Ways to identify ICO scams

[King Koy]

I believe checking the project on the rating site is the best plus the the background of their team. Also knowing the number of the community of the project is helpful.

[malikusama]

Guys, do share your tips on how to identify scams. To widen the knowledge for people who are honestly trying to invest and gain earnings with their hard earn money!

Three ways to analyse an ICO.
1. Whitepaper : To read whitepaper is essential if you are going to invest in an ICO, it is the face of a coin, usually scams don't have well developed and prepared whitepaper.
2. Managing Team : Check the team background, check whether their track record and profiles exists in social media or any other platforms. Teams of scam ICOs will not have any previous record or profiles in other social circules or professional platforms like LinkedIn.
3. Affiliation, sponsors and partners : Usually ICOs have their affiliation with some other companies and also have some partners, to check those companies can also help to analyse the ICO.

[bribed]

Well, to distinguish the legit projects from the scams one has to put in a lot of effort in researching the projects. Its all about reading, reading and again, reading. We need to read everything that is out there about a project. If the ressources are very thin or there is not much to read about a project, its a bad indicator for me. If there is a lot and the overall impression is not good (content, typos, professionalism, carelessness) I keep away from the ICO. I would suggest that everyone should set some personal filters that he puts all ICO's through before investing money into them (Whitepaper, Idea, Need for blockchain?, team, advisors, partnerships, jurisdication of the project etc.).

[tatnM]

Study carefully the team, who these people are, whether they are real names and contacts, as well as advisors, see if the project has already passed the pre-settlement how many funds were raised. Pay attention also to bonuses, if they are too big this should also alert. Read certainly more independent sources

[rhenrhen]

It is hard to identify ICO scams. The best thing to do is research first the project you are to join. Then, check everything- its website, whitepaper and the roadmap. Then see its offered bonuses. Try to compute if its attainable.

[Vik_the_Carpentner]

you cant identify if you only look website and whitepaper. They are so easy to create. I think best way to find good ICO, is   searching its team and advisor. for example  sether has great team and it has John McAffee for advisor.

You know, some ICO has a "no-name" team but it's going to the moon and some has a top-100 professionals and it's creeping on the bottom of the market. It's a good advice but it's not working at 100%. You also can just join their Telegram group or just read through the forum thread also.

[sunX3]

you cant identify if you only look website and whitepaper. They are so easy to create. I think best way to find good ICO, is   searching its team and advisor. for example  sether has great team and it has John McAffee for advisor.

You know, some ICO has a "no-name" team but it's going to the moon and some has a top-100 professionals and it's creeping on the bottom of the market. It's a good advice but it's not working at 100%. You also can just join their Telegram group or just read through the forum thread also.

Yeah, for me, I try to do the equivalent of a background check, on the company + founders, as much as I can find anyway.

Linkedin, past projects, CVs, anything to check reputability.

[carlowell]

Guys, do share your tips on how to identify scams. To widen the knowledge for people who are honestly trying to invest and gain earnings with their hard earn money!

Scam ICOs can be easily identified over time.
Checking their website isn't always reliable because everything can be copied today even designs and everything.
I prefer to check their social media community like reddit, facebook and must of all their Telegram as their main discussion and communication platform.
Good ICOs have good social community, I believe when an ICO telegram has over 1k members then not a scam otherwise they are.

[otundebis]

Any ICO that you can not verify it's token supply  is probable of fraud.  ICO that had no history of code development on github may not be legit.  They may only be looking for money just to run.  ICO must have a working experience of idea they are pitching.  It is even better if they have a working product or services.

[sarojan9980]

It is difficult to find so first you need to check full campaign details and activities. Experience of the team workers.

[Vask]

learn the command so that all people are real. Look when the project was conceived, if the working model, which bonuses pre sell. Subscribe to the telegram channels with the analysis of projects.

[sirleaf]

If think if proper, thorough and sufficient research is being carried out it can be detected but there are some scam ICOs that will really look real despite any research, one just have to be very careful before joining any ICO.

[Dmitry_K]

I look at the project site, I read about what it is, I look at what team it exposes and maybe what projects they have already done before.

[Dhruvv1]

look out for these three things.
1. The Developers Are Anonymous or not
2. The Token does not have a clear use case or just normal idea bought from somewhere else
3. The Whitepaper Sets Unrealistic Goals    

[Guryon_master]

This is the first step in finding the problem through the white paper and the technical route, and then check that the code is open source, and then Google searches for the team's history, which is probably all.

Agree to you buddy, I just also want to add the thing that I always do to see if a project is a scam or not.I make a visit in there social media and there telegram. You can easily know them there because there is no update and discussion about there project.

[cryptorampage]

It is really difficult to determine which ico is scam and which is real. I just capitulate to answer the question correctly , but there are several ways but which you can identify
-identify the error in white paper
-the website and content quality
-check their team mate in linked in
-check their track record if any
-check their ranking in various ico benchmarking site.

[tomwell]

Finding a good ICO means you have to first of all take a look at project's goals and the team.
The goals should be real and be demanded by the society. The Team should consist of professionals and consists of people with decent and clear background. Project's roadmap should provide the information about the development plans. If these rules are not followed then a project is usually a scam.

[Zeneize]

It the team is anonymous = BIG RED FLAG. If there is no whitepaper and there is no plan to come out soon with a Whitepaper = RED FLAG. If the team consists in one or two people only and they have no product yet = RED FLAG.

I have forgotten to mention that also the project have to make a sense - if you cannot understand what they are talking about, probably nobody else will either.

[OriginTrain]

you cant identify if you only look website and whitepaper. They are so easy to create. I think best way to find good ICO, is   searching its team and advisor. for example  sether has great team and it has John McAffee for advisor.

You know, some ICO has a "no-name" team but it's going to the moon and some has a top-100 professionals and it's creeping on the bottom of the market. It's a good advice but it's not working at 100%. You also can just join their Telegram group or just read through the forum thread also.

Which ICO has top 100 professionals that's creeping at the bottom of the market?

[BeGoods]

This is the first step in finding the problem through the white paper and the technical route, and then check that the code is open source, and then Google searches for the team's history, which is probably all.

Agree to you buddy, I just also want to add the thing that I always do to see if a project is a scam or not.I make a visit in there social media and there telegram. You can easily know them there because there is no update and discussion about there project.

I think we should be smart in judging the project. You need a thorough analysis before determining the potential ICO or a scam. sometimes who have great promotions and marketing exactly that becomes a scam. doesnt always a passive in marketing that will be a scam. although the seriousness of running their project are participating in the assessment for their ICO potentiality. but there are more important things. ie see the history and background of their team (because it will determine the ICO picture is trusted or not) there is also a clear roadmap and so on.. most importantly do in-depth analysis dude