How to ensure ICO safety

[rinnah]

As a newbie in crypto, we will be encountering different scenarios and tools to invest in - coins, icos, tokens, etc. 
Here's an excerpt below from an article, which I think is very helpful for us.

Read the whole article here:  http://www.information-age.com/initial-coin-offering-safety-123471100/


After a lightning increase in 2017, the ICO market is still working out how to structure itself. Initiatives such as the ICO Charter already suggest that there is a good practice in Europe. The charter has received a lot of support from credit rating agencies, law firms, ICO specialists and consulting firms.Currently checking purchaser’s identities, the initial stage of fundraising is well verified, and the verification steps in the process work well when they are integrated as soon as possible. However, the latter part still poses problems as many lack hindsight and good practices in the area.360-degree security.  Previous experience shows that the fundamental points are not always respected during some ICO’s. As the result, the security of smart contracts is a fundamental element to consider. Although a smart contract is in essence secured, mistakes in the code can lead to indirect or malicious usage. This was the case last November during the freeze on all multi-signature Parity wallets. In this respect, the rules applied are those of every good developer: meticulousness and checking...

[1714982500]

1714982500

[Cluster2k]

1) Due diligence
2) Research deeply and don't stop at your first results
3) Try to find informations on trusted websites and cryptocurrencies sources
4) Never invest what you cannot afford to lose
5) Stay safe and stick to basic internet security rules

Here it is a good list of active ICOs, however it's up to you to research about the genuinity of each of them: http://www.coincaps.ai/en/crypto-ico/active

[theobserverr]

1) Due diligence
2) Research deeply and don't stop at your first results
3) Try to find informations on trusted websites and cryptocurrencies sources
4) Never invest what you cannot afford to lose
5) Stay safe and stick to basic internet security rules

Here it is a good list of active ICOs, however it's up to you to research about the genuinity of each of them: http://www.coincaps.ai/en/crypto-ico/active

Rules 4 and 5 are correct all around. Yet nothing -at the time being- can protect you 100% from scam icos.

[nextpakk]

To give yourself a fighting chance when it comes to ICO safety I would recommend the following

1. Read the whitepaper
     -check disclaimers
     -ask yourself if you understand the problem being solved
     -ask yourself is this project solving a real world problem
     -be skeptical when there are over the top claims of the return on investment

2. Check out the team
     -can you find a link of at least 90 of the core team connected to the company/project on linkedin
     -ask yourself does the skillsets match what the team is proposing they will create

3. Check Project history
     - is this a project that just showed up in the last couple of months
     - check social media posting history. This will help to show how long this project has been on the scene.

4. Check Rating sites (icoholder, icobench)
     - ICObench is a good one and you can't your way in
     - try to find the sites that don't require payment but have a very restrictive process of getting and keeping your ranking

Keep in mind this isn't a guarantee or a scientific method. These steps will help educate you about any ICO you're considering.

[MintDice]

Because purchasing ICO coins is similar to buying stocks of a company, you want to perform the same standard of research. You want to make sure the ICO you’re investing in has a viable project, experienced development team, good reputation, understandable business model, and of course, growth potential.
We touch more on this in our blog post about ICOs, so check it out 

Bit.ly/ICOGuide

Cheers!

[priyanjana]

A lot of scams ICO in the market right now. be careful before investing on any ICOs.
These are the main fact that we have to consider when investing in ICO.

*- Project-based Idea
*- Technology Stack
*- Team member - the most important fact.

You can find more details on whitepaper. If there lack of details on whitepaper means, it is a red flag.

I recommend Guarium (ico.guarium.com) is a good ongoing ICO project. Please visit if you are interested.

Please do your own research before participating any ICO.

[0Shendy0]

I would recommend you to pay attention to these factors: they must have a good Whitepaper, read it scrupulously, cause some ICO just steal somebody's else Whitepaper and just change the name of the project. They must have MVP on their website, cause lots of projects like to write how cool they are, but don't have anything except these pompous words. Their employees should have profiles on Linkedin, for example, cause scammers are afraid of revealing their personality and often they whether don't have any profiles of steal somebody's photos. I was written by one scammer who had a woman's photo and man's name. Check their groups on the different social networks, they should be active and not filled with bots and fakes. Also the admins of the decent project will never write you with the special offerings asking for your private keys or money. Also you can check their profile on GitHub. I would recommend you to pay attention to Cryptics - forecasting platform which does use 100% AI. Their project does satisfy with all these requirements.