Does a smart contract give you any assurance?

[sister1001]

Does a good Github and a publicly written smart contract give you any assurance regarding the legitimacy of an ICO? How? Does a project look more legit by having it?

[mpufatzis]

I think, that almost all smart contracts are published on GitHub, but that doesn't make them more trustful.
You probably know that the majority of the investors don't know how to read the code. Even if an ICO doesn't publish their smart contract, it would be better to read the white book of the ICO, to check their webpage (if there are any phone numbers to call, emails, address etc) and check the names of the team. Do they exist? Do they have a profile on Linkedin? Any followers?
If you search this forum, you'll find more information.

Does a good Github and a publicly written smart contract give you any assurance regarding the legitimacy of an ICO? How? Does a project look more legit by having it?

[Red-Apple]

no, not at all.
it could technically be a good start if it had a proper github repository and a well written smart contract with a clear roadmap and everything but in the end it is still a fund raising for a simple lines of code and they are asking for a huge amount of money for doing practically nothing.
besides the success and failure of an ICO has very little to do with its legitimacy.

[ZaynDale]

Does a good Github and a publicly written smart contract give you any assurance regarding the legitimacy of an ICO? How? Does a project look more legit by having it?

I think NO and a big NO.
Smart contracts, Gidhubs and even beautiful websites aren't just a good credit of consideration that an ICO or a project is legitimate.
Scammers can also do smart contracts, scammers have full access on GitHub and all of us are.
The only assurance we get knowing that the subjects are legitimate is going into their Social Communities like Telegram Channels.
There is non other good place to know top to bottom left to right and head to toe factors if you're not on their Telegram Channel. Active members can tell the differences especially admins are actively responsive to all the queries.

[xiaohang07]

Does a good Github and a publicly written smart contract give you any assurance regarding the legitimacy of an ICO? How? Does a project look more legit by having it?

If the publicly written smart contract is a original one, it would definitely make the project more legit. However, it is really hard to tell whether the smart contract is just a toy contract or a solid working product.

[Dluretic]

I don't think a single smart contract has any effect.
If the ICO project has been open source, I think it is a qualified ICO project, but there are too many ICO projects just need to be financed just by a white paper.