresh cryptocurrencies launch every month, and also alongside these new coins and tokens will come many original coin offerings (ICOs). The appetite among an extensive swimming pool of investors for these opportunities continues to grow, maybe even in spite of the reality that cryptocurrencies are battered in 2018. These elements combine to encourage scammers. All things considered, if investors have established they're prepared to throw money toward an extremely speculative cryptocurrency, they appear to be just as apt to purchase fraudulent tokens or even ICOs.

 For the cryptocurrency investor wanting to create the most of the multitude of different purchase possibilities while staying protected from sketchy coins and fraudulent ICOs and tokens, the possibility can be daunting. Blockchain and cryptocurrency science is developing at a fast pace, as well as seasoned investors may find it difficult to match the terminology. While there is no assurance that any cryptocurrency or maybe blockchain related startup will be successful or legitimate more (https://www.smore.com/2tqfj-vigrx-plus-penis-enlargement-pills)

In my opinion, the team should be placed more emphasis on because the team make up the foundation of a project and if they are legit then their is 90% that project will be legit as well,
It is very important to do background check on the team of a project, check their track record, their previous and present career records, what experience they have on which fields and any other vital information that will be necessary to give more clarification, if team are real, project is likely to succeed.

However, this is not always true. There are also big ICOs way back then that turned out to be a scammed in the end, a lot of investors bought that coins believing that it would be a good investment, but sadly, it was just a disappointment for both investors and bounty hunters, that is why identifying cryptocurrency scams would be a headache, the only thing that we could do is just trial and error.

But in my experience, the most easiest way to spot if a certain ICO is just a scam is if they can't provide solid information about their ICO, they don't have any website or their whitepaper is just copy pasted on other ICOs.

One way also is to look at their advisors. ICO's way back 2017 have some popular advisors like the creator of ethereum or waves. If they support the project then it will reduce the chance of being a scam. If they join many blockchain or crypto events then that proves they are serious about their project.

Twitter Facebook linkedin telegram many people give me offer for Investment a site then you will get more profitable. I think i always avoid this fake and scammers offers because my money is important for me, which small or big so money is money. About myself i will never invest in site which i don't think about so always i want take safety myself.

Of course, scammers are very intelligent, smart and very adoptive to the things happening to the market. Scammers know the psychology of the people who are looking for opportunities to make money so they can be appealing to greed that even the very professionals and experts can be fooled. The only best way to know a scam is when it has already turned out to be...which is of course already very late otherwise one should just shy away from getting involved with this industry.

There are always a few red flags for scams:
- no real/verified profiles for team members
- no or bad references on other websites
- poor social media activity
- poor Whitepaper

We should not just be deceived by those things that they painted high in their whitepaper which many of them cannot even keep up to 1/3rd of it, when we see a project, we just need to go outside their whitepaper to verify more about the team because the team is very important in this, if the team is good and verifiable, there is probability that the project will be a successful one because a good team will result to a successful project.

Researching is not easy, but we just need to continue with the research and find ways to ensure that we don't get engaged in the scam project and secondly we should never always have the mentality of committing too much money into some of those projects that we are not clear of, except the one that we are certain will succeed.

We can never tell sometimes even with the group someone will run with the bag of money
but some way know if its a scam or not is to see whether there are already partners that
are already supporting the project and using its technology and tested it , with their clients
and that they have testimonials , legit testimonials sometimes scam crypto create fake accounts
you better research if its true, and also they have enough funds and support also from a big community of investors
that already make sure they will not disappear

Beginners in crypto are mostly the victims of this scams this is very rampant on twitter creating fake accounts of popular personalities and fake giveaways like what stated on the article by OP, the only way to avoid and fall for this kind of scams is to asked first and research before sending any amount of money be vigilant especially if huge money involved be very careful to invest if not sure about what you are entering.

I’m sorry but I don’t think we need to read an article to understand how to recognize the crypto scammer.
I would take your question and separate it into 2.
1.   Read a lot about crypto, especially if you are a beginner. You must know that basic.
2.   Find a trusted company – read reviews about those companies, check their fees, nothing is for free!

If someone gives free bitcoins or any other crypto coins, stop for a minute and check him twice, something is wrong here. And if you already want to believe him, check with his company.
I have experience with a few companies that said they are giving away free bitcoins, with the same name as the company, and apparently it was a scammer.

Don’t believe anyone, read and check yourself with the companies, not the people, this is my recommendation.

Scams are everywhere even in social media we have to be very careful with so many fakes account just to scam people. To avoid these scam we have to research if it is really legit and always look for proof that may answer our doubts. Although at first it is hard to identify but in terms of our money to invest we must do to avoid scams.

