📌How to invest in ICO more safely? Checklist📌

[Bananiheller]

Hello Ranyar! I see you are very well versed in ICO. I want to ask. There is an interesting project: Gymrewards. It has a very large pool for bounty and the project is interesting, but I have doubts. What do you think of him? https://gymrewards.io

[Ranyar]

WoW Great Artical. Thanks you very much Sir. This is very helpful for me. I learn lot of thing form this artical.
I also invest so many ICO without Reserching them. Today So many ICO's are Scam.
Thanks again.

Thank you for reading, i hope that my checklist will be useful for you.

Hello Ranyar! I see you are very well versed in ICO. I want to ask. There is an interesting project: Gymrewards. It has a very large pool for bounty and the project is interesting, but I have doubts. What do you think of him? https://gymrewards.io

I have already reviewed this project and it did not arouse my confidence. I would not invest in this ICO. Of course, you can conduct an independent analysis of the project and you may have a different opinion.

thanks for all the good tips, comes in handy as i want to invest in some altcoins. i want to be carefull and not throw my money away because there are good looking projects without a backup!

Thank you for feedback!

There is new problem appears lately. To find at least one good solid project to invest or participate to bounty campaign.
I'm glad to introduce one of such projects: bitnautic.io international shipping platform.

If You wandering for a reliable investment project or fair bounty campaign please  consider to check out this thread or link above.

I like this project, the idea and the team. I think that these guys are well-trained in business and really know their industry. But I have some doubts about their marketing - they could do more.
How many investments have they already collected?

[masha-1v]

Well, actually to begin to examine the project site, then we'll see who the developers are and whether these people are in reality( can watch on social networks for example) Next, carefully read the white paper, and then can make a conclusion and write it here. My simple solution to find a good ICO project.

[Ranyar]

Well, actually to begin to examine the project site, then we'll see who the developers are and whether these people are in reality( can watch on social networks for example) Next, carefully read the white paper, and then can make a conclusion and write it here. My simple solution to find a good ICO project.

Back in the early autumn, this approach worked, but now before investing you need to conduct a much deeper analysis of the project.
I have not invested anywhere for some time, because I could not find a worthy project. The market is still not recovered, and scammers with each month more and more.

[yehor]

Here the good article:
Study the project team
It’s essential to evaluate the project team. Are they hiding their real names? Can you find their profiles on social media? Do they have technical experience? Are they strong in marketing and do they have experience in large projects? Consider if they can not only attract investments but build a change resistant business.

Check website addresses, email addresses, and social media accounts
Before investing in an ICO, double check that you are on the official site. Scammers can copy a legitimate ICO website and steal funds. They not only copy and crack websites but social media accounts and email addresses as well. Don’t trust private messages on Slack, because it’s one of the most favorited platforms by scammers.

Check the project’s website design
Scammers don’t really put a lot of effort and generally try to save money on designers and developers. If a project’s website doesn’t look presentable, consider that an extra reason to contemplate as to whether or not you should invest. Projects with high success rates always spend a lot on their design.

Carefully read the Whitepaper
Read the entire whitepaper. There absolutely must be a project roadmap, information about what gathered funds would be used for, how tokens will be used, and information about the team and project advisors. Make sure that you are satisfied with everything. If something isn’t clear, clarify it with the developers. As a rule, scammers either don’t answer questions at all or answer rarely and in a vague manner.

The startup should not be limited by a narrow niche or one region
If a project is tied to some specific region, then it starts to depend on the actions of government regulators. Additionally, if the project is targeting a very narrow niche, then the disappearance of that niche will lead to the project’s failure.
A project must target a global audience and strive towards decentralization. A great practice is to invest in ICO startups which add something to the development of the Blockchain ecosystem. Because your Investments will grow in synch with the crypto industry.

Be cautious towards projects from a real sector of the economy
Currently, it’s ill-advised to invest through ICOs to the construction of factories, automobiles, raw materials, farming, and etc. As a rule of thumb, these projects have serious competition with huge budgets – and the chance of success for these ICOs is insignificantly small. Additionally, there is no sufficient legal basis for the interaction between crypto economies and real sector in existence.

You shouldn’t invest in crypto assets that are tied to real estate, gold, and other physical assets. Even in the case of fortunate circumstances, expected earnings from these investments are too low to justify the risks.

In the USA, one of the first cases of fraud involving an ICO occurred when two companies, Diamond Reserve Club World and REcoin Group Foundation, acquired funds to work with diamonds and real estate. Developers didn’t even begin fulfilling their obligations, and no work was done at all.

