Ways to identify ICO scams

[moni44]

maybe is hard to find identify ICO is scam or not. because they all promising, but i think you need look up them white paper and more research about ICO like googling they ICO asking people who already join maybe thats all.

[zaq130]

From a different perspective, since many great guys are giving great idea.

When I look for ICOs, to define whether they are scam or not, I look at the bounty manager.
Nowadays most bounty managers are Senior/ Hero or Legendary.
However, even they are in that ranking some of them are doing shit jobs.

So, when you find the bounty or ANN thread, look at the name of the manager.
If the manager's name is Sylon, Aerys2, or deadly, they are well experienced
bounty manager, so I think they must have done a due diligence by themselves.

That is one way I decide which ICO to join.

[Sendibere]

A sign if the ICO is a scam is that tokens developers are anonymous or otherwise unknown. While it is true that the creator of Bitcoin - a pseudonymous individual or group running under the name Satoshi Nakamoto - does not reveal his true identity, he does this because he created a network that does not depend on the reliability of a central authority.

[Marco Ambrusini]

First and foremost take a critical look at what the project seeks to solve.Read the technical sections of the white paper and join their telegram group and ask them a question with relation to what they stated.How influential and experience are the team with regards to the project and finally check opinions from other ICO other investors you trust can do good analysis on projects.

[nonik]

in my opinion determining the scam project is to browse the developer. Avoid promising great advantages to us. Check the social media it has, whether the post is always new, and its members are often active. Avoid projects run by new people as project managers. Use telegram, join their telegram. Telegram will provide quick information about the project being followed.

[BlueYozakuraBTC]

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    

I agree 100% with 1.

This is pretty much on point. Even if you see some pictures of devs sometimes those people don't exist or they're stock photos of random people pulled from various websites.

Someone above said "join their telegram" but that's actually beginning to be where many scams actually take place these days.

I say look at maybe Linked In connections, see what other contact details are out there. Look at the start of the project, the questions answered, see if they've attended any live events, see the attendees to said event etc.

Also suggest facebook and twitter accounts to make connections. Also what are they offering and why are they doing an ICO?

[rollingstorm45]

make sure the legal document is publicly accessible and the data is valid
make sure the team and developers have a public profile, such as LinkedIn,
note the total suply, project type, project area coverage makes sense
be sure to use Smart Contract or Escrow in fundraising

[kimmali]

Best way to identify if the ICO is scam is to read their whitepaper. You can easily determine because it is obvious that they are setting some kind of weird goals. And base on my experience,some scam ICOs only get their pictures of their developers in the internet. They randomly pick some pictures of businessmen and women. When you search for the name of the developer,you'll find out they don't exist. Another thing is,they dont reveal the contacts of the proponents, they're hiding it from the public so that no one can contact it because obviously,it is fake.

[jonald01]

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

[kaspabha]

you need to read the whitepaper and understand it first. See whether their concept is important and realistic. Check about their dev team. Are they real? Join social media channels and ask questions and see reviews. Ask from experts in investing.

[Katashi]

First is to check if the fundamental of the coins you are looking at, I mean on that way you can easy identify if the ICO really means business or to be direct i am pertaining to it's feasibility in the market. Second is to check the background of the team. Are they new on the business, check their reputation and do your research about them. Are they involve in previous scams?, and after that if you really validate them, check the project itself the mechanics the whitepaper and the roadmap itself will help you determine if it's a scam or not. By this way you can figure out what will be the possible future of an ICO.

[Rabbai89]

This is why i am skeptical with investing in ICO's I've heard that some can be a scam, but on the other hand i've also seen others do very well.

[bilman]

read white paper, their team, concept and their directions.

[lero34]

In assessing the ICO need to ask the question: is it really necessary startup blockchain and its own token? If in both cases the answer is "no", it is likely that the project — just empty and in fact does not perform any useful function.

[kamar00]

All about ICO will be clarified in white papers, official websites, social media, and discussion forums. and dev immediately responds to questions clearly, and is consistent in answering and easily understood is a sign that the ICO is really honest. if one of these, chances are the ICO is a scam

[thugpi]

I've been scammed many times and I still find very difficult to identify if the bounty is scam. The things I always put on my mind now when finding bounty is I will not based on promised bonus and I find trusted campaign manager.

[Blake_Last]

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!

To find out if an ICO is a scam or not, you must first check their team members and verify if they really are the real deal and not just a one-person team who uses other people's picture and information and pretend to be them just to scam.

Next, see if the ICO is transparent when it comes to contribution. You should see the amount they receive from their investors on their main page. This is important for investors and participants as this would provide them a report on how much the ICO had raised from their crowdfunding campaign. If the project, say, hasn't raised enough amount to cover for their soft capital, it is automatic that the contribution of the investors will be returned to them and the ICO will not proceed as planned.

Thirdly, every project must have their smart contract available in a repository, e.g. Github or Sourceforge. Even without a whitepaper if an ICO has their codes and summary set and shown in a repository, then that is enough to testify for their project legitity.

And of course, finally, they should have an escrow for the contribution. Investing in an ICO is a risky venture, however, the risk may be minimized if the contributions are handled by a third-party who will create the smart contract to secure the funds for the crowdfunding event.

In summary, an ICO should have an escrow, transparent when it comes to contributions, can be verified, has an available repository, etc. If you do not see or verify any of the above mentioned, then it will be up to your personal discretion if you still want to invest in them or not.

[yokai21]

it's very difficult to know a project if it's a scam but if they offer you more than you can earn it it is because that's the way scams are now tempted if you are too big in a project, preferably moderate your income is more than a scam.

[george_hured]

Now it's quite difficult to identify scam, because people have learned to very seriously hide themselves and their projects, so perhaps this is simply impossible, unless of course paying attention to any little things, people still get smart on their mistakes.

[maverickasf]

now it is most likely not possible, if personally not familiar with the organizers ... 90 percent of fraud ... just collecting money. if earlier it was possible to create funds to help sick children or save the dying Bengal tigers .... now a new trend, to come up with an unknown company to collect money for it and disappear)