ICO certification service needed

[pisston]

I believe the assessments our company makes as a requirement for prospective customers fit quite well in the definition of what you're looking for.

Is this some kind of bad joke?

Our partnership with Bancor means we work exclusively on projects utilising Bancor smart tokens - and our expertise with the Bancor platform positions us perfectly to guide those projects through the crowdfund process.

You let that scam happen.

I wonder how they get the services of such a service is very dubious people and teams. I have seen a lot of ico on the forum today, which do not correspond to the declared document.

[1715000881]

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[1715000881]

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[Lauda]

I believe the assessments our company makes as a requirement for prospective customers fit quite well in the definition of what you're looking for.

Is this some kind of bad joke?

Our partnership with Bancor means we work exclusively on projects utilising Bancor smart tokens - and our expertise with the Bancor platform positions us perfectly to guide those projects through the crowdfund process.

You let that scam happen.

I wonder how they get the services of such a service is very dubious people and teams. I have seen a lot of ico on the forum today, which do not correspond to the declared document.

Scammers have very low to non existing criteria. Bancor is a prime example of obvious money grab with a flawed idea and zero people with any actual (relevant) knowledge. I was thinking about establishing a certification service, but I am almost certain that pretty much no one[1] grasps how complex a proper certification service for this would be. A "pass vs. fail" certification is definitely out of the rule. It would be too simple, imprecise and likely be inconsistent. What it requires is a grading scale, where the resulting grade is a combination of grades from several areas (similar to language certification) in addition to a level above which a service could be "certified". Theymos could then decide whether a project with a lower passing grade should be allowed to advertise or not.
[1] I've seen at least 1 person in this thread that took this thing seriously.

[hilariousetc]

This service would be great in theory, but if it was run by people who knew what they were doing and doing a thorough job then probably 99% of ICOs would not pass it. Even the ICOs that probably have a good idea or start off with the best of intentions will likely have no idea what they're doing and mismanage funds and the project will just straight up fail or turn into a scam somewhere.

I out scammers all the time on here for free, but hey, if someone wants to pay me to do it full time, no problem.

If you are providing some kind of structure to how you make your judgements with some kind of track record then you could provide that service for the forum.  That is what OP is asking for.

I know what the OP is asking for, and the reason why. All these scam ICO's will soon become detrimental to the forum that he owns, and possibly cause him some unwanted attention from the authorities.

Not necessarily, and I don't even think this would work because they'll still likely not be SEC compliant. He's probably just uneasy about advertising these blatant cash-grab scams which just seem to be rinses and repeats of the same bullshit under a different name and gimmick. With that being said, I've always wondered how long it would be before this forum caught some sort of heat because sometimes it just seems like a darknet market on a clear-net site. I mean, we have an entire sub board for what are essentially ponzis and pyramid schemes but if I recall correctly theymos mentioned he had taken legal advice regarding it or them being allowed to operate here (though don't quote me on that and maybe theymos could clarify). It would also be interesting to know if any threats or serious attention from the authorities has actually been made as this forum is pretty much the main hub of ICOs. I think it's only a matter of time before ICO campaigns are straight up made illegal - because they likely already technically are - or at least cracked down on extensively. They are pretty much a prime example of what happens with completely unregulated financial markets and how greed and scammers always take advantage of that.   

[MalReynolds]

Hey, The Naga Group is interested in some advertisement on Bitcointalk. https://www.nagaico.com

How can we proceed certification services?

Looking forward hearing from you!

[Lauda]

How can we proceed certification services?

There are no credible certification services as of yet. This thread is a discussion thread about establishing such services and not about certification.

[JayJuanGee]

I believe the assessments our company makes as a requirement for prospective customers fit quite well in the definition of what you're looking for.

Is this some kind of bad joke?

Our partnership with Bancor means we work exclusively on projects utilising Bancor smart tokens - and our expertise with the Bancor platform positions us perfectly to guide those projects through the crowdfund process.

You let that scam happen.

hahahahahaha...

Yeah, let the scammers come in and tell us which ICOs are "good" and which ones are "bad."  That's a great idea!!!!!


Thanks for pointing out such absurdity of the suggestion of thehun, Lauda.

[Cøbra]

I guess the forum itself could do it, since that probably would be the only way for there to exist a certification service that ICOs will actually feel like they need to go through to attract investors. Otherwise most ICOs will just ignore the certification service since it won't be worth exposing themselves to such scrutiny just to be able to bid to buy advertising.