Learn from those who have already invested in an ICO
Search for information pertaining to large crypto funds investing in startups that interest you. If large investors trusted an ICO with their resources, that means that their analysts already carried out some full-blown research and came to the conclusion that the project in question has some promise, and that the team can be trusted.

What do people write about the project online?
Read reviews and discussions on popular forums and media outlets like Bitcointalk and Reddit. On large forums, developers frequently participate in discussions, and a lot of questions that investors may have, are commonly discussed.

Evaluate if the tokens are promising
As an investor, it’s favorable to you if the token price continually increases, it’s essential to understand what kind of value tokens will have after an ICO. Figure out how the tokens will be used in the project, will there really be in demand? Are there reasons for as to why the demand for the projects tokens should grow?

Check if whether or not there will be more tokens released post-ICO. If yes then the developers need to substantiate as to why they plan on issuing more tokens in the future, and how they will protect the tokens from inflation.

Seek out the assistance of professionals
Professional advisors and analysts do offer services. They independently research the ICO for reliability and provide you with protection from the majority of scammers. Additionally, crypto funds and traders, that can carry out investments in the interests of their clients exist.

The only drawback here is that you might have to check their competency, and the services of professional advisers and cryptofunds are only accessible by large investors.

Use platforms for safe investments
We offer our project Safinus, which is getting ready to enter its pre-ICO, with the idea of ensuring secure investments in ICOs and cryptocurrencies.

We are creating a system where experienced investors, traders, and cryptofunds will create investment portfolios, the profitability of these portfolios will be verified through the Blockchain.

Beginner investors will be able to chose a suitably profitable portfolio from the rating system and invest in it with just $100. No research or even an understanding of the cryptoindustry is needed to do so.

ICOs will be added to the exchange only after receiving an approval from the community of professionals via a vote, which will provide insurance and protection from dishonest market participants.

Conclusion
The crypto market is young and not yet regulated, thus, the investors of today need to be extra cautious in order to stay safe from high risks. However, the cryptoindustry is growing, and the market is developing alongside with it, new services and tools for regulating the market and protecting it from scammers are appearing.

The Blockchain ecosystem will gradually create an immune system against dishonest community participants. Not only the market will strengthen, but the flow of ICO investments will go towards actually useful cryptoindustry projects, and investors will be able to earn more with greater security.

[gaconup123]

Great checklist! btw u should publish it also on Medium or similar so its more easy to share and also save as article for later reference!

[Ranyar]

Here the good article:
Study the project team
It’s essential to evaluate the project team. Are they hiding their real names? Can you find their profiles on social media? Do they have technical experience? Are they strong in marketing and do they have experience in large projects? Consider if they can not only attract investments but build a change resistant business.

Check website addresses, email addresses, and social media accounts
Before investing in an ICO, double check that you are on the official site. Scammers can copy a legitimate ICO website and steal funds. They not only copy and crack websites but social media accounts and email addresses as well. Don’t trust private messages on Slack, because it’s one of the most favorited platforms by scammers.

Check the project’s website design
Scammers don’t really put a lot of effort and generally try to save money on designers and developers. If a project’s website doesn’t look presentable, consider that an extra reason to contemplate as to whether or not you should invest. Projects with high success rates always spend a lot on their design.

Carefully read the Whitepaper
Read the entire whitepaper. There absolutely must be a project roadmap, information about what gathered funds would be used for, how tokens will be used, and information about the team and project advisors. Make sure that you are satisfied with everything. If something isn’t clear, clarify it with the developers. As a rule, scammers either don’t answer questions at all or answer rarely and in a vague manner.

The startup should not be limited by a narrow niche or one region
If a project is tied to some specific region, then it starts to depend on the actions of government regulators. Additionally, if the project is targeting a very narrow niche, then the disappearance of that niche will lead to the project’s failure.
A project must target a global audience and strive towards decentralization. A great practice is to invest in ICO startups which add something to the development of the Blockchain ecosystem. Because your Investments will grow in synch with the crypto industry.

Be cautious towards projects from a real sector of the economy
Currently, it’s ill-advised to invest through ICOs to the construction of factories, automobiles, raw materials, farming, and etc. As a rule of thumb, these projects have serious competition with huge budgets – and the chance of success for these ICOs is insignificantly small. Additionally, there is no sufficient legal basis for the interaction between crypto economies and real sector in existence.

You shouldn’t invest in crypto assets that are tied to real estate, gold, and other physical assets. Even in the case of fortunate circumstances, expected earnings from these investments are too low to justify the risks.

In the USA, one of the first cases of fraud involving an ICO occurred when two companies, Diamond Reserve Club World and REcoin Group Foundation, acquired funds to work with diamonds and real estate. Developers didn’t even begin fulfilling their obligations, and no work was done at all.

