What is the first sign of a scam project (ico) for you?

[Yuhee]

Is this a "How do I run a scam ICO without being spotted" kind of thread?

While I doubt it is, I don't want to give any con artist any ideas. If you want to protect yourself always try to think from the position of a scammer. You will always learn something new that way, and will eventually learn how to keep your funds growing.

I think this is just an honest questions, besides scamming with icos must need a lot of money and intellectuals so i doubt any bigtime scammers could even lurk around this community in a long time. But i agree that we should just not divulge any ideas in a forum full of random people.

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[illiki23]

I think that this would be great.  Or come up with a weighted analysis that allows the community to provide an overall ranking (score) for ICO's.

Seems like a lot of ICO's scams are giving a bad rep to those that are actually trying to help create real authentic solutions for this world.  Ultimately, this hurts the entire industry including the growth of cryptocurrency.  We need to collectively come together as a community to report and discourage scams as much as possible.  Otherwise, it cripples the growth of this industry and hurts all of us... 

That might get a little messy as shillers would abuse the ranking system.  Even if you have people rank the 'rankers' fake accounts can be created to manipulate this process.  Bitcointalk trust scores may help but other precautions should be taken.  How can this be set up in a way which it cannot be manipulated?

For now though I am just going to have fun doing the data mining on my own based on whatever features I can extract from ICO websites.  Bitcointalk announcement threads would be a great source of data but I am unsure of their site scraping policy.  Need to check on that first.  I am currently compiling a list of ICOs and their urls from several ICO sites but I will eventually need to label which ones are scams.  Another thing to predict will be overall success - we can use market cap a certain period after launch but my main interest is in scam modeling.  I will get back to bitcointalk in a few days with the next steps.  Once preliminary results are in we can all try to identify further features to use in the data mining/machine learning process to create more sophisticated models. 

As for the idea that scammers will use threads like this to improve their technique the field of 'adversarial machine learning' comes to mind.  It can sometimes be a cat and mouse game - as they modify their approach we will need to continue to develop better detection strategies.  It is a valid concern though.  The model used to detect and classify attacks/scams should not necessarily be published, BUT detection and classification of scams/attacks does need to occur.

[francism]

Most ICO's these days seems legit but most of them also failed to deliver what they have promise and somehow turn into scam eventually after getting investors funds.

[Grant Hero]

I think that this would be great.  Or come up with a weighted analysis that allows the community to provide an overall ranking (score) for ICO's.

Seems like a lot of ICO's scams are giving a bad rep to those that are actually trying to help create real authentic solutions for this world.  Ultimately, this hurts the entire industry including the growth of cryptocurrency.  We need to collectively come together as a community to report and discourage scams as much as possible.  Otherwise, it cripples the growth of this industry and hurts all of us... 

That might get a little messy as shillers would abuse the ranking system.  Even if you have people rank the 'rankers' fake accounts can be created to manipulate this process.  Bitcointalk trust scores may help but other precautions should be taken.  How can this be set up in a way which it cannot be manipulated?

For now though I am just going to have fun doing the data mining on my own based on whatever features I can extract from ICO websites.  Bitcointalk announcement threads would be a great source of data but I am unsure of their site scraping policy.  Need to check on that first.  I am currently compiling a list of ICOs and their urls from several ICO sites but I will eventually need to label which ones are scams.  Another thing to predict will be overall success - we can use market cap a certain period after launch but my main interest is in scam modeling.  I will get back to bitcointalk in a few days with the next steps.  Once preliminary results are in we can all try to identify further features to use in the data mining/machine learning process to create more sophisticated models. 

As for the idea that scammers will use threads like this to improve their technique the field of 'adversarial machine learning' comes to mind.  It can sometimes be a cat and mouse game - as they modify their approach we will need to continue to develop better detection strategies.  It is a valid concern though.  The model used to detect and classify attacks/scams should not necessarily be published, BUT detection and classification of scams/attacks does need to occur.

To present abuse to the ranking, you make it weighted.  For example, having a prototype carries more weight in the ranking.

[ticterine]

Honestly, if they have 0 code written or published I think it's a huge red flag. All of these ICOs try to get very professional websites, flashy graphics and things to make you think they're legit. They push exceptional marketing tactics while throwing around fancy words to confuse novice investors looking to make a buck. It's very apparent on announcement threads here - so many scams look so great on paper and people get sucked on based on presentation and not substance. It's really too bad.

[Olivious]

They have lots of promises and their marketing strategy are more active than their roadmaps and developments. After the ICO there will be no more active updates. Then slowly fades.

[Caesar-Giulius]

I will avoid if there is no escrow. I feel that if the team is more likely to deliver their promise if they willing to receive funds from escrow in progressive payments against work delivered.

