How to avoid becoming a hamster in the ocean of ICO scam

On the 20th of January, the Lithuanian Produm project, which has collected half a million dollars (according to other data, $ 6 million) for the ICO project for tracking fruits and vegetables on the blockchain, suddenly disappeared into the nowhere with all the funds raised from the project budget.

The team, whose faces were represented on the project’s site, turned out to be non-existent people, and instead of the project site, there was a link to the white page, in the right-left corner of which was shyly written the word “penis” in fine print. The project actively advertised its own ICO, using attractive girls from the Fiverr service, who wrote with the marker the website address on their chest.

We can’t say that this event was particularly resonant, but it generally illustrates the common signs of a scam that many investors in ICO do not notice.

Unfortunately, with the growth of ICO projects, the number of scammers is also growing, and it’s becoming easy to get confused in the sea of information. The Produm project had all the signs of a scam project, the most obvious — the fake team.

The team of any ICO project should be carefully explored, there can’t be people who appeared out of nowhere and ready to go to nowhere in the team. They must have live profiles in social networks and some kind of background. The founders of “live” projects are not afraid to show their real faces: they speak at thematic conferences, it’s easy to find them and to contact. In addition, it is also necessary to pay attention to the project’s advisors. Advisors are usually public figures who are authoritative in their professional activities, acting as guarantors of the ICO project. It is always fast to find information about them on the Internet.

It is simple to verify and compare the collected and declared funds in the official ICO wallets, and this amount should approximately coincide with the numbers stated on the official website. Of course, there are cases when most of the financing is received from the investment funds, in this case, they will not be displayed on the official website.

Then you need to collect all your attention in a fist and carefully read White Paper, Terms and Conditions, to understand the legal subtleties of token possession and to understand how detailed the further development of the project and the means for achieving the public utility of this or that know-how is described in detail.

While most ICO projects are approaching the Crowd Sale stage with bare ideas, the IZETEX team https://izx.io/ has tested the viability of its own ideas by creating its own MVP game, as well as describing in detail the architecture of its own platform. These developments require large financial investments, full immersion, technical support for the development team, while the provision of work requires considerable resources, long before the first investments begin to arrive in the project.

Objective proof of the “true” project is the daily work of its developers, as well as specific results that can be seen and felt, rather than the colorful marketing activity. Be a reasonable investor who can forget about emotional and impulsive decisions, and then you will see stock Xs instead of penises on the screens of your balance.

https://medium.com/@izetex_project/how-to-avoid-becoming-a-hamster-in-the-ocean-of-ico-scam-2b45342826d4