[Trusted ICO Reviews&Ratings] Which sources of ICO ratings do you trust and why?

[klarki]

When it comes to the question of investing crypto into this or that ICO one has to review website, White paper, chat with the team members and advisory board, watch official groups in Telegram, Slack, study smart-contract and Bitcointalk thread.
But this is a huge work for one person, taking into account the amount of ICO that is being held lately.

Except for your own study of the upcoming ICO, which sources of ICO reviews and ratings do you trust and why?

In this case, you need to trust only themselves.

[Dullmartini]

I often read the reviews at crush crypto because it is a good summary of an ico and the guy who writes it lays out the weak points of each ico. I use it as a sort of filter to see which icos i could look at more in depth. What I don't like is that he never gives a negative recommendation. He'll be really critical in his write up of an ico and the verdict will be "neutral". It's like he's afraid of sticking by his criticisms.

[silverthornne]

It's an interesting question, like some have said, most if not all of those ico listing websites are asking for money to list ICO projects.

So let's think about it, Project team are doing an ICO to get funds and develops their idea or in our case (see my signature) get money to spread the solution.

My point, is that if ICO projects owner are looking for money, they probably do not have money enough to get listed in those expensive listing.

You will say, most of them propose free listing, ok, been there ... more than 2 weeks ago and still 80% of the ico listing websites still did not list our project which is mature, with existing team, giving good rewards and bonus...

To summarize, I believe the best opportunities are probably hidden gems that are still in process inside those ico listing websites. And when they get published, it's probably already too late, as the most profitable bonus are off the table already ...

One exception is https://icobench.com/ico/selfpay we have been listing very quickly with them.

[NFI]

When it comes to the question of investing crypto into this or that ICO one has to review website, White paper, chat with the team members and advisory board, watch official groups in Telegram, Slack, study smart-contract and Bitcointalk thread.
But this is a huge work for one person, taking into account the amount of ICO that is being held lately.

Except for your own study of the upcoming ICO, which sources of ICO reviews and ratings do you trust and why?

There's no need to do all of that with every ICO.

You can make your search far easier if you filter out the majority of coins.  It's easy to do this with 2 simple filters:

1)  Does the project have anything built? No? Move on. Forget about their big teams and fancy titles. Most projects have these and they cannot prove that they can build anything. Writing software is much more difficult than creating a one-page website or video. Several projects raised multiple millions and still haven't delivered any software. Let me know if you want examples.

2)  Is the team from a corrupt country? Yes? Move on. In corrupt countries, ethics and honesty are more lax, which means that they will have a higher propensity to exaggerate or lie.

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

The third filter is harder to implement. You need to be able to do critical thinking. Does the application make sense? Jesus coin is an extreme example of something that doesn't make sense, but most are leaning towards this. Crypto currency is good for some applications (transfer or store of value, save fees, save time, gambling) but not all applications.

Most projects are trying to squeeze square pegs into round holes. There's a project that wants to connect locals with travelers to enhance the travel experience. You have to do mental gymnastics to figure out why an altcoin is needed here.

You have "Tokenizing Rising Tennis Stars: tokenstars.com/ace" in your signature.  That sounds like somebody is trying to squeeze a square peg into a round hole.  Why the hell would you have that in your signature?  It's getting close to the Jesus coin.

This ^^^^^.  Is right on the money.

Just to add a few more to jlp's excellent advice.
1: Does it solve a "current" real world problem?
2: Are the founders greedy?  EG keeping a large percentage of the tokens for themselves. Releasing a huge amount of tokens in total. Is the token sale uncapped (big red flag right there)?
3: Does the token have an intrinsic function of the platform etc?  Many ICO's are just tech startup's who cannot get funding via the usual channels (perhaps because it fails the basic test) but then think, hey why don't we add a token to it, and launch an ICO".  Once you cut through all the fancy marketing BS you find the real world value of the token is worth the same amount as a recipe for ice cubes.  And once you've paid for said cubes, the project evaporates just as quick.    
 