I think this article is good for everyone to know to increase our awareness to avoid fraud. indeed it's not easy to identify cryptocurrency scams, but with articles like this at least make us more careful in investing, especially for beginners. I want to add a few tips from me to identify Cryptocurrency Scams. before investing in a project I always check the team of the project, study whitepaper & roadmap and finally always check periodically active or not social media projects

As everyone is reading this so also are the scammers, we now PHDs graduate involved in scam, they are very good at it. ICO review sites, crypto big guns as advisers and scammers etc. They dont care any more, they appear at conferences with their pedigree and lie to investors. what have we not seen in this space. If bittrex can be close to scam as an exchange, what can we as an online ICO/IEO researcher do?. every online DD is limited. Just put a few money u can afford to loss into project you find interested.

It was a great article which really help a lot of investors. This articles should spread out her in crypto world because as bitcoin grows and and become popular more greedy people is thinking a way on how they can get a lot of profit through scamming.  So I am hoping that this article will educate more people.

For those who fall or fell of these twitter giveaway scams, I have only one thing to say. These people should learn to judge properly. How do you trust someone on the internet whom you never talked to before and has a fake image as profile pic and you send them 1ETH immediately? People have to be greedy for that 10ETH promised return. Like seriously have you lost your mind here? No system in this world can generate coins out of the blue and multiply it 10times without going through risks. But they have to fall for the greed.

I hope such losers learnt their lesson by getting scammed.  :P

I think the majority are scams or failures 😅
We should try really hard to identify the good ones.

From my view, I avoid projects without real known team. I must think about the success probability of the project idea.

I think there are more ways to identify scams, but that is what I do. I usually don't invest. I join airdrop and bounties most of the time.

I invested in envion and it ended bad. Invested in banker a and it was neutral.

There are more ways but you're on the right path.

Use a zero tolerance technique. When you see something that makes you think twice about the projects stay away. When someone PMs you with an offer too good to be true, when their rates are too high, when the team uses small unknown exchange. There are many red lights in every project but when you see 1 move to another don't give them a second chance.

Even pros get scammed too bro.It is not that easy to identify an scam ico or scam cryptocurrency some are very promising but turn out the be a scam after the ICO .Its not safe to say that child can easily identify a scam it takes you alot of experience to be able to detect a scam.

Partly, yes. But as we can see, many influential people are also deceiving us. As recently happened with Justin Sun

Also don't believe people who are using bitcoin to scam other people. They will come at you and say "do you want to earn money, you money would be double in just 1-3days", they are funny because they are desperate to scam you, they will convince you by their sweet words that have no future at all, and if you fall for their trap since you like easy money, well don't be mad at yourself, if you know what I mean ;)

They usually used the ponzi scheme strategy in scamming people, and bitcoin was their escape goat for this evil acts. Their convincing power with a package of lies will deceive a lot of followers, who would become their prey in the long run. Personally I was a victim of this type of scheme, using fiat money investments offering money pyramiding promised to give 80% return of investment.

People should be properly educated about bitcoin so that they could not be easily to be target by those people who wants to earn without making an effort. We must also tell other people how to avoid that scenario , they can lose many money if they are not aware. A proper knowledge is they key. People only wants easy money thats why many people are easily to be fooled.

the important point is never believe about what they promised to you. many system like mlm promise you, will give high profit in a shoet time.
you must keep yourself from outside of your environment, like people you dont know, some sit for pishing.
if you want to drive to something new, just learn about what you want to do. sometime you will tricked but it will growth your exoerience

Just few days after one product of ICO or IEO launching to the public we know the way of scam or success, many scam investment using fake data and using other whitepaper document, you have more careful with your investment choose because not all is save for your investing.

Scammers are gradually taking our community, and for us to be fully armed and prepared to fall as victims, we have to actively equip ourselves with proper knowledge and information that would give us a foresight towards projects. I think many people fall as victims to these scammers because they are not proper aware of what a good project should entail. Sometimes, it is not so hard to spot a fake project from a real one.

I think the best way to identify the SCAM project is by looking at the team, the team of developers. SCAMMERS always try to hide their own identities and domain information, they often use fake identities without a link to their LinkedIn profiles. When you see something doggie with the team or domain registration stay away.    

In my own opinion, it is hard to predict if the project is a scam or not because there are still projects that has a good whitepapers and has a great team, but their project is a scam or a fraud. That is why we should properly check every details in a project for us to know if it is a scam or not.

You can actually see it first at the whitepaper of that cryptocurrency since it is the most important thing in a campaign/project, it serves as the backbone of the project because all the plans and mission is stated there. Also you can check the team of that particular project and check if it obviously legit. Another thing you should consider of identifying scam projects is the moderator or the bounty manager itself if the account is in low trust or called red trust. Another and the last thing you should consider is the reviews of other people who are buying or joining that project since they experienced that themselves. You should consider these things for you to protect your money and to achieve your goal here which is to earn money by trading or different kind/way of earning here. Because in a place like these there are lots of scammers since we are making money here.

