Just realized right now how an ICO scam can be run... without transparency■■

[box0214]

Been doing some research on ICO (initial coin offerings) coins, assets, and companies. And I just realized right now there is nothing stopping the initial stake holders from putting in their own money or Bitcoins into the ICO and then paying themselves back with either a high salary or some other means that look legitimate.

In effect, it would make the ICO look as if it was well funded fooling everyone else into funding the project.

The only way to defeat this type of shenanigans is by having transparency and seeing where all the money came from. If one can track down where most funds are coming from we can avoid these shenanigans.

I'm sure down the line regulation will encapsulate this funding technique eventually and bust everyone that has done this. So its best to stay anonymous if anyone is doing this type of marketing tactic.

Technique seems to be:

1. Show a very promising technology thats on the way.
2. Code up something that seems like it works.
3. Ask for funding and give investors a higher % of return.
4. Show that you raised  millions of dollars to prove large stakeholders are onboard.
5. Pay investors back a large % of their money.
6. Pay yourself and your friends a large salary to get your initial funds back.
7. Profit.

Not a scam necessarily, but one can see it as a very smart marketing tactic. But end result is the uninformed public is left with the bag.

I wonder if all the ICO related companies or devs did this. It's very tempting i'd imagine.

The basic idea is the same as running a crowdfunding campaign where you ask for $1000, but you were only able to raise $700 and its your last day before the campaign ends. What do you do!?!? Put in your own $300 of course just to get the $700 from everyone else. Which is fine for small potatoes like that, but what if it involved millions of dollars? Is it still fair anymore? Or was the public fooled?

Now the question is which ICO's could have executed such a marketing technique to a large extent? Not naming names, its just something i recently realized of how profitable an ICO can be if executed properly.

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[Bitcoinpro]

its called a corporation

[box0214]

lol..  .. i guess this is how the real world works anyways. just realized how this works.

[jeannemadrigal2]

This is why I pretty much don't ever buy in to ico's.  It is just too risky, no matter how legit the team looks it is better to wait and see if a coin becomes established.

[rokkyroad]

Duh.

ICO = thanks for the money sucker.

[tiggytomb]

I have learned to stay away from any ICO that comes out, it is such an easy way now for people to just take your money.  For me to invest in an ICO now it would have to be something amazing in the works for a long time and not just a pop up shop style announcement, and even then it is risky.

What happened to the early days when if a coin was released, it was either given away or fairly opened up to miners and thus creating a nice community, now it seems everyone is out for a quick buck.

[gogxmagog]

OP pretty much sums up the way it is done, its been seen hundreds of times around here.

its pretty much your best bet to stay away from anything offered on these forums (and elsewhere too)

there little or no regulation or anything stopping these guys from pulling this sort of ponzi-like scams, there seems to be a new one every day and nothing ever comes of it, the scammers that run these things (and away with your money) dont really have to face retribution, so nothing's stopping them. even some that started out legit eventually turned rouge... if you go to the securities section you read thread after thread of people who have lost their btc, every single one...

dont invest in anything...its just too risky

[box0214]

i mean how else are these guys going to raise capital?

[rokkyroad]

i mean how else are these guys going to raise capital?

Most of the ICOs you see here are just simple coin clones. They may throw in a fancier wallet, an extra feature, and promise the moon but their only goal is to relieve you of btc.

Remember, this is the wild west. There is no law, no regulation, and no recourse. Once you send your btc off its gone forever and no one can help you.

Trust no one.

[kprcoin]

Been doing some research on ICO (initial coin offerings) coins, assets, and companies. And I just realized right now there is nothing stopping the initial stake holders from putting in their own money or Bitcoins into the ICO and then paying themselves back with either a high salary or some other means that look legitimate.

In effect, it would make the ICO look as if it was well funded fooling everyone else into funding the project.

The only way to defeat this type of shenanigans is by having transparency and seeing where all the money came from. If one can track down where most funds are coming from we can avoid these shenanigans.

I'm sure down the line regulation will encapsulate this funding technique eventually and bust everyone that has done this. So its best to stay anonymous if anyone is doing this type of marketing tactic.

Technique seems to be:

1. Show a very promising technology thats on the way.
2. Code up something that seems like it works.
3. Ask for funding and give investors a higher % of return.
4. Show that you raised  millions of dollars to prove large stakeholders are onboard.
5. Pay investors back a large % of their money.
6. Pay yourself and your friends a large salary to get your initial funds back.
7. Profit.

Not a scam necessarily, but one can see it as a very smart marketing tactic. But end result is the uninformed public is left with the bag.

I wonder if all the ICO related companies or devs did this. It's very tempting i'd imagine.

The basic idea is the same as running a crowdfunding campaign where you ask for $1000, but you were only able to raise $700 and its your last day before the campaign ends. What do you do!?!? Put in your own $300 of course just to get the $700 from everyone else. Which is fine for small potatoes like that, but what if it involved millions of dollars? Is it still fair anymore? Or was the public fooled?

Now the question is which ICO's could have executed such a marketing technique to a large extent? Not naming names, its just something i recently realized of how profitable an ICO can be if executed properly.

You can't do this in Australia since any ICO funds received by a 'crowdfunding' ICO is considered taxable at the highest company tax rates.  We are an Australian ICO in progress and had to establish all of the legalities such as tax implications before we commenced development a year ago.


Take a look at KPR Coin's Australian ICO in progress on:

https:/www.kprms.com

It's currently in it's highest KPR Coin's earning ICO stage and also still taking on new referrers!

