Before You Get Excited About ICOs or Free Fork Coins

[noxpost]

Airdrops, Bounties, Free Forks, etc - there are a lot of new coins showing up with really attractive ways to convince people to get involved and talking about them. However, as we all know, there are plenty of "pump-and-dump" scams, private key thieves, and even some (potentially) exchange-sponsored forks with difficult rules that reward only those who are insiders. So what can you do to protect yourself and ensure that what you are getting into is a worthwhile, safe offering?

 - Did you check out the team? Can you find post histories on accepted forums, or verified contributions to the community, or linkedin profiles that have plenty of real connections?
 - Whitepaper. First things first, without one, don't consider investing. Almost no exceptions to that rule. If what is there is hastily written or is overly marketing focused instead of technical, that's not a whitepaper, it's a sales brochure. Consider that carefully.
 - Have you seen the code, gotten on github and looked at the history? We want to be sure it is really there and that the differences from forked coins are well understood.
 - Check out what others are saying. Bitcointalk, Slack, Telegram, Discord, etc - there should be real conversation and real questions answered.
 - Depending on the timeframe, a little Google-fu. Is it really new? Maybe try google trends, or news. Look for autocomplete terms like 'scam.' But then also do some searching to figure out where else the coin is mentioned, or the team members, or the concept that is their supposed differentiator.
 - Some red flags in the business plan, like significant pre-mining, or large amounts of "advisor" tokens, etc may indicate a quick pump-and-dump.
 - Does the development roadmap seem feasible? Are they making significant progress on it, or is everything post-ICO? Same questions about the business plan.

[Zandro]

I do keep checking the list of airdrops with a good background this way I'm sure when I applied for it then surely there is something good to be given to me.

I ignore also some group on telegram that keep adding me to unknown group, I just leave immediately when I'm not familiar with such token. Just for my account safety too.

[noxpost]

I do keep checking the list of airdrops with a good background this way I'm sure when I applied for it then surely there is something good to be given to me.

I ignore also some group on telegram that keep adding me to unknown group, I just leave immediately when I'm not familiar with such token. Just for my account safety too.

Good call. On a related note, anytime somebody is asking for something that feels...odd - it probably is. I know that some fork coins have really worked out for small sets of people, but if you have to give your private key to claim them, think very very carefully. If somebody is saying that you need to give anything that is unusual from the majority of forks/airdrops/etc. do a check with others here or in other respected forums to understand the risk. Leaving unknown or auto-added groups is definitely smart.