Maybe there could be two certification products with such a service? A "basic" which would be cheaper but more quick; that would be an analysis to make sure the proposed product is viable and actually makes sense, the people behind it are legitimate and real, and the amount being raised doesn't seem excessive. Then there could be an "advanced" certification scheme which would be more rigorous and involved. Things could be set up so that only ICOs with a basic certification can post, but ICOs with advanced certification can buy advertising and take advantage of signature campaigns.

This has the added benefit that every ICO presented on the forum will at least have gone through a basic check which would push out all the obvious scams. The money earned from proceeds from basic certification can then pay for the in depth research and analysis that would be required to do any advanced certifications.

[thehun]

I believe the assessments our company makes as a requirement for prospective customers fit quite well in the definition of what you're looking for.

Is this some kind of bad joke?

Our partnership with Bancor means we work exclusively on projects utilising Bancor smart tokens - and our expertise with the Bancor platform positions us perfectly to guide those projects through the crowdfund process.

You let that scam happen.

I wonder how they get the services of such a service is very dubious people and teams. I have seen a lot of ico on the forum today, which do not correspond to the declared document.

Scammers have very low to non existing criteria. Bancor is a prime example of obvious money grab with a flawed idea and zero people with any actual (relevant) knowledge. I was thinking about establishing a certification service, but I am almost certain that pretty much no one[1] grasps how complex a proper certification service for this would be. A "pass vs. fail" certification is definitely out of the rule. It would be too simple, imprecise and likely be inconsistent. What it requires is a grading scale, where the resulting grade is a combination of grades from several areas (similar to language certification) in addition to a level above which a service could be "certified". Theymos could then decide whether a project with a lower passing grade should be allowed to advertise or not.
[1] I've seen at least 1 person in this thread that took this thing seriously.

Hello Lauda,

First of all we did not "let it happen" because AmaZix didn't exist yet when Bancor launched their token sale.

Second, I happen to be in Tel Aviv meeting with the Bancor team in their offices and they don't have "zero people" but a team of 20+ persons working hard to come forward.

You can criticize the project in any way you want but calling it a scam when they have a working product that is constantly being developed is unfair and not at all objective.

Finally, a certification service will never assure investors that the project is going to be successful and make them any profits, in any field the majority of startups end up going broke despite being legit and having a solid plan.

[Lauda]

First of all we did not "let it happen" because AmaZix didn't exist yet when Bancor launched their token sale.

Yet you flaunt that project on your website. Quite amateurish TBH.

Second, I happen to be in Tel Aviv meeting with the Bancor team in their offices and they don't have "zero people" but a team of 20+ persons working hard to come forward.

I said zero people with actual relevant knowledge. Random developers from random areas are absolutely not people with relevant knowledge. Also: "hard working people != experts".

You can criticize the project in any way you want but calling it a scam when they have a working product that is constantly being developed is unfair and not at all objective.

Objectively, it's a money grabbing scam. It should not exist, yet it does.

Finally, a certification service will never assure investors that the project is going to be successful and make them any profits, in any field the majority of startups end up going broke despite being legit and having a solid plan.

Nobody claimed that.

[thehun]

First of all we did not "let it happen" because AmaZix didn't exist yet when Bancor launched their token sale.

Yet you flaunt that project on your website. Quite amateurish TBH.

We are partners of Bancor. Some of our founding members were moderating their Telegram groups and eventually decided to set up a company and continue cooperation with Bancor.

Second, I happen to be in Tel Aviv meeting with the Bancor team in their offices and they don't have "zero people" but a team of 20+ persons working hard to come forward.

I said zero people with actual relevant knowledge. Random developers from random areas are absolutely not people with relevant knowledge. Also: "hard working people != experts".

I don't agree with that. They have a working product and several projects using it. What additional "relevant knowledge" is needed?

You can criticize the project in any way you want but calling it a scam when they have a working product that is constantly being developed is unfair and not at all objective.

Objectively, it's a money grabbing scam. It should not exist, yet it does.

Again I disagree. The concept of Bancor is backed by a good purpose and many use cases. The importance of liquidity (or the lack of it) is not to be underestimated. Of course this might be debatable but there is a good percentage of people who would agree with me so I don't think "it should not exist".

Finally, a certification service will never assure investors that the project is going to be successful and make them any profits, in any field the majority of startups end up going broke despite being legit and having a solid plan.

Nobody claimed that.

Not explicitly but I have the impression that most scam accusations are based on the current price of the token. Had it appreciated in value I bet most of these discussions wouldn't exist at all.

[TE-FOOD]

Guys, I think for such certification, it's important to separate

legitimacy certification

from

quality validation.

The first one just aims to separate legit ICOs from Scam ICOs. I think this was the original goal of starting this thread.

