We need to do something about all the scams

[VladWulf]

Hey there,

I am a blockchain developer and most of my work consists in auditing Blockchain projects, criticising their use-case and proposing solutions and guidances.
What really kills me is the amount of scams and useless projects based on economic scarcity, fomo and proof of stupidity (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1ZYGuJXBQE)

The reasons why we have to fight scams are fairly simple:
- Scams attract regulators
- More scams attract more scammers
- People invest blindly but if given the change to understand a project based on a professional analysis I'm sure many will think twice between sending those guys money.
- You know what is worse than exit scams? Shell projects that never get finished or have no traffic because their use case is pure BS.

I propose listing all the ICO scams here that can't correctly justify their use case, presumably scams:

* EQUI https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2888110.0
The guys weren't able to justify the use of their token and don't answer to critics and questions. More importantly they provide a passive return on investment which fails the Howey test (http://consumer.findlaw.com/securities-law/what-is-the-howey-test.html). They use their public image in order to attract suckers. Based on their use of proceeds they reserve 30% in order to develop the platform. 30% of 72 million to develop a react website with a postgres database and link it to infura (i assume they didn't even think about that). Laughable at best.

I have recently launched a project meant to fight the scams. It's called an ICD.
Tell me what you think about it.

HODLIT

If you want to have more information about the project check those LinkedIn articles:
ICO vs ICD
HODLIT NETWORK

[Imfinnabeon]

Wow thanks for bringing that up and now that I think about it I went in on a token similar to this one without giving it much thought. They were a well established company in real life but no blockchain experience and that was my mistake getting involved like that. Keep up the awesome work we need more heroes like you!

[VladWulf]

Wow thanks for bringing that up and now that I think about it I went in on a token similar to this one without giving it much thought. They were a well established company in real life but no blockchain experience and that was my mistake getting involved like that. Keep up the awesome work we need more heroes like you!

Usually when a well established company goes in crypto you need to raise your red flags. If a company makes money it does not need to do an ICO, especially when the founder is "billionnaire"

[TravelMug]

Well this is a good move I think. How many scam ICO have been there in the last year alone? Too many to count. And they don't care whether its just a few thousands or eve millions. As long as they can duped people to invest on them they will do it and took off with the money.

And the worst part, is that those legit and trusted ICO are not being questions because history says that you can't distinguishes legit from those scammy one. And with this move, we can filter out early which is a scam or not if they can't justify their use case.

[justin86]

I agree with you, I think ico concept need to be regulated, and people should understand fully what they are investing in, I think project might be legit but there may be an exit scam when token rises a lot.

[TiffanyLien23]

Well this is a good move I think. How many scam ICO have been there in the last year alone? Too many to count. And they don't care whether its just a few thousands or eve millions. As long as they can duped people to invest on them they will do it and took off with the money.

And the worst part, is that those legit and trusted ICO are not being questions because history says that you can't distinguishes legit from those scammy one. And with this move, we can filter out early which is a scam or not if they can't justify their use case.

I agree. Many ICO were scam and we cant even easily determined if it is scam or legit. As a bounty hunter and not an investor, I am also affected for those scam ICO who do not care for those investors which puts money just to invest. Money is not solely for investment, it is a struggle to pursue to have a better life.   So I am hoping that it may stop and advertising a scam ICO so that nothing to be a victim of their wrong doings.

[VladWulf]

What's more important is that you don't need to make an ICO in order for the token to acquire a price.
I will prove it very soon.

[Dragon5]

Unfortunately, it's a global problem. Regulators are dealing with unregistered ICOs popping up online almost daily. What's more, the bad traders are
beating the regulators in numbers and resources spent to manipulate exchanges. While market manipulation has evolved over the history of regulated exchanges, in the crypto world, the scam artists have dumped all the classic manipulations into the marketplace at once. Taking advantage of computer programming, unfortunate traders  can change the markets in seconds. Regulators started working down the list of violations and taking action against
those activities. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) concluded that some cryptos are securities, based on the benefits and the use of public offerings. That gives us hope.

[harizen]

- Scams attract regulators
- More scams attract more scammers
- People invest blindly but if given the change to understand a project based on a professional analysis I'm sure many will think twice between sending those guys money.
- You know what is worse than exit scams? Shell projects that never get finished or have no traffic because their use case is pure BS.

I propose listing all the ICO scams here that can't correctly justify their use case, presumably scams:

Sometimes investors doesn't tend to look at any list so I see it will not be effective. There are also cases that an ICO will show their great innovations at first but after investors already throw away their money, then that is just the time that a scam ICO will show their true colors so in the end, still busted.

Well there are obvious scam so I doubt others can still eat the bait here but generally, it's up for investors itself to make an adjustment so that they can minimize the risks of being scam. As for me, the always thing Im looking for an ICO is pure exposure not just on the web but on the physical appearance itself like helding seminars, events etc. In this way, somehow* we can see that they are really transparent. Another one is legality and must be approved by SEC. Another option could be, Bitcointalk community must imposed a "payment" before anyone can promote an ICO here.