[Asimmo]

I see but...  what do you do after they show their identities?
Leave beside the thing that declared developer has no past background in this sphere..
Then? What happens then?

[Taki]

An ICO project can be done on a one click to be real. I'm a daily visitor od one sire where there is a calendar od all coming ICOs and there is all tge information about each. I was reading some and it was clear to me already that not all of them have the future. Well, on what thing I pay attention the first is the idea, many projects do not suggest something unique or their suggestions are a replica of some another project. In this point the design and advertising doesn't play a role. The idea is the main thing in such projects.

[Grant Hero]

I will avoid if there is no escrow. I feel that if the team is more likely to deliver their promise if they willing to receive funds from escrow in progressive payments against work delivered.

Are there any legitimate escrow companies out there?  I've seen individual escrows on this forum, but that seems more safe to use an official escrow company.

[waynechong1995]

If you are refering to ICOs

Project details - Project with overly abstract content are not trustworthy at all.

Suspicious members -  when the member behave like they are from those pop-up sites that promote binary bots. chances you are getting in scam ICOs. Double check their linkedin profile and google everything deeper and deeper, sometimes a 'CEO' feature on some videos/article doesn't mean they are trustworthy enough....

Website design is important as well, but there is not much to say if links are dead chances they are not having even one proper administrator.

Others are pretty subjective and difficult to justify, but valid and passionate dev with a creative, feasible projects are what we need

[stevegreer]

First sign ?

..it's an ICO

Cynical, much!

Not at all. That is just Spoetnik being Spoetnik. He has no filter, but a lot of the things he says are true. I agree with him on this. I have seen too many people get burned by ICOs in the past. The only people who make out on ICOs are the "devs" and the very early adopters who are able to buy low and dump on the late adopter chumps. I will go a bit further and add that any ICO on YoBit is guaranteed to be a scam. Stay as far away from that exchange as possible.

[CryptoGeneral]

First sign? This is hard to tell, because all you get is a whitepaper. I think you need to rely on the community, because DYOR only works if you are capable to understand all the tech details and know enough people in the scene who are legit. And even "legit" people might get cheated on or become cheaters.

[darkangel]

As stated in the topic, what is the first thing that makes you raise the alarm?

It is very difficult to be aware of a fake project that deceives people, now, there are so many different ways that they deceive investors. Therefore, before investing in a project, they often look at its potential and its developers.

[pedrog]

Do they have a functioning product?

I they're selling vapor, it's better to stay away.

Do they really need a token?

Many of these projects could work with bitcoin and litecoin, there is no good reason for them to have their own token.

[Jonashe]

It's not always a "scam" but you can make very bad investment if there is no cap, long period investing (1 month), tech already existed, blockchain is useless for this tech etc.

[MakaveliTheDon]

• The idea itself (real pain?, 10x?, market (size, stage, penetration point, timing ...), product-market fit, tech behind it (is blockchain solving something real, is it necessary?), economics, long-term vision (how will world look like with this product and w/o in 5, 10 years?))
• Team (experience, size, relations and dynamics (hard to judge without personal talk, presentation - it would be a good idea to do a quick promo video like you need to do for YC application)
• Tech (website, social pages, mail, MVP/working prototype (if in the right stage) ...)
• ICO timing and structure, big allocation of funds to team, escrow ...

[sakkosekk]

This problem is actually quite hard to spot
Sometimes it depends on the heart, the greed of the developers
Behind the ICO projects are the 'dev'
There are dozens, hundreds of ICO projects on a daily basis
Be smart to choose yourself a best project
ICO idea:
+ Application (learning, game, health, ...)
Business model?
ICO technology
+ On which platform? (Blockchain, Etherum, Wase, ..)
Traditional
+ WEDsite
+ Blog
+ Forum
+ Advertising
+ Facebok
+ Twitter
+ Github
+ Youtube
...
Time to open sale?
Initial ICO price?
What is the Token Number?
How much capital to call? (How many tokens are sold)
Market
+ Scale
+ Object
Long-term vision (5 years, 10 years, ...)
Development team (Who are they?)
TOKEN DISTRIBUTION
+ Dev (%)
+ Bouties (%)
+ Pulic sale (5)
...

[Hoganye]

In fact, ICOs project in 2017 or last year are can become to scam project, but the time they become to scammer still long. Because if try scam at now, they will miss opportunity make money with this type. Not have rules can helps them easy to PR and creating project, just need use some money from crowdsale, they can easy listing to exchange site and user will say they are really project

[Antivoid]

The team, some are just joker, like 16 years old team member called himself experienced, and then the project itself, does it has a clear plan or just pie in the sky