So many new ICO, how to check if it's scam?

[moonswamp]

So many new ICO, and they all have new idea and tech listed on their webpages,

and even the websites use the same template...

but so many new ICO, how to check if it's scam, or worth to invest...

[1713913741]

1713913741

[Whiplash Wally]

Research. No way to be 100% certain, but read whitepapers, talk to devs, etc. The less info you can find, the greater likelihood of a scam.

[Josepht]

Most of the ICO's are shit.

The best way to know that an ICO is legit, is seeing that the team already has a working product (for example, BitDice has a running casino for 3 years, and now they come with an ICO).
And, what Whipsplash says: the more info you can find beside their webpage, the less likely it is that is is a scam.

[dennyd999]

Working products! Thats right! Team behind the project!

Chek my signature I think this is the most trustfull upcoming in October ICO.

[DRVX]

First step to see available or not ICO at website:
http://icorating.com/

And next just learn more about project, about what people say, about developers.

[carriebee]

There are many scam ICO but in order to verify if their project is legit is we need to do some research. Check if they have a product, read the whitepaper, roadmap and know their marketing strategy. These way you can have an input if their project is scam.

[p3ppymon]

This question has been asked a while ago and there are lots of good replies already.
Please check here.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2124560

[blokHed]

Research. Do not go blind.
Check the website. Do they have a talented team, advisors on the project?
Do they have a prototype already established?
Check road map time frame of events.
Is the idea backed up by strong surrounding team and vision shared?
Maybe worth considering.

In my short time viewing ICOs, I would only ever consider investing in, and what we have now, a large amount of talented companies for the future. Invest in established talent. (..is only my approach).

[DuarteFig]

It is not very easy to identify scams.

Even when the ICO is not a scam, it often becomes a target of phishing attacks: people create fake websites using the project's name (for example 0xproject.info instead of 0xproject.com), use the project Slack to send fake deposit addresses and stuff like that.

Even experienced users should be very cautious.

I can give you some tips that can help you to identify if a project is serious. These are some key points that I and my partners (in the Auctus Project) are considering of extreme importance to show the community our project is for real:

Team: check if the project provides you the real names and information about team members. Check their social network profiles, previous achievements, if you can't find anything about who is behind the project you should be cautious about it.

Bitcoin Talk Forum Thread: See how they respond to critics and doubts about the project here. I have seen some projects that create self-moderated threads (when this is the case, there is a warning message below the thread name) and delete every message that says bad things about their project.

ICO (token sale) terms: See what percentage of the tokens issued will belong to the development team, and most important, see if they defined a vesting period for the dev tokens to be locked. For example, the TenX project had a very successful ICO and they have a 4-year vesting time, so you can see that they are really committed to the project. In the Auctus project, not only the AUC tokens held by the team will be locked, but also the ETH raised. The funds will be released gradually to cover only project expenses.

Product / Development progress: check if the team is actually building something, or if they already have at least a demo or alpha version of their product. This shows they can deliver what they are promising and that they are not only after your money.

[shinratensei_]

So many new ICO, and they all have new idea and tech listed on their webpages,

and even the websites use the same template...

but so many new ICO, how to check if it's scam, or worth to invest...

A lot of them are using the same templates and that didn't make sense to see the project doesn't have its own templates. You must try to see the dev team and the comment about that, the more people will try to comment on the project and the more experienced you can get from there.

[sixexgames]

You might not be able to tell if the ICO you invested in is a scam for months and months. So I err on the side of caution and don't invest in the things.

[jlp]

I think the country where the team members grew up is a significant factor.

Corruption is part of the culture of many countries.  Hence, I check the corruption ranking of countries:

https://www.transparency.org/news/feature/corruption_perceptions_index_2016

If the ICO is from a country with a high corruption ranking, then you are taking a bigger risk.  This is because the team probably has less of an issue with inaccuracies, exaggerating, lying or cheating, because these things are more ingrained in their country's culture.

[bathrobehero]

It's quite simple;

if(ICO)
scam=true;

[Coins_Hiro]

The only way to find out if an ICO is good is through RESEARCH. You need to look for the company's plans, background, the team behind it etc. It involves time as you need to differentiate one ICO to another if its unique or something, for you to be able to know if it is worth the money you will invest.

[uztre29]

Check the whitepaper. Whitepapers explain how their platform works specifically. This includes simulations, specifications, calculations, and charts. If that project doesn't provide explanation on how their project works, do not ever trust that ICO.

Look for the team. Look who's behind the project. The members of the team should be well-known or have joined previous projects.

Don't get fooled by buzzwords. They may sound great but if you actually understand it well, it's just full of empty promises.

[V1saya]

So many new ICO, and they all have new idea and tech listed on their webpages,

and even the websites use the same template...

but so many new ICO, how to check if it's scam, or worth to invest...

Admittedly, it has become even harder these days to tell a scam from a legit ICO. The scam ICOs are adapting very well to the ICO mechanisms so that they appear really legit. But there are still ways to make sure the ICO you want to take part with is real. Analyze their whitepaper and their overall project. Monitor their members, do background checking. Contact them and raise questions, many questions that really matter. A legit project is more than willing to address all your concerns.

[banake]

You need check these things about ICO:
- Their Idea
- Their team
- Their roadmap

[jtipt]

So many new ICO, and they all have new idea and tech listed on their webpages,
and even the websites use the same template...
but so many new ICO, how to check if it's scam, or worth to invest...

There is no easy way of knowing. You need to do your research. Judging from the website is completely useless as anyone can make a fake website for very cheap. Best way is to look for the ICO's topic here and read what other people think about the ICO probably that would give you some idea. But the bottom line is 90% of the ICO's are shit, and the good ones are very popular so IMO you should just invest in those ICOs.

[nomenclatur]

Check the whitepaper. Whitepapers explain how their platform works specifically. This includes simulations, specifications, calculations, and charts. If that project doesn't provide explanation on how their project works, do not ever trust that ICO.

Look for the team. Look who's behind the project. The members of the team should be well-known or have joined previous projects.

Don't get fooled by buzzwords. They may sound great but if you actually understand it well, it's just full of empty promises.

Aside from what you mentioned, I always see the project in detail from the location and in common with other projects, I am not following a very unreasonable project like skyway and many others, the number of small campaign participants is also an indication of distrust and failure/scam, but does not always have an effect if dev is always active giving updates. We can not predict 100%, but at least can speculate not to get stuck with promotional bonus when ico and finally experience a scam.

[icobits]

If they are using a fake pictures,

its easy to spot fakes ones, No real company startup will use a picture of their CEO with a beach background

Since they cant afford to hire a photographer why would you invest with them? if they cant spend or invest on their own