The second one (quality validation) is a grey area, there are no exact KPIs which would match each project.

[akamit]

The idea of certification is well thought by Theymos.
But to execute such service will be very challenging and expensive.
The certificate an ICO project will receive will not be limited to advertise herein but it will prevent scam/low projects.

Please check this link. Bittrex has a minimum of $5000 fee to review a coin/token
https://support.bittrex.com/hc/en-us/articles/227902667-What-is-a-compliance-review-

Team verification process will be very challenging.
Lets say an Ico project has 5 team members and resides in 5 different countries.
Then the certificate issuer need to hire 5 lawyers in 5 different countries to check their backgrounds and other information.

This going to be very expensive for ICO starters. They will think 100 times before thinking of an ICO.

This is for sure, that we really need this kind of service as soon as possible.

It seems, now we can count stars in the sky. But we will not be able to count ICOs/coins/tokens in near future.

[TE-FOOD]

The idea of certification is well thought by Theymos.
But to execute such service will be very challenging and expensive.
The certificate an ICO project will receive will not be limited to advertise herein but it will prevent scam/low projects.

Please check this link. Bittrex has a minimum of $5000 fee to review a coin/token
https://support.bittrex.com/hc/en-us/articles/227902667-What-is-a-compliance-review-

Team verification process will be very challenging.
Lets say an Ico project has 5 team members and resides in 5 different countries.
Then the certificate issuer need to hire 5 lawyers in 5 different countries to check their backgrounds and other information.

This going to be very expensive for ICO starters. They will think 100 times before thinking of an ICO.

This is for sure, that we really need this kind of service as soon as possible.

It seems, now we can count stars in the sky. But we will not be able to count ICOs/coins/tokens in near future.

I think it's enough to check the backgrounds of the founders, they run the business.

[BenOnceAgain]

I'm getting a bunch of ICOs wanting to advertise on the forum, but I don't have time to do more than a very cursory review of each. Somebody trustworthy needs to set up a certification service that will work like this:

An ICO will pay you to apply for a certification. You will then spend many hours thoroughly reviewing everything about them in order to determine that they're at least basically sane. Some things that you should maybe check:

 - If they're planning on creating software, require that they have the software already 5% done, preferably with a working proof-of-concept that you can play around with. Check that they haven't just filled a github repo with copy-pasted garbage code from elsewhere which doesn't actually do anything relevant.
 - If they're planning on operating a real-world business (solar, mining, etc.), check that they have a registered business somewhere. Do a background check on all involved individuals. Require that they have some of the necessary assets (property, etc.) already purchased, and verify this using public records, etc.
 - Check that there are no reasonable open scam accusations against anyone involved.
 - If smart contracts are used, verify that the English terms match the smart contract terms. If there's any way for the smart contract terms to be changed, make sure that this is specified in the English terms.
 - After reading all of their public info, ensure that there is no deception or any glaring holes.
 - Check their website for copy-pasted text, photoshopped images, and fake people.

If they fail your criteria, then you should not certify them. That's important. If you just give a certification to everyone who pays you, you're useless. You should keep the application fee even if they fail, though in some cases you could allow them to reapply for certification after failing with a reduced fee. Your goal should be to eventually be able to publish a statistic like, "99% of ICOs I certified did not turn out to be scams." You should not attempt to certify that ICOs will actually appreciate in value or anything -- that'd be far too difficult --, but just that the collected money will be used as advertised.

Once I notice that a good, trustworthy certification service like this exists, I will require that ICOs wanting to advertise on the forum receive such a certification. (If/when there are multiple good certification services, I will publish a list of ones I consider acceptable.) So you'll get a built-in market from this, and even if an ICO has no interest in advertising on the forum, acquiring a widely-trusted certification has significant value in itself.

One of the things that BTRIC, my non-profit economic development organization, is working on is exactly this.  A standardized methodology to evaluate and score ICO/ITOs, then evolving to score other entities such as exchanges (security audit frameworks, etc.)  There are some good approaches from the community on various scoring factors but not much in terms of breaking down the nuts and bolts of each scoring component.

We will use this internally to incubate projects that score very well (though we'd rather have another impartial certifying body score our projects, we do not want a conflict of interest), and the standard will be public, open to input and participation from the community, and revised as best practices evolve.

In the face of the coming regulation, which we can't stop, and backlash, such as the Facebook advertising ban (and likely more), we need to work as a community -- and industry -- to develop standards before we get killed with overbearing regulations.  We either come up with credible, well-defined, and transparent (open source) standards, or the regulators will impose standards we will have to live with.