I strongly agree and agree that to determine a scam project is not only seen from the team and the provision of the web, etc. to provide a very good explanation of the project.
because now there are already many projects that just want to make a momentary profit.
it is better to wait a week from the start of the project, is there really a lot of demand?
but that also won't guarantee being fooled in the end, so the luck factor also matters.

You'll notice that after you joined any bounties or signature campaign, there are emails which for me is obviously a phising link but they look like legit if you are not going to pay attention. Phising sites are hard to notice in my opinion when you are in rush, for example is when the trading platform sent you an email that you successfully sold your coin, so because you are excited, you didn't notice that you accidentally added a letter to the site where you are going to, that happens to be a phising link, after that, you received an email that you successfully withdraw your funds (the hackers did).

Scammers have different new ideas just to earn money even in the dirtiest way, they have the courage because of the anonymity we have in the internet especially when we are using cryptocurrency. It could happen in just a blink of an eye, you'll know you've been scammed or hack when it is already too late.

Decent article, but I'd stick to my simple rule: if it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck it is most probably a duck and I trust my probabilities. :)  On a more serious note if something seems to be too good to be true then it probably is! But do not confound a big opportunity with a scam. When you do that you've already transformed in that skeptic guy no one likes. In order to avoid that you need to undergo a close investigation of the revenue/business/trading model of any opportunity. After all if you are an investor you need to take care of your funds & what better way to do it besides doing your own research.

I don't go any further when I want to check whether a new token or even a gambling site is scam or legit. I just go on the Scam Accusations and Reputation sub boards of this forum and there you have it, you can now filter the scam projects. For me this forum is best source of every kind of information about crypto because it is made intended for dealing with this matter. Well, Reddit is helpful too, but it is broader. The crypto community here is bigger :).

I can say I'm still a beginner in the world of cryptocurrency but I have asked my friends who have a lot of experience in the world of cryptocurrency, in my opinion how to identify cryptocurrency fraud if you want to explore, first see a site that is safe or not and never put your cryptocurrency account on a pishing site, in my opinion a little easy way to identify cryptocurrency fraud, especially we've read in articles posted before.

To Identify Cryptocurrency Scams look with many drama about their coin after ended of ICO, drama fro delay start when ICO have success raised hard cap with many cases try for make investor disappointed and waiting for long time, they make many kinds drama with listing and not  according the road map way.

Seriously speaking scams are all around us and we need to outrage them or say avoid them with our experience.This article is really helpful and deals with technical aspects and provide us guidelines for how to be safe from them.Some ICO looks promising and bold but they are mere fake projects in reality formed by the scammers to collect money from peoples.So we need to understand that we ignore scam mails,twiiter accounts or any such thing which offers something without any cost.You need to investigate throughly like background of team,white paper,objective,market cap and other neccesary details of the project.

True. A scam project is not transparent at all . Key officials are not easy to be reach and seldom replies after the project launch. They are active during the sale period on telegram or twitter but nowhere to find several  months after launching. Also, you can smell something is wrong when key officials are  fighting over funds,mismanagement, some are swapping  their coins, when developer leaves, and finally website is offline and no updates anymore.

Some of the scams are happening today because people are lazy to dig information about the companies that are investing their money. with a simple google search or domain lookup, you can uncover a scam. Sometimes even with common sense, you can uncover a scam (e.g bitconnect) or by looking at the project team from identities - usually fake or not available on the project website.   

Identifying cryptocurrency scams can only be easy and simple when you understand and know the qualities of a workable crypto project. Usually scam projects have unrealistic achievable  aims and missions. They don't represent any specific solutions to a particular problem in the crypto ecosystem .

Its easy to identify if the cryptocurrency is a scam. First, they don't have proper information of the team behind and second is they have a social media that's a lot of fake accounts like from Telegram, twitter and Discord and were talking about the altcoins just like Bitconnect. They are gone now and left all their investors in vain.

That's why be vigilant and always check the background of the project before investing on them or buying their token/coin since they may have fake volumes.

Scam can be easily identified by simply researching on the project you are offered with. Most scams offer very promising returns or relatively high returns which is too good to be true. If anyone will offer you to invest in something that doesn’t need more work or effort but can give high returns then think twice that must be a scam. Another thing, if someone emails so to do this and that please always verify if because our technology in advancing and scammers are very skilled that they can get your personal information by you simply clicking a link.

If we really think it very thoroughly it is true that identifying scam projects is easy but what made it difficult is that it is talking about money and returns and most of the time, humans being humans cannot think other things aside from the returns they are about to get if they invest on the project. I think everyone should know how to deal with their emotions or greed to avoid getting scammed.
Scam cannot be eliminated completely but if you as a person and investor you should be responsible in safekeeping your coins and by safekeeping it means that you have to know what your trying to put yourself into by researching and don’t let your greed decide on what steps to make.

You can identify with scam crypto with low trusted of investor with this altcoin, many altcoin although success on listing with big exchange market after faced problem by owner and government regulation at their country will make price down and become scam altcoin, you have sell before price dump and altcoin delist from exchange market.

