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[Daboy_Lyle]

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[www.crypago.com]

 “Our decentralized blockchain-based platform will disrupt the landscape of cryptocurrency investment while building a trustless network of pseudonymous users that leverage swarm intelligence technology to provide real world financial services in a tokenized ecosystem.”

Ha! Brilliant thank you!

[ArmanShirinyan]

Don`t forget about the amount of team members. If you see team with 20+ members with stupid positions like "blockchain to english translator" you can leave the page of that kind of project

[Daboy_Lyle]

“Our decentralized blockchain-based platform will disrupt the landscape of cryptocurrency investment while building a trustless network of pseudonymous users that leverage swarm intelligence technology to provide real world financial services in a tokenized ecosystem.”

Ha! Brilliant thank you!

Thanks for the appreciation of the thread/post. I will make it more informative to become more useful.

100% ROI is also a good flag
Thanks for sharing!

Thanks for that "100% ROI is also a good flag" lol anyways thanks.

Great share, thanks 

Thanks for the good thoughts.

[FlamingFingers]

Good information, thanks for sharing. I would like to add that if a project is being endorsed by any kind of celebrity is most likely a scam. Stox was the only endorsed project that wasn't, however, every other project turned to be a scam or failed to reach its goals.

Off the top of my head, Centra (accused of fraud by the SEC), and Bitcoiin (was sent a cease-and-desist order) were both endorsed by 'celebrities' and turned to be scam. Others either failed to reach their goal (like Hubii), or had something fishy going on in their companies (LydianCoin, anyone?).

[Ibizugbe1]

 I would like to add that if a project is being endorsed by any kind of celebrity is most likely a scam.

Transcodium was then endorsed by John Mcafee, they struggled in their ICO, when they finally reached exchange, it turned into a shitty coin. I regret buying it. Am now very wise never to follow any celebrity to the doom.

[Sergey9921]

Good information, thanks for sharing. I would like to add that if a project is being endorsed by any kind of celebrity is most likely a scam. Stox was the only endorsed project that wasn't, however, every other project turned to be a scam or failed to reach its goals.

Off the top of my head, Centra (accused of fraud by the SEC), and Bitcoiin (was sent a cease-and-desist order) were both endorsed by 'celebrities' and turned to be scam. Others either failed to reach their goal (like Hubii), or had something fishy going on in their companies (LydianCoin, anyone?).

Hubii didn't fail to reach their goal, they didn't reach the maximum cap. They're almost ready to release their Ethereum scaling solution to mainnet(already on Ropsten testnet) which will be the biggest smart contract deployment on the Ethereum network to date. https://github.com/hubiinetwork

[anobtc]

Yes first we can check if the project was not appeared in this board: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=83.0
If not, easiest way is check their team information. If it's not clear or ambiguity, it is best to stay away

[Daboy_Lyle]

Yep but not all things that being endorsed by celebrity are all scam but maybe 75% of it. We can notice this if a celebrity acts like very good on a thing that his/her endorsing. We can avoid them by asking on society.

I would like to add that if a project is being endorsed by any kind of celebrity is most likely a scam.

Transcodium was then endorsed by John Mcafee, they struggled in their ICO, when they finally reached exchange, it turned into a shitty coin. I regret buying it. Am now very wise never to follow any celebrity to the doom.

[flying_bit]

Please add Website, it's a redflag if a project have no website.
For newbies, it's a redflag if a project running a presale without a website specially if it's selfdrop presale. Come on, never and don't invest and/or send your precious crypto if that project even if they will send you million token, 50% bonus and a promise that it will be immediately available in exchange for the love of yourself without a website please leave and runaway coz it's a certified scam.

[Cordwel]

100% ROI is also a good flag
Thanks for sharing!

yes you are right and very few really indicate it and investors also sometimes don't pay attention to it even though it's the main sign

[Daboy_Lyle]

Thanks for educating us on this subject matter, I learned a lot by reading it.