Learn from those who have already invested in an ICO
Search for information pertaining to large crypto funds investing in startups that interest you. If large investors trusted an ICO with their resources, that means that their analysts already carried out some full-blown research and came to the conclusion that the project in question has some promise, and that the team can be trusted.

What do people write about the project online?
Read reviews and discussions on popular forums and media outlets like Bitcointalk and Reddit. On large forums, developers frequently participate in discussions, and a lot of questions that investors may have, are commonly discussed.

Evaluate if the tokens are promising
As an investor, it’s favorable to you if the token price continually increases, it’s essential to understand what kind of value tokens will have after an ICO. Figure out how the tokens will be used in the project, will there really be in demand? Are there reasons for as to why the demand for the projects tokens should grow?

Check if whether or not there will be more tokens released post-ICO. If yes then the developers need to substantiate as to why they plan on issuing more tokens in the future, and how they will protect the tokens from inflation.

Seek out the assistance of professionals
Professional advisors and analysts do offer services. They independently research the ICO for reliability and provide you with protection from the majority of scammers. Additionally, crypto funds and traders, that can carry out investments in the interests of their clients exist.

The only drawback here is that you might have to check their competency, and the services of professional advisers and cryptofunds are only accessible by large investors.

Use platforms for safe investments
We offer our project Safinus, which is getting ready to enter its pre-ICO, with the idea of ensuring secure investments in ICOs and cryptocurrencies.

We are creating a system where experienced investors, traders, and cryptofunds will create investment portfolios, the profitability of these portfolios will be verified through the Blockchain.

Beginner investors will be able to chose a suitably profitable portfolio from the rating system and invest in it with just $100. No research or even an understanding of the cryptoindustry is needed to do so.

ICOs will be added to the exchange only after receiving an approval from the community of professionals via a vote, which will provide insurance and protection from dishonest market participants.

Conclusion
The crypto market is young and not yet regulated, thus, the investors of today need to be extra cautious in order to stay safe from high risks. However, the cryptoindustry is growing, and the market is developing alongside with it, new services and tools for regulating the market and protecting it from scammers are appearing.

The Blockchain ecosystem will gradually create an immune system against dishonest community participants. Not only the market will strengthen, but the flow of ICO investments will go towards actually useful cryptoindustry projects, and investors will be able to earn more with greater security.

Good article, but where did you take it? Please, give a link to the source. Copying content without specifying the source is not welcome on this forum.

[faza13]

Analytical factors - how to find a good project for investment?

Before investing in the next ICO, look at this list and ask yourself the following questions:

📌Does the ICO site use the https protocol? If the team did not bother to install the SSL certificate, then what security for the project as a whole can there be?

📌How does the site look? What is the overall impression? Is it credible? Do not it look like it's made "on your knee"? Are the contact details given in full?

📌Is there a whitepaper on the site and how detailed is it? Today it is difficult to imagine, but there are sites without this element, which has already become a standard in the ICO industry. Is there a whitepaper in several of the most popular languages? If the team wants to collect the announced amount of investment, then it should count on users from different countries. What does the whitepaper look like? Is there enough information about the project and the rationale for entering the ICO, thereby ensuring future profit for investors? Is detailed business plan of the project and necessary technical details described? Less buzzwords, more digits.

📌How much money does the team plan to collect and why? It is good, if the whitepaper indicates the planned expense items of funds raised. Pay attention to how much money the team wants to attract. Now, some projects call huge sums only from greed, and they do not really need funds in such quantity to realize their plans. It's some difficult to spend a few millions of dollars at once, and keeping them in one crypto currency is unsafe because of high volatility, so it's good if the team mentions in whitepaper some way of diversifying the funds raised for their greater safety.

📌What problem does the project solve? Will it be useful for millions of people from around the world, will it solve their problems? Does we implement the project in general? It should not be a "space elevator", but not a "another chat" - there should be a golden mean between the benefit and ambitiousness of the project. Sometimes it's good if the project is somehow connected with the real economy and offline business, but not always. Here the main criterion is the economic feasibility of the project and the certainty that it will be in demand. Also, it is worth paying attention to projects that expand the infrastructure and make BTC and ETH work better/faster. It's reasonable to avoid projects where the blockchain is not at all necessary and "pulled by the ears" - it is very likely that in such cases the team often simply wants to raise money.