To make it simple, Study and learn first about the investment or project you are participating in.
There are many ways to find out if a project is a scam. The first one on my list is Transparency, Of course if you want  trust from the potential investor you will show yourself and let them know who you are and what you have accomplished and achieved.

This is where a project is first known, so we don't have to believe their marketing right away. We need to analyze it so that we can be sure.

Just checking with telegram channel group because there are many member of bounty and ICO investor, we know with scam bounty campaign or ICO investment with thousand respond about this campaign and ICO, many investor will said true about what his investment and have check with team, owner look real or fake, just check few hours you will know about bounty or ICO is scam or not.

You can also validate if the team is real maybe they are just using fake identities to gather investors. Nowadays checking for the popularity of the project is not enough just like before, you really have to see if the project itself is possible to conquer crypto world where they can be another crytpto that will be the topic of many crypto websites.

No inovations, no great team, no support from community = no deposits

for me is simple, I only rely on general information. if that doesn't meet, I'll consider it a scam, here's the criteria that I hold:
1. check the web and roadmap
2. Check sales or progress
3. what is the value of the coin
4. check social media
5. Check the telegram / discord
6. check the ICO / IEO list
7. check the market
8. check out Coinmarketcap.
if all is crowded, I consider it not or not yet a scam. if some are not updated. I assume is a scam.

That is a possible way, but this too gets overcome by scammers giving perfection. Identifying scams is really a big task, it needs more learning, even the experts fail at times. This is all because of the project outline and the way it is taken forward. I go with projects that give regular updates through all possible means and the participation of the senior team people on different conferences and meetings conducted worldwide having relation with cryptocurrency market.

It also need further investigation to determine if a project is scam or not.
Most of the projects are building a solid platform to hide their true intention, they will do everything to gather investors and they will build a community to support the project.

You gonna search   if the projects are scam or frauds so that you can know if this a legit. Search not only once search it very well and join to there group. If theres alot of investor that project are good.

Good article that would be helpful to identify if a project is a scam or not. That's the reason why we have to do a series of research before joining a certain project. Investors would do everything to attract and gain every user's attention. Their social media and the developers behind is an important factor that would help us know if we're on the right track.

Many investors in a certain project doesn't indicate it is a good project. I've saw many projects that they accumulated millions of dollars but in the end they disappear suddenly leaving their investors in a big disappointment. Cryptocurrency is now booming and scams are growing as well. Best thing to do is only invest on those who are really popular and in the top spot of coinmarketcap like eth, ltc, eos, xrp and so on. That will guarantee you a good profit for long term as they have real use-case for their projects.

Actually, it is difficult to determine the scam projects nowadays that even you carefully follow the above suggestions but still many are become victim of scam like the Centra tech project that even its used Mayweather for promotion and unlock it in the exchanges but still it become a scam project in the end. Therefore i think the government should upgrade the existing regulations because of these scams that can managed to penetrate the market.

The first rule you need to remember is that something sounds too good to be true it probably isn't. So this should be the first allert for you.
If anything at all looks suspicious you should make some checks, some guidlines are already mentioned here. Double check every information you get and if the smallest thing doesn't seem to be right, don't get involved.

Well written article, you have done a great job by trying to safeguard the reputation of cryptocurrency as many individual that have be scammed has seen bitcoin/cryptocurrency as a scamming medium. The rate of scammer around crypto world are now taking unpleasant and it need ultimate action to put an end to this, in other to safeguard the newbies on cryptocurrency not to fall in the hands of this weakened Scammers, let try and published article about this scammer and report anyone that come your way to end this unsafely internet and social media usage. please before you invest make sure all necessary verifications are done, don't invest on personal project, always try to make you verified the teams and at least 2-3 of them should be well know person... 

Is there a website which marks projects which are probably related to scam? Thanks for help!

Scammers often do not even try to hide now, so it will be easy for an intelligent person to determine who is a scammer and who is not

Identifying cryptocurrency scam icos and many more is easy and hard at the same. Yes, it is actually quite easy to identify a scam project by just looking at the board members of the project, its supporters and backers. But at the same time, it is hard because sometimes fake Infos are posted just to trick users from investing and that's the hardest part identifying if those people are real.

There are a lot of scams in this cryptocurrency world. Safety is my priority so I recommend to buy Bitcoin ONLY on the reliable cryptocurrency exchanges (like for example CoinDeal, Kraken or Coinbase), this is the most important rule for me. It's good to verify the information which is said on the internet. do not trust everyone.

I know cases when a trusted advisor is in the composition of project members, who, as a result, also becomes a victim of a scam. It is best to interact with projects of the superhigh level of trust for example TELEGRAM or IPOs of large exchanges like Bitfinex, Binance and so on.

I don't trust advisors, they are also asking for money just to write good review, I have some crypto projects who has a lot of advisors but they all asked for money too, they don't even check if a certain project is good or not, they are just after if their fee can be afford by the project before they will write reviews.