Anyone interested in this project please contact me, I'm looking to get it underway in February.  Feel free to PM or contact me on Telegram/email/etc, use the contacts for BTRIC in my signature.

Best regards,
Ben

[npredtorch]

The idea of certification is well thought by Theymos.
But to execute such service will be very challenging and expensive.
The certificate an ICO project will receive will not be limited to advertise herein but it will prevent scam/low projects.

Please check this link. Bittrex has a minimum of $5000 fee to review a coin/token
https://support.bittrex.com/hc/en-us/articles/227902667-What-is-a-compliance-review-

Team verification process will be very challenging.
Lets say an Ico project has 5 team members and resides in 5 different countries.
Then the certificate issuer need to hire 5 lawyers in 5 different countries to check their backgrounds and other information.

This going to be very expensive for ICO starters. They will think 100 times before thinking of an ICO.

This is for sure, that we really need this kind of service as soon as possible.

It seems, now we can count stars in the sky. But we will not be able to count ICOs/coins/tokens in near future.

I think it's enough to check the backgrounds of the founders, they run the business.

Yes I agree with TE-FOOD. Only the founders or the higher ups on the project must be background checked while the persons related to the operation task will be skipped. (It's their own duty to check their own people.)
What relevant is, the owners should know that they are 100% liable on the project/ICO before getting the certification. There should be no escape for them whatever the outcome.

[BenOnceAgain]

I guess the forum itself could do it, since that probably would be the only way for there to exist a certification service that ICOs will actually feel like they need to go through to attract investors. Otherwise most ICOs will just ignore the certification service since it won't be worth exposing themselves to such scrutiny just to be able to bid to buy advertising.

Maybe there could be two certification products with such a service? A "basic" which would be cheaper but more quick; that would be an analysis to make sure the proposed product is viable and actually makes sense, the people behind it are legitimate and real, and the amount being raised doesn't seem excessive. Then there could be an "advanced" certification scheme which would be more rigorous and involved. Things could be set up so that only ICOs with a basic certification can post, but ICOs with advanced certification can buy advertising and take advantage of signature campaigns.

This has the added benefit that every ICO presented on the forum will at least have gone through a basic check which would push out all the obvious scams. The money earned from proceeds from basic certification can then pay for the in depth research and analysis that would be required to do any advanced certifications.

I am working on this as part of my organization.  Standards in certain areas are greatly needed both to screen obvious frauds as well as a demonstration to regulators that industry is engaging in self-regulation.  That, to me, was a key takeaway from the recent SEC/CFTC testimony.  Self-regulation, when it can be done, often can both reduce the urgency of regulators seeking to impose their rules, as well as provide them a good framework that they are often inclined to adopt (while still meeting the statutory mandate of their agencies).  I am reaching out to major crypto projects/businesses/organizations to try to build support for this work.

I have experience in design of certification standards though obviously not for ICO/ITO type certifications.  However, it is needed and a critical component, as I see it, of putting in place voluntary measures that could be widely adopted, even expected, for a given offering to attract serious attention.  A two-tiered approach, sort of a pre-certification and then a full certification could be done as well, as you indicate would potentially be desirable for use on BCT.

In order for any certification standard to be credible, it needs to be completely open and documented in its complete assessment methodology.  There are some materials that people have published about how they evaluate ICO/ITOs that provide a good starting point, but most standards I've been involved with typically are more intricate than the general outlines I've seen from others in various places.  Which of course makes sense because they're just offering their personal methodologies, not a true certification standard that could be applied widely.  I'm also looking at rating criteria that are used for traditional investments as some of that is clearly applicable to the crypto asset class.

A couple of other factors that should be considered in standards criteria is that the evolution of the standard should be open to all stakeholders to participate in (think an IETF type process as a goal to eventually adopt once you have enough interest), needs to be agile enough to adapt to changing needs but not so dynamic that it's changing too often to have a clear meaning, and, the people/entities that are certifying compliance with the standard should not have any actual or perceived conflict of interest with any project they are evaluating.  Other standards I've been involved in revising often operate  by having a peer-review component of draft assessment documents.

Finally, the standards I've worked with typically take months to years to go from start to finish in terms of a single assessment.  However, in my view much of that was needless and the actual work was done pretty quickly.  Obviously, with ratings of ICO/ITO you'd have to significantly shrink that timeframe to days (for a pre-assessment / basic tier) to a few weeks (for a full assessment/certification).  Those standards were originally developed in a pre-Internet world, so the standards we'd build for crypto/ICO/token/crypto business (and in my view these all need to be done via some different criteria as each has some key differences but also many similarities such as security).

Best regards,
Ben