📌Does the project have competitors? Now there are very few truly revolutionary ideas, and most ICO projects are only skilful integration of existing products with a blockchain-ecosystem. It is good, if the project has at least 2-3 competitors or projects from the related field, and this is either successful projects, or those that are also at the stage of raising funds, or at least prototypes in the form of a classic business. Why is it important? Because if there are no competitors at all, then, most likely, there is no market, and such a product is not needed by anybody and is economically unprofitable. Either this is a brilliant new idea, but such a chance is much less likely.

📌Are bonuses for early investors on pre-ICO is not too high? In some ICO projects, teams offer huge bonuses to attract early investors. If you managed to get into their number - you are lucky. If you do not have time and the ICO bonus differs significantly from the presale bonus - it's better not to invest in this project, but you can buy tokens on the stock exchange. Why? It often happens that early investors sell tokens immediately after entering the exchanges and receive instant profit at the expense of big discounts with which they bought tokens, and the rate falls 2-3 times from the price of ICO.

📌Is the maximum amount of funds (Hard Cap) limited? If not, then this is an alarm signal. If the project collects too much money (as much as it does not need to achieve the stated business goals), then it simply has nowhere to grow. Capitalization of the project can easily grow from $ 10 million to $ 100 millions in next time, but from $ 100 millions to $ 1 billion - it is much more difficult. Such projects sometimes become financially sluggish, and the team is losing motivation - why go on working hard and develop the project if you have already collected more money than you can spend? Also, pay attention to the total number of tokens - it should not be too large.

📌Is the initial price of tokens is not too high? And what is it generally justified? The smaller the initial price of tokens, the higher the "psychological" growth potential. Agree that it is much easier to grow a token from 10 cents to 1 dollar (x10 growth) than, for example, from 10 dollars to 100 (the same x10 growth);

📌Will the project team gradually buy tokens from exchanges? A good practice is if, after the completion of the ICO, the company plans to gradually buy out its issued tokens back from the exchanges, using part of the profit for each specific period of time. Due to this, the rate of the token can grow.

📌How will the tokens be used in project? What are they for and do they really need in reality? It is good, if the token is really necessary for the project's work, and it contains a certain scheme of its value growth. If the token is used only to attract investment, then the team should have a clear plan of how exactly it will bring profit to investors. A common option is to charge "dividends" for tokens once in a certain period. Thus, the company will share part of the profit with the holders of the tokens and will be attractive to investments. Sometimes for many early investors this is a good way to get some passive income if the project is successful in the future.

📌Does the project team looks trust? Ideally, these people should be experts in their field, who already have the experience of successful implementation of IT-projects. Equally important is the balance in the team between the number of technical specialists and managers/marketers. If there are only "sellers" in the team, then they can give the development to outsourcing and this is not always good. If the team is one of the developers, then there may be problems with sales and promotion of the ICO project and with the attraction of investments.

📌How open is the project to the community? Look, is there a source code for a smart contract for github? Is there any statistics on the volume of attracted investments in real time and what information about this is on ehterscan? The larger the number of investors - the more likely the tokens will be distributed evenly and the less volatile will be the token rate after entering the crypto-exchanges.

📌Has the project been financially and technically audited? Some teams are attracted by independent audit agencies, as well as information security specialists (or announces an additional bounty campaign to search for bugs and vulnerabilities) to increase the credibility of their projects by potential investors. After this, the team can publish short results of such studies on the site of its ICO project and in whitepaper.

📌Does the team have a working prototype of the project? The short history of ICO contains many examples where talented teams attracted investment only for the landing-page and mocups of the future project, but the scam among such projects is usually even greater. If the team has at least a minimum workable product (MVP) - then this is already a good sign to think about investing in the project. If the team already has a successful IT-project, and they just want to integrate it with the blockchain ecosystem and raise additional funds to expand the business and enter new markets, then this is also a good sign.

📌Does the project have advisors? If not - then this is an alarming sign. If there is, it's already good, but it's worth looking closely - what kind of people are they? It's great if they are recognized leaders of the blockchain industry, but far from all projects can boast the support of such people. For small projects, there will be enough support from good recognized experts with a large profile background.

📌Are venture funds interested in the project? If there is an official information about investments from some well-known venture investors or "business angels", this means that this ICO project has certainly undergone a thorough audit by people who are willing to invest in the project really big money and believe in its successful future.

📌Does the project have a detailed roadmap? Look at the whitepaper, at what stages is the implementation of the project broken, do the timelines look realistic? What exactly and for how long is the team going to implement and how soon will MVP be ready (if already not)? Remember that the faster the team realizes its business plan, the faster the project will start to make a profit and the sooner tokens will start to grow in price.