But, still there are some high reputable advisors who just don't after the money, but making sure the project is legit.

Simple yet so many people fall for these scams. You seem to be a new member here unless this is your alt account, I have been on this forum for quite a long time and have seen people falling for such scams posted by new accounts, campaigns that don't have any escrows and other similar stuff.

That's absolutely right, but the direction of the ICO trend has been decreasing since there was IEO. Strict regulations and also the market used for IEO, have made investors return by buying

Scam project can identify with transparent team or owner, many team use fake data for their website get many investor to buy with their coins. Not according the road map we can identify cryptocurrency is look not good and have potential become scam, we can get not according road map after success ICO how long they listed coin on the exchange market and which one exchange market become destination for lsting.

That is maybe hard maybe easy depend on what ico.
The easy way is looking roadmap, identify when they announcement match it with roadmap. Also check their social media like Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter, is it fake? That is easy if you already know how to compare it.
Hard way is looking review from the other investor, there is still many fake review. You need know why they give good review, must be keep take caution.

It seems to me that at the initial stage it is very difficult to detect fraud, since fraudsters also work and improve their skills in order to present information about the Project so that even more attentive and professional investors are deceived.  Today, many cryptocurrency users are very attentive to the new project, and not as it was in 2016, and therefore even bad projects today look very attractive and promising.

This was a great help, as a crypto user we should know how to identify cryptocurrency scams. For me, having a research was very important. We should be sure that the company has the credibility to operate to secure that they are not just decieving people. Also, as a trader we must have an experience on the actual trading of crypto asset so that we are aware with the crypto environment.

That's because its not really easy to determine if a project is scam or not.
Most of the projects are showing in their platform that their project is legit and they have a long term plan for the project.

In that article discusses the scams of making and use of fake sites (phishing) that are similar to the original site, with several attractions such as promoting social media using women's accounts and spreading. I was expecting something more technically in-depth information and analysis, indeed the article could help to identify fake investments for beginners. But for people who have long been in the world of cryptocurrency most likely such fraud will not be useful, we know that distinguishes the official/original site with fake.

The people that will always fall victim of scam more are investors that are more interested in pre ico, you know those investors only invest by faith and basically by the whitepaper that they read because no matter how much they try, they cannot verify the authenticity of a project from the beginning before they enter an exchange like those who wait for the project to enter an exchange first for them to fully verify if the project is according to what they promised and stand for or they have diverted from their main focus.

It is also when they have entered an exchange that you will get to know if the coin is really good to be held on to as a long term investment or just to be used as short term investment. The only way one can truly get to know a genuine project is when they have entered an exchange.

Advisor become how to know whit good ICO investing, last 2017 when many ICOs success with sold out and higher price after listing many experience advisor where they can take many investor not only on ICO time but also advisor can take many investor after coin listing on exchange market, the advisor give best service for ICO coin investment with best price for listing and have higher price for buy back on exchange market.

Check website and road map because many ICO use fake site domain and we know about where their project location between place mention in website the same or not with place with domain, we can check value of some altcoin, never investing with coin have higher value because less interested by investor, price under $0.3 is very good for investing in IEO or ICO, never invest with coin have price above $1 because after listing will be dump.

If its sounds too good, its a scam. Thats the easiest way to check. ;-)

I might add some more to these in order to understand a scam cryptocurrency. Firstly, we need to check the raise amount, if it is too high, this will be suspicious. Team should put a low limit to increase their motivation for the upcoming investments. On the other hand, if they offer incredible bonuses, it is probably scam. This is pre-ICO. If they hide somehow, check these details and decide to buy their coins or not.

And because they know the trend to make money they will still join others even though they know it's risky because of this they will earn, In referrals. And we should avoid this because we are just bringing our crypto partners to ruin! I've seen this happen many times and it just keeps coming back.

So let's avoid it! Let's avoid ponzi investments.

I will agree to you sometimes an ICO faking what they raised so when it is listed in the market they will sell it there . They faked it to create hype to investors that will look like a good coin to invest but actually they just want to sell it to investors In exchange. Since they have more of the supply they can easily manipulate the price and faked the demand by seting buy Orders

Cryptocurrency exchange spam is one thing, but it could go worse, if while looking for some advice and way how to get funds back, we may be deceived again. There are plenty of platforms which offers help in this case and then it turns out that is another fraud. So I think it’s much safer to use services of companies focused on such stuff e.g. Coinfirm, they can reclaim stolen cryptocurrencies. Reclaim crypto is only one of many products offered by this company. Coinfirm has been on the market for several years now and has worked with the biggest giants such as Binance throughout its history. You can gain more info in this article:  https://www.coindesk.com/theres-a-new-way-to-get-your-stolen-crypto-back

They are manipulating as long as they can, sometimes they are saying that they have reached the hard cap but they can't even enter a good exchange, they just listing on an exchange which is free and no actual volume at all. So, for me, that's very obvious that they are not telling the truth, especially if they can't provide what was the actual raised, or proof of what have been collected and where are they going to use those fund.