[Roukawa]

I think it is needed to eliminate those scam projects. We are all wasting time in participating and investing with this such scam ICOs. I don't know how but I really appreciate that there will become a laws and regulation for the people who are scammers. They really make the bad reputation for cryptocurrency. They are the garbage of the world of technology. They used their intelligence to fool people and to get advantage with the ignorant people! I really hate the way they steal coins. They live using the money of others! They live but their souls are burning in hell.

[kprcoin]

I think it is needed to eliminate those scam projects. We are all wasting time in participating and investing with this such scam ICOs. I don't know how but I really appreciate that there will become a laws and regulation for the people who are scammers. They really make the bad reputation for cryptocurrency. They are the garbage of the world of technology. They used their intelligence to fool people and to get advantage with the ignorant people! I really hate the way they steal coins. They live using the money of others! They live but their souls are burning in hell.

The whole world really does need to hurry up and bring in proper legislation for market entry though!

[marjil]

Most of the ICOs don't even need to be ICOs - they could just run exactly the same business without any "coins". The only reason they go down the ICO route is to get free funding to run their business/ hobby/ experiment with other people's money. It's not a "scam" in the true sense of the word but it's still highly suspect.

[kumar jabodah]

So it is better to study the ICOs that we are going to enter. It's good to know exactly who the founders, advisor, and the platform they are saying. So we should always know the ICOs that we will join. We can not add to those who are victims of scam projects

[KryptoKnight78]

Been doing some research on ICO (initial coin offerings) coins, assets, and companies. And I just realized right now there is nothing stopping the initial stake holders from putting in their own money or Bitcoins into the ICO and then paying themselves back with either a high salary or some other means that look legitimate.

In effect, it would make the ICO look as if it was well funded fooling everyone else into funding the project.

The only way to defeat this type of shenanigans is by having transparency and seeing where all the money came from. If one can track down where most funds are coming from we can avoid these shenanigans.

I'm sure down the line regulation will encapsulate this funding technique eventually and bust everyone that has done this. So its best to stay anonymous if anyone is doing this type of marketing tactic.

Technique seems to be:

1. Show a very promising technology thats on the way.
2. Code up something that seems like it works.
3. Ask for funding and give investors a higher % of return.
4. Show that you raised  millions of dollars to prove large stakeholders are onboard.
5. Pay investors back a large % of their money.
6. Pay yourself and your friends a large salary to get your initial funds back.
7. Profit.

Not a scam necessarily, but one can see it as a very smart marketing tactic. But end result is the uninformed public is left with the bag.

I wonder if all the ICO related companies or devs did this. It's very tempting i'd imagine.

The basic idea is the same as running a crowdfunding campaign where you ask for $1000, but you were only able to raise $700 and its your last day before the campaign ends. What do you do!?!? Put in your own $300 of course just to get the $700 from everyone else. Which is fine for small potatoes like that, but what if it involved millions of dollars? Is it still fair anymore? Or was the public fooled?

Now the question is which ICO's could have executed such a marketing technique to a large extent? Not naming names, its just something i recently realized of how profitable an ICO can be if executed properly.

This is why I recently chose to invest in https://incremint.io/ - they have a decentralized escrow platform that protects token buyers investments, all while bringing credibility to ICOs, you should take a look at their Telegram acct.

[Sumo]

This is why I pretty much don't ever buy in to ico's.  It is just too risky, no matter how legit the team looks it is better to wait and see if a coin becomes established.

Just because you do that doesn't mean you're doing the right thing. Most likely You had a negative experience of participation in ICO, but you need to understand this. There are many criteria for selecting the right ICO.

[alyssa85]

Spot on. And this is why so many developers are going down the ICO route, instead of doing it the hard way and developing for free, launching a cryptocurrency with open source coding which anyone can mine. and then working your socks off to promote it in the hopes that the few coins you managed to mine might end up worth something eventually.

This is also the reason the SEC made the distinction between ICOs and cryptocurrencies in the US senate hearing. It's because ICOs tend to be significantly dodgier than your plain old open-source crypto that anyone can mine.

[monkeydominicorobin]

Been doing some research on ICO (initial coin offerings) coins, assets, and companies. And I just realized right now there is nothing stopping the initial stake holders from putting in their own money or Bitcoins into the ICO and then paying themselves back with either a high salary or some other means that look legitimate.

In effect, it would make the ICO look as if it was well funded fooling everyone else into funding the project.

The only way to defeat this type of shenanigans is by having transparency and seeing where all the money came from. If one can track down where most funds are coming from we can avoid these shenanigans.

I'm sure down the line regulation will encapsulate this funding technique eventually and bust everyone that has done this. So its best to stay anonymous if anyone is doing this type of marketing tactic.

Technique seems to be:

1. Show a very promising technology thats on the way.
2. Code up something that seems like it works.
3. Ask for funding and give investors a higher % of return.
4. Show that you raised  millions of dollars to prove large stakeholders are onboard.
5. Pay investors back a large % of their money.
6. Pay yourself and your friends a large salary to get your initial funds back.
7. Profit.

Not a scam necessarily, but one can see it as a very smart marketing tactic. But end result is the uninformed public is left with the bag.

I wonder if all the ICO related companies or devs did this. It's very tempting i'd imagine.

The basic idea is the same as running a crowdfunding campaign where you ask for $1000, but you were only able to raise $700 and its your last day before the campaign ends. What do you do!?!? Put in your own $300 of course just to get the $700 from everyone else. Which is fine for small potatoes like that, but what if it involved millions of dollars? Is it still fair anymore? Or was the public fooled?

Now the question is which ICO's could have executed such a marketing technique to a large extent? Not naming names, its just something i recently realized of how profitable an ICO can be if executed properly.

It is like a casino. You will be tempted to gamble but in the end. The house always wins. It is not about transparency. It is similar to IPO's. The same tricks that they used in the past will be recycled by the fraudsters in form of an ICO.