📌Milestone and the team's step-by-step reward. Some teams lose motivation to work hard after successful fundraising, so a good tone is considered if the additional token remuneration of the team is broken into several specific stages related to the previous point - the road map. Very cool, if the holders of tokens can somehow vote for whether the next stage is implemented or not. An alternative option is to keep borrowed funds from an independent organization (escrow), which partially gives funds to the team after each milestone implementation. In this case, the team receives its tokens only after the successful completion of the next stage of project development. The more intermediate stages, the better, because the team will not be able to immediately sell a large number of its tokens on the exchange, negatively affecting the price of the tokens.

📌What is the news background for the project? How often does the team upload news and articles about its project in social networks and on profile news portals? How do these news react to recognized crypto-investors and blockchain specialists? Are there extensive reviews on this ICO project on the well-known crypto-news portals? What about it is written by independent rating agencies and ICO calendars? Is there a real, rather than twisted, hype around the project?

What an Usefull and Great Article. This helps me to understand how to invest. I have searched to article like this because I want to start to invest in many ICOs. But I still don't do it because of my very little knowledge.  And if you and allow me, may I translate this article into Indonesian and post it there

Best Regards

[Ranyar]

What an Usefull and Great Article. This helps me to understand how to invest. I have searched to article like this because I want to start to invest in many ICOs. But I still don't do it because of my very little knowledge.  And if you and allow me, may I translate this article into Indonesian and post it there

Best Regards

Many thanks for the feedback about my article, friend! I'm glad you found it useful.

Concerning the translation into Indonesian - you can translate my article, but indicate in it please the reference to the source (link to this thread).
Write me when the translation will be ready.

But you should hurry - today I received a personal message in which another member of the community asked for permission to translate my article into Indonesian like you.

[cointopper]

Initial Coin Offerings - Everything is important. To check developers team and read their history should be kept as the first priority. If you did not find any type of history or team - stay awake, do not invest in this project. Also, it is important to check registration address and documentation (whitepaper (most important) and roadmap). Sometimes, even a bounty manager or person who represent project on bitcointalk forum can provide enough indication about the ICO.

I've found out an interesting article "what to look before investing in ICO" for beginners - https://cointopper.com/guides/ico-investment-what-to-look-for-before-investing-in-icos-initial-coin-offerings

[Ranyar]

Initial Coin Offerings - Everything is important. To check developers team and read their history should be kept as the first priority. If you did not find any type of history or team - stay awake, do not invest in this project. Also, it is important to check registration address and documentation (whitepaper (most important) and roadmap). Sometimes, even a bounty manager or person who represent project on bitcointalk forum can provide enough indication about the ICO.

I've found out an interesting article "what to look before investing in ICO" for beginners - https://cointopper.com/guides/ico-investment-what-to-look-for-before-investing-in-icos-initial-coin-offerings

Thanks for this link, friend. But now the cryptocurrency market is in a deep correction and it's quite dangerous and unprofitable to invest in ICO now. A lot of scam. Many projects that can't even collect softcap. A lot of ICO with bad ideas and disgusting business models that certainly will not work. Before investing in ICO, I would wait until the market is restored.

[hurriebra49]

Before investing you have one thing is conform in your mind and good for newbie that is the impact of bitcoin to other coins and before start trading you must follow this thing that in which strategy you have made in different market situations,

[Ranyar]

Before investing you have one thing is conform in your mind and good for newbie that is the impact of bitcoin to other coins and before start trading you must follow this thing that in which strategy you have made in different market situations,

I think that now there is no need to invest in the ICO. It's too dangerous at the moment. The market of crypto-currencies has not recovered after the strongest correction.
It is very difficult for projects to attract enough funds. I'm better will waiting for a more favorable moment for investment, when the market is fully recovered and will go into growth again.

[RDNX]

This interesting topic. I think every new ICO investors should read this advice.
Nowadays, a lot of ICO project selling a garbage. So, this topic could help us to avoid scam ICO.

[podimanikee]

An intriguing subject. Frequently demonstrate that the nearness of eyewitnesses is great. Be that as it may, with respect to the spectators themselves. When I read the data on them, I see a great deal of positive data and great criticism on their work. In any case, these individuals nearly don't influence the undertaking. Regardless of whether they influence remarks to the engineer to organization, it won't be the issue explanation, yet essentially a proposal. As indicated by its significance, it doesn't mean anything.

[aftertumern]

First of all, we must understand that any investment is risky. It is also risky to invest in ICO. In addition, it is necessary to spend more time to learn relevant knowledge and relevant information (white paper of ICO project, road map, work team, etc.), which is safe. Investment is very helpful

[valnd]

Been a long time since this post was made still it still carry much vital information and great tips on how to go about crypto currency, I particular like the section where ICO investing was analysed, i am giving thumps up to the creator of the thread