Although not an assurance after all that there is no scam thing even my considerations will take placed on a certain ICO, but at least it can minimize the risks. So overall, it's on investors side who have to adjust.

[VladWulf]

It's kinda sad that such an interesting crowdfunding mechanism is misappropriated to that extend.
I don't even have the time to go through them all

[mrcash02]

- Scams attract regulators

That is a good reason why scam investments should be avoided... But I think it's out of anyone's control. We are in a free world and people are free to invest where they want, it's their money in risk, they just need to know about the risks, what can happen if they put their money where they shouldn't. If even after this they still want to invest, it's their problem.

And regulators shouldn't use it as pretext to regulate Crypto-Currency market. You can list all the scam, suspicious ICOs, if people think it worths a try, because the profit, they will go ahead. What you can do is to aware people about the negative consequences besides losing money when investing in scam projects. Like the example quoted above.

[Polipog]

Being a new in this certain business, i worried all about those rampant scammers, and mostly, it will provably happened on ICO's, I am fully doubt about that kind of situations, on how can scammers directly entered in ICO system. Why the management cannot directly stopped all scammers? Are scammers are hidden in a big wall? Which it is hard to detect? As for me, I  am not a victim of those scammers because I'm only a beginner, and I don't join any transactions in crypto but I already heard about scammers as what stated on my friends. Hoping that this coming days all scammers will stopped and totally banned or abolished.

[Nyenyepogi]

Hey there,

I am a blockchain developer and most of my work consists in auditing Blockchain projects, criticising their use-case and proposing solutions and guidances.
What really kills me is the amount of scams and useless projects based on economic scarcity, fomo and proof of stupidity (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1ZYGuJXBQE)

The reasons why we have to fight scams are fairly simple:
- Scams attract regulators
- More scams attract more scammers
- People invest blindly but if given the change to understand a project based on a professional analysis I'm sure many will think twice between sending those guys money.
- You know what is worse than exit scams? Shell projects that never get finished or have no traffic because their use case is pure BS.

I propose listing all the ICO scams here that can't correctly justify their use case, presumably scams:

* EQUI https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2888110.0
The guys weren't able to justify the use of their token and don't answer to critics and questions. More importantly they provide a passive return on investment which fails the Howey test (http://consumer.findlaw.com/securities-law/what-is-the-howey-test.html). They use their public image in order to attract suckers. Based on their use of proceeds they reserve 30% in order to develop the platform. 30% of 72 million to develop a react website with a postgres database and link it to infura (i assume they didn't even think about that). Laughable at best.

Based on my research equi is  a lending platform which is like a pyramid scheme people in the bottom will get more money than people in the people any time this project have a 100 percent that will become dead after 1 or 2 months mark my words.

[Nunoluck]

How to identify that the project is scam? Please tell me.
I usually avoid project which only has small team, irrational, token which use waves platform and bad design of signature   . Developers like that usually not so serious in their project and probably they only want to earn money.

Teach me how to identify a project please,  

[The Sceptical Chymist]

I agree with OP and am concerned about the "scams attract regulators" part of the OP here, but I've been resigned to the fact that governments are bound to regulate crypto eventually--it doesn't matter so much whether every other transaction is a scam or not.  If bitcoin and other cryptos actually do catch on and attain wide adoption, that in itself is going to get the notice of regulators.  And I suspect that even if crypto doesn't get widely adopted, it's still going to get some laws made and restrictions implemented.  That's just the nature of lawmakers.  Their job is to create laws, so they will.  It sucks and I'm against it, but it's going to happen.

I don't think there's much "we" can do about the scams other than to do our best not to fall victim to them.  Unfortunately, I've seen people's greed straight up run-and-tackle their rationality and skepticism at the 1-yard line, and I expect that'll keep happening as long as crypto exists.

[CherRic]

Hey there,

I am a blockchain developer and most of my work consists in auditing Blockchain projects, criticising their use-case and proposing solutions and guidances.
What really kills me is the amount of scams and useless projects based on economic scarcity, fomo and proof of stupidity (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1ZYGuJXBQE)

The reasons why we have to fight scams are fairly simple:
- Scams attract regulators
- More scams attract more scammers
- People invest blindly but if given the change to understand a project based on a professional analysis I'm sure many will think twice between sending those guys money.
- You know what is worse than exit scams? Shell projects that never get finished or have no traffic because their use case is pure BS.

I propose listing all the ICO scams here that can't correctly justify their use case, presumably scams:

* EQUI https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2888110.0
The guys weren't able to justify the use of their token and don't answer to critics and questions. More importantly they provide a passive return on investment which fails the Howey test (http://consumer.findlaw.com/securities-law/what-is-the-howey-test.html). They use their public image in order to attract suckers. Based on their use of proceeds they reserve 30% in order to develop the platform. 30% of 72 million to develop a react website with a postgres database and link it to infura (i assume they didn't even think about that). Laughable at best.

This should be promoted by all and I am glad to see that there are many people who hate scam. Scams destroy the reputation of cryptocurrency as well as the reputation of the bitcoin users. I am into that we need to fight against scam so that ICOs and the cryptoworld will not vanish. It is better to work with legit than those scam projects.