Someone suggested https://icobench.com/ico/selfpay
Interestingly, out of their top 10 projects only two have a working product.
I checked out 5 of my current investments who all have a working product and most scored terribly (under 2.5/5)

Not to overemphasis the point but in real world terms, if someone came to you and said "We have this idea for a new smart phone.  It's going to solve this xxxx problem. It's built on a telecommunications network that is 5 years off being useful and by the way, we've never built a phone before and we don't even have a working prototype to show you because as I said, we've never built one before".
This is what most ICO's are asking of investor's which is why most will fail.  Heck, I'll be happy if just one of mine pays off but you just never know so never gamble more than you can afford to lose.

One final note. These ICO evaluation sites are all good for one thing.  A "quick initial" assessment of an ICO that you may be interested in. Like panning for precious metal, there are so many ICO's being released that it's hard to filter out out the silt and crap and uncover the real gold.   Don't rely on just the one resource and as always DYOR to see if it satisfies the above criteria.

cheers
NFI.  

[manishk]

Look and MVP and use cases for the ICO.

[zabisux]

I don't use any sources personally. All sources are somekinda biased. I look bitcointalk ann page, official website and whitepaper. These 3 are enough to realize what is good or bad about that one ico.

[Alt.Estate]

Some people here touched upon the issue of paid ICO listing websites. As I see it, basically, there are two sides of the same 'coin'.

On the one hand, people might think paid listings and reviews are biased and therefore lack reliability.

However, on the other hand, if a project pays (big) money for such a promo, the team behind it believes in its success and that this activity will pay off, which might mean the project is worth it.

Of course, it is hard to say in advance what 'hand' should be actually true in each case, but obviously, the world is not simply black and white, you know.

[shyliar]

One thing that sends a red flag is when they email me about the ICO. This forum was hacked years ago and all the users email addresses were stolen at that time. I use multiple email addresses and it's obvious what I receive from senders who have purchased that list.

Frankly any ICO that's purchasing email addresses from a stolen list I don't even read the whitepaper.

[TheBobyHunter]

i trust ico review site
ussualy i use tokenmarket or icocountdown if want invest in ico peroject, because ussualy ico selling big success and listing in market is good price too and then can get profit

[StockBet.com]

It's an interesting question, like some have said, most if not all of those ico listing websites are asking for money to list ICO projects.

So let's think about it, Project team are doing an ICO to get funds and develops their idea or in our case (see my signature) get money to spread the solution.

My point, is that if ICO projects owner are looking for money, they probably do not have money enough to get listed in those expensive listing.

You will say, most of them propose free listing, ok, been there ... more than 2 weeks ago and still 80% of the ico listing websites still did not list our project which is mature, with existing team, giving good rewards and bonus...

To summarize, I believe the best opportunities are probably hidden gems that are still in process inside those ico listing websites. And when they get published, it's probably already too late, as the most profitable bonus are off the table already ...

One exception is https://icobench.com/ico/selfpay we have been listing very quickly with them.

Agree with most of what you wrote.

[Alt.Estate]

i trust ico review site
ussualy i use tokenmarket or icocountdown if want invest in ico peroject, because ussualy ico selling big success and listing in market is good price too and then can get profit

What review site do you trust, if that's not a secret?

Icocountdown does not publish reviews as far as I know but I also use them to see what ICOs are out there at all.

[jlp]

Icocountdown does not publish reviews as far as I know but I also use them to see what ICOs are out there at all.

Icocountdown charges $1000 per week. I think a lot of ICOs will not be listed there.

[Alt.Estate]

Icocountdown charges $1000 per week. I think a lot of ICOs will not be listed there.

Exactly, but do you think that's a lot of good ICOs, bad ICOs, or both and it is not as meaningful? I mean, is there any correlation between whether an ICO can afford being listed on such a website and whether it is worth following, supporting, about to succeed?

