My `red flags´for investing in a ico

[cryptoherr]

At the Moment there are coming more and more icos. But most of them fail. This is due to the fact that most new Investors which hear About the past gains of sme icos want to get their lambo and just go for some icos without even doing some research. Of course if are aknowleged about icos and know how to invest. BUT i think most new Investor do not know what to watch out for before investing in a ico and are vulnerable so i want to explain this here:

1. Anonymous team
you should always find out the adress of the company and the names of the team members. Most of the time there is no reason to stay anonymous for a serious team

Vague whitepaeper
If the whitepaper is very vague and you do not see any information about the implementation it might be a scam. Most scammers are no engineers and do not state how the implement their idea. Only a idea is pretty worthless!

No community
Check the communities activity in telegram slack or even  their Bitcointalk forum. A good ICO should have a community which engage with the founders and developers


No Github activity

If there is no github activity it might be a scam. A scam does not care about publishing their codes at github!

The last one is fake ico websites: you should always check the ssl certificate of the website before you invest in a ICO.

[BADBITCH]

Very good information
And I think it’s not all about the team whitepaper or GitHub alone

There has to be enough clarification how they are gonna operate( their basis)
None the less be careful with icos investment

[DerTrey]

I would add a large hard card to this list, because teams often set unrealistic goals, and all who wanted to would have bought the token on the ICO, and then, when they gets listed to the exchange, people do not want to buy them.

[elysion]

Thank your for this statement. It is a good roadmap those who just started to investment to ICOs. Whitepaper and project team  are very vital components for ICOs' liability and sustainability. But, attetion is an important subject about investment.

[hesham51]

I would like to add that what a lot of scams which they just fail to deliver their product or even get trouble with SEC as many ICOs got recently.

[LankaJay]

Everything of a project should be transparent including team members. If they hide those information then there is something to think about. If they have not paid much attention to the whitepaper then it is also a negative sign about the project. I think if people may take care about these information they will not fall in to a trap.

[bigmelons25]

Those are great points, but even ICOs that meet all that criteria still has a high chance of failure.

[cryptoherr]

Those are great points, but even ICOs that meet all that criteria still has a high chance of failure.

Yeah of Course not 100% of all icos which meet my criteria will be success but it helps to prevent noobies from most of the scam campaigns i think

[Suicide101]

Useful tips for each beginner, I think.
But, unfortunately, more and more campaigns have this "red flag".  Companies dont have a team, have a dead social networks.
And the activity on git hub is really a rare now.
And all these campaigns it is better to avoid.

[torrantz]

Most scammers are no engineers and do not state how the implement their idea

That is wrong. some of whitepaper from a scam ICO I know even can explain you a detailed information about how they implement it, even im pretty sure that the part of scammers team are engineers.
Therefore an excellent whitepaper doesn't guarantee whether a project is scam or not, even having people to create a fantastic idea that written down to whitepaper with a detailed technical aspect inside it only take you few thousand bucks!

[Mallyx]

1. Anonymous team
you should always find out the adress of the company and the names of the team members. Most of the time there is no reason to stay anonymous for a serious team

That's an human mistake to think because you see some faces and names that you'll be safe.
It's still a positive indicator but the real one is to check the company.
In most countries all the companies details are public: address, owner, etc ...
Always check if the company is real.

[target]

I think some team are deliberately publishing vague whitepaper and empty github because of some scammers. If they put the clearer whitepaper and github codes these scrupulous individuals will copy the idea and will come out with their own whitepaper and github which will result to scam as well.

Instead of looking for all these red flag indicators, why not just look for the green flag like confirming the involvement of the reputable team and advisors of the team. Wechain ICO was busted as Scam because of this check this out https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4692100.0