[Leanna44]

Being a new in this certain business, i worried all about those rampant scammers, and mostly, it will provably happened on ICO's, I am fully doubt about that kind of situations, on how can scammers directly entered in ICO system. Why the management cannot directly stopped all scammers? Are scammers are hidden in a big wall? Which it is hard to detect? As for me, I  am not a victim of those scammers because I'm only a beginner, and I don't join any transactions in crypto but I already heard about scammers as what stated on my friends. Hoping that this coming days all scammers will stopped and totally banned or abolished.

I agree hopefully it will only take time to those scammers to be vanished of their fortunate world,what would happen to us new beginners if theyre still around,please take action of that.

[arrmia11]

Hey there,

I am a blockchain developer and most of my work consists in auditing Blockchain projects, criticising their use-case and proposing solutions and guidances.
What really kills me is the amount of scams and useless projects based on economic scarcity, fomo and proof of stupidity (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1ZYGuJXBQE)

The reasons why we have to fight scams are fairly simple:
- Scams attract regulators
- More scams attract more scammers
- People invest blindly but if given the change to understand a project based on a professional analysis I'm sure many will think twice between sending those guys money.
- You know what is worse than exit scams? Shell projects that never get finished or have no traffic because their use case is pure BS.

I propose listing all the ICO scams here that can't correctly justify their use case, presumably scams:

* EQUI https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2888110.0
The guys weren't able to justify the use of their token and don't answer to critics and questions. More importantly they provide a passive return on investment which fails the Howey test (http://consumer.findlaw.com/securities-law/what-is-the-howey-test.html). They use their public image in order to attract suckers. Based on their use of proceeds they reserve 30% in order to develop the platform. 30% of 72 million to develop a react website with a postgres database and link it to infura (i assume they didn't even think about that). Laughable at best.

Thank you for bringing that kind of suggestion since majority of us are victims of scammers. I am not knowledgeable enough in terms of tracking the scammers but I think the authority personalities must do so for us not to waste our money and effort on investing in such projects.

[player514]

Hey there,

I am a blockchain developer and most of my work consists in auditing Blockchain projects, criticising their use-case and proposing solutions and guidances.
What really kills me is the amount of scams and useless projects based on economic scarcity, fomo and proof of stupidity (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1ZYGuJXBQE)

The reasons why we have to fight scams are fairly simple:
- Scams attract regulators
- More scams attract more scammers
- People invest blindly but if given the change to understand a project based on a professional analysis I'm sure many will think twice between sending those guys money.
- You know what is worse than exit scams? Shell projects that never get finished or have no traffic because their use case is pure BS.

I propose listing all the ICO scams here that can't correctly justify their use case, presumably scams:

* EQUI https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2888110.0
The guys weren't able to justify the use of their token and don't answer to critics and questions. More importantly they provide a passive return on investment which fails the Howey test (http://consumer.findlaw.com/securities-law/what-is-the-howey-test.html). They use their public image in order to attract suckers. Based on their use of proceeds they reserve 30% in order to develop the platform. 30% of 72 million to develop a react website with a postgres database and link it to infura (i assume they didn't even think about that). Laughable at best.

I definitely think that the ico scams bring a huge bad rap around the entire cryptocurrency markets. People don't even want to look into what and how cryptocurrencies work, they just act on a whim after they hear news about some random coin. Not all ico's are scams, and that should be obvious because some are very promising projects that should be supported for the future of blockchain and technology itself. I like the list that you made. It's really simple and hits hard on all of the major points. I'm sure there's a few threads about ICO scams here on the forum, but if you have too many you'll run into issues with people falsely accusing others.

[Kotone]

Hey there,

I am a blockchain developer and most of my work consists in auditing Blockchain projects, criticising their use-case and proposing solutions and guidances.
What really kills me is the amount of scams and useless projects based on economic scarcity, fomo and proof of stupidity (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1ZYGuJXBQE)

The reasons why we have to fight scams are fairly simple:
- Scams attract regulators
- More scams attract more scammers
- People invest blindly but if given the change to understand a project based on a professional analysis I'm sure many will think twice between sending those guys money.
- You know what is worse than exit scams? Shell projects that never get finished or have no traffic because their use case is pure BS.

I propose listing all the ICO scams here that can't correctly justify their use case, presumably scams:

* EQUI https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2888110.0
The guys weren't able to justify the use of their token and don't answer to critics and questions. More importantly they provide a passive return on investment which fails the Howey test (http://consumer.findlaw.com/securities-law/what-is-the-howey-test.html). They use their public image in order to attract suckers. Based on their use of proceeds they reserve 30% in order to develop the platform. 30% of 72 million to develop a react website with a postgres database and link it to infura (i assume they didn't even think about that). Laughable at best.

I think we have to stop scams just because they are. They reel in people with money, sometimes people with even no money just because they got fooled by the promises that these scammers have made. They also reel in bad image and reputation as those that would be scammed would harbor negative images of this and can soread and people would generalize pur community just because there were a few who are taking advantage.