[cdb1690]

By far the best source of information I've come across so far are Slack channels of several crypto projects. I also follow few streamers on youtube. Based on the their recommendation I typically choose 2-3 projects per month I want to look more closely at. Then I read the whitepaper, evaluate the team, join the slack and all that jazz.

[nikolaich]

Previously, I was looking for new ICO on the BitcoinTalk forum and on the Internet, but every time I missed interesting opportunities. Therefore, I decided to create ICO Drops (https://icodrops.com), useful ICO Calendar.

I don't like classical ratings (4/5,  9/10, 90% and etc), so instead of the "rating" made "interest levels". It's just a combination of statistical data. This "rating" only means that which ICO should be looked at first and all, no investment recommendations.

I don't like ICO Reviews. This is not a game or a movie. I'm only interested in what can be measured. (Hype level, Risks level and ROI level in comparison with similar products)

We are still in the development stage. I'm open to dialogue

Our focus:
Make a complete database
Highlight the most interesting projects

Why most of ICOs posted on your site have been rated "not rated" and only a few have "MEDIUM INTEREST" rating?

[nikolaich]

I am using this one:
https://www.smithandcrown.com/icos/

They do not rate but it is starting point for ICOs.

Thank you. I did not know about this one.

I looked the link. Yes. They don`t rate but it`s written on their site: "We provide several tiers of research at our own discretion."

[Pab]

https://www.smithandcrown.com/important-changes-smith-crowns-token-sale-listing-policies/
Thay have very good reviews as thay are recomending ico's to his community,i have my own rules done,oneof them is whan at least mvp will be ready,if too long price will be below ico

Any kind of new facebook,amazon,google play,using words like that is pure scam

[jlp]

Icocountdown charges $1000 per week. I think a lot of ICOs will not be listed there.

Exactly, but do you think that's a lot of good ICOs, bad ICOs, or both and it is not as meaningful? I mean, is there any correlation between whether an ICO can afford being listed on such a website and whether it is worth following, supporting, about to succeed?

I don't think there is a strong correlation.

There could be some ICO project started by 25 year old geeks, laden with debt, that won't be on that site. But they're brilliant developers.

There was an ICO project started by a doctor earlier this year, who knew little about software or technology, but he would've been able to afford to pay $1000 per week. Now, there are people such as Paris Hilton and Floyd Mayweather (a boxer) getting involved, who can pay to get on that site. But does Paris Hilton or Mayweather know how to pick the best crypto/blockchain project? Do they know the difference between POW, POS or POI? Do they know what Raiden, Lightning Network or Segwit mean?

[StockBet.com]

I am using this one:
https://www.smithandcrown.com/icos/

They do not rate but it is starting point for ICOs.

Thank you. I did not know about this one.

I looked the link. Yes. They don`t rate but it`s written on their site: "We provide several tiers of research at our own discretion."

Yes, they are free, but it'll take a few weeks after you submit, before they'll list you.  If you want to be listed in a day, you have to pay.

[StockBet.com]

There are many sites that list ICOs and token sales.  However, they are a subset of the list on Bitcointalk.org's Announcement (Altcoins) page, for the following reasons:

• Not all of the project teams will know about all of the ICO sites, but they all know about and will announce on Bitcointalk.org's Announcement (Altcoins) page
  
• Not all of the projects will pay to get listed on these ICO sites

However, Bitcointalk.org's Announcement (Altcoins) sorts the announcements based on which ones had the most recent comments.  Therefore, on the first page, you'll see announcements that were originally posted months ago and even announcements whose token sales have ended.

To find the most recent announcements, go to Bitcointalk's advanced search page and enter:

• ANN in the "Search for:" field
  
• Change the "Between 0 and 9999 days" field
  
• Under "Choose a board to search in, or search all", uncheck "Check all".  Then click on + to expand the list and check only "Announcements (Altcoins)"
  
• Click Search

This will show the announcements for the days that you selected.