how to identify a scam ICO project

[noxpost]

While I've posted this in another thread that asked the same question, I'll copy it here:

Airdrops, Bounties, Free Forks, etc - there are a lot of new coins showing up with really attractive ways to convince people to get involved and talking about them. However, as we all know, there are plenty of "pump-and-dump" scams, private key thieves, and even some (potentially) exchange-sponsored forks with difficult rules that reward only those who are insiders. So what can you do to protect yourself and ensure that what you are getting into is a worthwhile, safe offering?

 - Did you check out the team? Can you find post histories on accepted forums, or verified contributions to the community, or linkedin profiles that have plenty of real connections?
 - Whitepaper. First things first, without one, don't consider investing. Almost no exceptions to that rule. If what is there is hastily written or is overly marketing focused instead of technical, that's not a whitepaper, it's a sales brochure. Consider that carefully.
 - Have you seen the code, gotten on github and looked at the history? We want to be sure it is really there and that the differences from forked coins are well understood.
 - Check out what others are saying. Bitcointalk, Slack, Telegram, Discord, etc - there should be real conversation and real questions answered.
 - Depending on the timeframe, a little Google-fu. Is it really new? Maybe try google trends, or news. Look for autocomplete terms like 'scam.' But then also do some searching to figure out where else the coin is mentioned, or the team members, or the concept that is their supposed differentiator.
 - Some red flags in the business plan, like significant pre-mining, or large amounts of "advisor" tokens, etc may indicate a quick pump-and-dump.
 - Does the development roadmap seem feasible? Are they making significant progress on it, or is everything post-ICO? Same questions about the business plan.

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[Labonikhatun]

Scam projects will often make bold claims about their product even though said project offers nothing new or disruptive. It's not likely that a certain blockchain platfrom or cryptocurrency will end poverty, fix global warming or replace the internet. This can also be truth for how they expect the community or markets to respond to the product. If someone claims their cryptocurrency will replace bitcoin,get a disproportionate amount of users, or increase by 100x in the price charts, you can add that project to the scam list. One of the major risks is the exposure of ICO to fraud or scam.

[Woterry]

A lot of them will be scams, but to know more and to prevent from joining, I suggest you should look at their background really carefully. Achievements, process, system, and also the CEO and developers. This will give you a heads up on what are you getting yourself into. But be careful, scammers are evolving.

[MintCondition]

A lot of them will be scams, but to know more and to prevent from joining, I suggest you should look at their background really carefully. Achievements, process, system, and also the CEO and developers. This will give you a heads up on what are you getting yourself into. But be careful, scammers are evolving.

Just visit their website and see for yourself if they add some effort in it and gives all the information that is needed to see if they are legit. You'll know it basically soon when you make it a pra practice to do research before joining in any ICO.

[DrewXland]

The unfortunate thing is that scam projects do exist in crypto and they can be very cunning my disguising this insidious intent by many actor spinning the web of lies and also by having a flashy website which makes them look the business. The only approach is to do your research and approach every investment opportunity with caution. only invest what you can afford to loose.

[richiereally]

i believe there are still good ICOs there, its just that the hype caused by the various scams have somehow caused others to be fearful about it.  ICOs are good especially if it's a project that has worthy or relevant objectives.  Sadly, scammer also take advantage of these good and famous ICOs through attacks like phishing or brandjacking, which if a user is not careful and vigilant, would leave him hurt in the end by losing his investment.  It also leaves the ICO company hurt as well.   Which is why we need solutions that will help us determine or counterattack these scams.  It's a matter of having that technology that will help the community protect itself from these scammers.

[DrewXland]

To be fair, you can always smell a rat when you are involved in a project; just try not to ignore the warning signs and bury your head in the sand. As a newbie, there is a good chance you will get burned once. But learn from this and improve you decision making skills. In the end, you will simple be sifting through only the strongest ICOs so the chances of being taken for a ride are greatly reduced.

[kiddikoddi]

Check out the team, whitepaper, see if they are actually putting in the work, if they are scammers they probably have no knowledge of tech or limited one and won't spend money on the project but only create a false site and say they already sold 10m usd worth of tokens on the first day, its just bullshit, also many of the ICO websites that are out there that are legit, actually have ugly websites but great teams and marketing and strategy plan, i reccomend checking out AirP2P it looks very solid and the team is amazing, the dude who is the co founder even ran a crypto hedge fund in the past so he knows alot about the market

[Andrei Belmega]

Hello!

It is actually very hard to identify a scam ICO project.
You could verify of course the team, the whitepaper, theirs accounts on social media....etc, but in the end, the project still could fail or simply the team could scam you.
My personal measure is to invest as low as possible and just wait for the exchanges.
In order to invest, PLEASE do your own holy and blessed research.

Best of luck!

[Macaronnie]

It's interesting if ICO is a scam what's the future options for the dev team? I mean they're hiding they were into the team that made a scam? Also I believe the scam doesn't mean everybody in the team are bad, just a couple of people may be scammers but that will definitely damage the others' reputation