Detecting a scam is no longer a hard job for me. Sometimes, there are projects I will see and I wouldn't need anyone to tell me that they are scammers, I just see them and automatically I know that they are scammers. Some scammers are just so dumb and when you see them talk, they talk rubbish, unless you are someone without experience.

If you check some scam projects on this forum or other places, the kind of projects they post you wouldn't need anyone to tell you. And another way I easily tell scammers is through their team, I never fail to check out their team through their social handles , their activities can tell if they are real, and whether the account was created newly or not.

That was the problem they can also manipulate even the ICO website  to think that they have reached the hardcap. but its not and they will not give transaction to the address they are claiming bought by investors. Other give it but they are the one who buy the token not from real investors.

Yeah, that's examples of TT accounts seems to be scam at first glance, but some of them are made pretty good and some newbie could unfortunately fall for it.

Many ICO manipulated sold coin information to public and make investor very interested invest on their project, before ICO ended they have announce about reached hard cap but never want listed on exchange market although have pass hard cap, after few weeks later annouce about little sold coin to public and make many investor disappointed for investing on ICO.

Personally, I don’t allow myself to be deceived by that progress gauge that they do put on their site because anyone could manipulate that to favor them according to how they want it to be and people also have already caught this scope too which I don’t think that they do fall into and I think it is the same reason why those new project now don't even use that gauge again.

All these scam projects are also not finding it funny at all again as most of the investors that we have has really wise up and they would not just fall for any project they see, and now that it has now become so difficult to even identify them, people would just rather stay off any new project that they have no slight assurance for except some of these IEO projects that is not common to come by.

Base on my experience, I had hard time identifying scam even after checking the background of founder, checking reviews, there website, medium and many other factors. Because in the end of the they, it's either a scam or a failed project. But looking on these factors will at least lessen your chance to get involved in scams. Good luck.

It is always very difficult to detect a scam as scammers are getting bolder than ever! You should always be suspicious when the offer is too good to be true. Usually, when this happens this is a red alert that someone is trying to pull a scam. When paying in cryptos things can get a lot more complicated as you need to be sure that you are dealing with the real deal, otherwise your cryptos will be lost as you do not have any means of stopping a transaction after it is done. Before making any payments using cryptos you should do your investigation and be absolutely sure of what you are doing and who you are dealing with.

I think this is very urgent post here for all crypto investors. Before reading this post i could not understand how could i say a project scam but now this helpful post always help me to find out scam project. I suggest to read every men in forum to read this post. Thanks.

Yes, this was the main reason why investors are tired in investing in crypto, that's why there's a lot of good projects that is coming in the market but cannot become successful because as per them there was lack of investors. For now, we should all aware that although ICO was dying, still there's a lot of scammers that still trying  their luck in doing ICO and they are even entering IEO too.

Nowadays people simply mark everything as a scam without analyzing better about the project's core concept, team behind, and the scheduled development. From my view one out of five projects gets to be a scam, but if we go deep into it the scheduled development might have got little delayed. Without proper understanding people just mention it a scam.

I'm always surprised when I see people that engage themselves in investment that they don't know much about. It's really funny, how do you invest in something when you don't know the people that are running the project and where they are from. I can never invest in any project if the team are not being transparent with who they are and their plans. Investing in projects like that is like taking a huge risk, because you can wake up tomorrow and they may decide to call off the project without refunding their investors (scammers) and there will be no way for you to trace them.

Knowing the team is not the only thing that is important , you also need to know what their plans are, and the possibility of them achieving success with the project. These and more are the things you have to check before you for any investment so that you don't waste your hard earned money on nothing.

You don't know to identify the scam projects you can check the scam accusation board which can be helpful for every newbies to learn how find the scammers around us.
This is the biggest headache in the cryptocurrency market.
So please do research about the project white paper and team details to see they are worth or not.

Another scam is happening now.The founder of Lendefi project is a known scammer and con artist.
Robin Dey was shut down by ASIC in Australia and scammed investors out of millions in the Malta DX scam 2 years ago. He then went on to try and run a scam in India called Hempcorp.
Please read this document: https://www.dropbox.com/s/n0ee5hnx92dz7ca/TIMELINE%20OF%20EVENTS%20Adam%20March%202019%20-%20Google%20Docs.pdf?dl=0 (https://www.dropbox.com/s/n0ee5hnx92dz7ca/TIMELINE%20OF%20EVENTS%20Adam%20March%202019%20-%20Google%20Docs.pdf?dl=0)

This is a very great article. I think every newbie should have a read at this. They are especially susceptible to scams like the ones mentioned here.
I think one of the biggest form of scams Airdrops. While genuine Airdrops can actually be profitable and should be distributed for free, they've been outnumbered by the fake ones. These fake ones ask for 
 a certain amount of money in Btc, ETH or other coins before withdrawal can be processed only to find out after sending the fee, that your withdrawal was not intended to be processed.
Keep away from these.

What about the exchange itself being a huge scam?  google the sentence below . It tells how the founder vanished ( faked his death ? ) and took the only passwords to the 250 million in BTC with him.
               
Crypto exchange Quadriga was a fraud and founder was running Ponzi scheme, OSC report finds
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and most of them are scam now , it is free to be posted in cmc and cg that's why they can be listed in a week or less. There's some chances that when people know that a certain project is in this site it caches their attention easily which is not a good thing, they need to research for it, listed in this site is not a good sign that it would not run in the future, sometimes they use this for them to get people's trust so it is a trap sometimes, so be careful.

The points in the article are indeed important to help those beginners who want to try investing in crypto. However, sometimes greed and
not thinking rationally will only lead to a scammer. How can there be a large return from a small investment, unless it  is a  scammer who
always promises a large income. We will not be gullible because that’s impossible.

I have examined in many forums, Great thing they given those fake twitter accounts for us to be watchful at whatever point we see them. But giving absent gigantic reward is to some degree suspicious subsequently numerous still drops for the colossal cash they are giving absent. And scammers are utilizing huge exchange's title to urge the believe of the crypto people. Fraud individuals can do everything presently and I did not indeed think they may fake exchanges as prior, so it is necessary be careful to dealing with emails and unknown links.

I am very happy to learn something new from the link of the article you provided.In the future I will also be wary of such scam projects.Many like me can now get some idea about cryptocurrency scam from the link you provided.Thus, if all scam projects can be identified, we will not see any scam projects in cryptocurrency in the future.

Only way for someone not to get scammed is to have the ability to think in spite of pressure, do a simple research on the scheme that you are being introduced most have some sort of testimonials about those scheme which could prove the legitimacy of the scheme or not. Another thing is that someone needs to have a common sense, if there are red flags but you still go for the scheme then you will get scammed. My rule of thumb is, why are they offering me this?

Really a valuable thread to know every newbie to avoid scam projects,It isn't simple to distinguish cryptocurrency tricks, and I think no one will know in case at long last, one program or venture will trick the individuals.Its hard to  identify them until they reach a few stage, and they open their personality by running absent from their duties. While, at that point they are trick individuals, and we cannot do anything since they are taking off us with their guarantees.May it possible will  back once more within the future with the modern idea to scam individuals and once once more, we are going be difficult to know them within the starting.

Hope this information will help newbies to aware of cryptocurrency scam projects. Newbies usually want quickly to get an "easy money" and they don't think at all. Scam projects specifically intended to this. It's necessary to examine thoroughly all the aspects of the project before investing money.

Basically, the best way to avoid being scammed is to use common sense. The most common type of scam is where you are promised a large sum of BTC but the only way you can receive it is by sending the other person a smaller amount of BTC. They try to justify this by saying it is for some kind of fees but in reality they will just take your money and never give you any prize.

The use of common sense is not enough to avoid being a scam and scams are carried out through various ways, not by ROI promising investment only. The best way to avoid a been scam is to be informed about the strategy scammer, not the use of the common sense.

Well, all in all, --it is start with the ^{[common sense]}. Through this instinct, you will notice that you are prone to scam and in fact, scams activities are there are too many factors to consider. As investors, our responsibility and extend our diligence to have further research if there is a potential project to invest in, not just by the hype of people. However, these are those things to consider and you perhaps begin to suspect if you heard this, asking money and asking your personal identity.

The article is nice. But these scammers this day's are smart. They will make you believe them by all means. I fell victim to some DeFi pre-sale late last year. I encourage every investors to do alot of research about every project before investing.

Really nice, don't really got scammed in trading and exchanges but have been in projects and bounty programs, and the only thing that has kept my odds of being scammed so low so far is the fact that I follow my gut feeling. When I think something is too good to be true. It most probably is, so I prompt to avoid it, ensuring that I do not get scammed in the process.

Yes, all in all it have to do with common sense but it doesn't start with it because if an investors is not fully aware of how crypto currency scammer operate his common sense will fail him and the last time I checked only naive scammer will start by asking money and personal ID without making his prey to trust him first. An example is ICO scam, it all start by investors trusting ICO before trust was abused and later ID was added.

Even if we exercise vigilance on each and every project, sometimes, we don't know the true motive of the dev team.
So to avoid being screwed, better invest on projects with active use case already or their app is already existing in the market.
Because most projects that are in alpha or beta stages, will never get out of this stage up until they abandon the project.
Projects that disclosed their team members don't mean that they will not screw people, because even if they are out of public, they can still run away because chasing them would be so much work to do. So they have the guts to show in public, because running after them in case, will only be futile. And they know it.

Well, you have a point there, but ICO scams it took how many months before they will successfully scam their victims and that is right, it is hard to distinguish a scam like this but if you totally have dig research, perhaps you will know that the ICO was operating scam, it should through their white paper, roadmap and even upon checking the team behind, if they look suspicious, that is a red flag for them not to invest. But actually, this needs technical research before you can bust a scam project. However, common sense was still useful here.

I agree that there are many ways to avoid fraud, but how to avoid risky investments? All crypto investments are risky, bro. If you don't want risky investments, kindly don't invest in crypto. Bro, only brave people will invest in Bitcoin. If you feel afraid of the risks of crypto investment, I suggest you not invest your funds here.

braveness is Nothing if you have no knowledge at all , this market is only for those willing to learn and willing to risk .

The combination of those 2 will save your investment here , because the more you invest in Bullshit project that promising you Millions of profit is the more you are giving scammers a chance to fool you.

Thats what it is and i agree common sense is still useful when try to identify crypto currency investment scam but a common sense individual who is not aware of how to make technical research through the whitepaper, roadmap and the project team background won't figure out the red flag.

This is a great piece of news and it's especially useful for newbies who are usually prone to falling for scams like this
Most scams employ the tactic of promising huge amounts of money to unsuspecting victims only to require a certain of money that has to sent to a particular address before the withdrawal request can be processed
This is mostly done using Airdrops on Telegram. I was a victim of a scam like this back in 2017 when I just got started with bitcoin. I sent the required coin only to discover it's just a scam

That's the main bait for those who wants to gain more by risking their assets ended up being scammed. That's why everyone were told to DYOR and TAYOR because of these kind of high profittable projects. Unless it has a good fundamentals that will improve the project from time to time, in that way, you can be sure that you're investing on the right project.

Indeed, it sucks if we become victims of fraud, therefore we should be able to identify scam projects. That way we can avoid becoming a victim of
fraud, but now scammers are getting smarter, by making fake projects look like real projects. So it's no wonder the victims of scammers are so many,
and until now crypto scams are still popping up.

Because there are still many greedy investors who want instant profits, and also newbie who is less knowledgeable is the target of most scammers.
So always be careful in choosing projects for investment, avoid if there are projects that offer a profit to be good to be true.

We have to thank you for that. Good article to help you determine if a project is fraudulent. Investors do everything to capture and win every user's attention. Their social media and the developers behind it is an important factor to help us know if we are on the right track. This is why we have to do a series of research before joining a particular project.

I mean scammers are just everywhere and it's really kinda hard to identify all of the legit and scam projects scammers these days have a lot of new different methods.

But for sure you can identify some obvious scams if you have experienced, but sometimes there are projects that are kinda legitimate and then the developers just end up running in the funds or something so you cant always be 100% sure that every project is legitimate so you should know that risk of investing in some projects, as we could see there are a lot of sketchy looking websites.

Scams probably are not regulated here in the forum and yes there are tons of scam projects that are promoted here in the forum

There are several ways to identify cryptocurrency scam projects. First, the bounty manager, the team, the use case plus effort of the project team. If there is IEO, IPO, IDO etc the exchange or dex is also part of it.

In 2016, attackers have successfully upped the ante, hitting target servers with traffic in excess of 1 Tbps. And what’s so unfortunate about it all is that, for potential attackers, it is becoming cheaper and cheaper to conduct such attacks, with so-called “DDoS for hire” wherein attackers can simply pay to target and bring down a website.

In 2016, attackers have successfully upped the ante, hitting target servers with traffic in excess of 1 Tbps. And what’s so unfortunate about it all is that, for potential attackers, it is becoming cheaper and cheaper to conduct such attacks, with so-called “DDoS for hire” wherein attackers can simply pay to target and bring down a website.

Most of this scammers promised triple returns as a bait to  tricks newbies it unfortunate that a lot of them fall for the trick because they have been convinced by what they saw beyond any doubt that its real whereas they are fake until they get scammed before they gave up.
It is very common now that these scammers also deployed the use of YouTube videos to perpetuate their  fraudulent activities attimes the damage must have been done before those videos are taken down.

There are different methods or ways to identify or detects Scammers on crypto currencies. But all the ways that have mentioned by the OP from the link

https://medium.com/@Peter_UXer/how-to-identify-cryptocurrency-scams-813c32816ddf?source=friends_link&sk=da150ce8128c348da4b0dfdbf57e8e12 

have been tried by people to avoid Scamming yet, people still fall every day and night. So best way to detect it is wisdom and knowledge.

Scammers are bringing new methods to defraud the unexperience users, Traders and investors in the social media and Internet (sites). Therefore, wisdom and knowledge is needed to identify the tricks the fraudsters will use to scam. Another way to identify crypto currency Scammers is the IP address. Before you sign up to the site, check the website ip and ask people that know ip address very well  before you sign up.
I also want to recommend that since the Scammers have developed their skills to defraud people, the anti-scammers programmers should also advance in their programming knowledge to create a program to detect fake sites.