Well l, thanks for your appreciation. Giving is caring that's why I give informations because it's very bad when anyone gets scammed.

[bstash]

Check this article 

https://ethereumworldnews.com/seven-out-of-every-ten-cryptocurrency-icos-have-technically-failed/

[Velkro]

Observe this things to avoid it.

• Unrealistic goals
• Buzzword salad
• Whitepaper
• No Code Repository
• Team

Personally i think it would be easier to do opposite. Not what things to avoid, but how to confirm ICO as legimate. Because if 95% of ICO's are scams, its easier to just look for legimate one's in garbage bin of all others.
Its very very very risky business.

[mk4]

Observe this things to avoid it.

• Unrealistic goals
• Buzzword salad
• Whitepaper
• No Code Repository
• Team

Personally i think it would be easier to do opposite. Not what things to avoid, but how to confirm ICO as legimate. Because if 95% of ICO's are scams, its easier to just look for legimate one's in garbage bin of all others.
Its very very very risky business.

Pretty much. That's the reason why I really really suggest against investing in ICOs. Risks are too high due to scams; and if a certain project isn't a scam(which is very rare), it still doesn't any guarantee profit. If you like investing in altcoins, stick to the reputable ones.

[Banemu]

Initial Coin Offering SCAMS

HOW TO AVOID?

Let's define first what is Initial Coin Offering or ICO?  

ICO is an unregulated means by which funds are raised for a new cryptocurrency venture.
My idea on ICO is CROWD FUNDING .

Now let's move on how can we avoid ICO SCAM

      Crowdfunding is shaping the future of finance. No longer does investment belong to the few and no longer does launching a project mean having to go through all the required conditions of Venture Capital investment. There are now multiple platforms where users can crowdfund their dreams and projects into reality.

Observe this things to avoid it.

• Unrealistic goals
• Buzzword salad
• Whitepaper
• No Code Repository
• Team

Unrealistic goals
      
       If the project does have that potential, professional developers will never make such promises. They will let you know about the potential of their project and that’s it. No serious team will ever make a price prediction about their token or claim it can fix the world.

Buzzword salad

      “Our decentralized blockchain-based platform will disrupt the landscape of cryptocurrency investment while building a trustless network of pseudonymous users that leverage swarm intelligence technology to provide real world financial services in a tokenized ecosystem.”

       Some people may have a tendency to use buzzwords as a means to turn a boring text or announcement into something exciting. However, these will have a certain amount of information on it, even if you have to filter out some of the nonsense. Still, if a project needs to do this, then the project is likely to be as boring as watching paint dry.

Whitepaper
    
         Whitepapers usually explain how the platform works both on the high-level and specifically. This often includes charts, calculations, simulations, specifications and so forth. If your project claims that it is building some sort of decentralized service or token with new features and actually provides no explanation of how it works specifically, then just close the document and walk away.

No Code Repository

      This is what matters. Like someone said before “Code is law”. Even if the project announcement and whitepaper are complete trash, you can always count on Github or Sourceforge to put an end to all doubts. If the project provides no link to the code at all or if the project is nothing more than a clone with a few changed lines of code, then it’s not worth your time nor money.

Team

      This is very important. Who is behind the project? Is the team made up of well-known members of the cryptocurrency community? Are they known in other areas? Have they been involved in previous projects? If the answer is yes, then this may be an interesting opportunity. Just remember to check if the person is actually aware of the project as scammers may use famous names just to get people interested even though these are not part of the team.

s/www.cryptocompare.com/coins/guides/how-to-avoid-scam-icos/%3faltTemplate=WebPageAMPGuide]SOURCE

I believe more in whitepaper to identify scams thiugh we all know that a good whitepaper doesn't tell for certain if an ICO is scam.


Also, sometimes, we shouldn't just warn people about scam ICOs alone, there are some legit ICOs out there that have failed due to bad plans and other criteria. People should be warned against scam ICOs as well as ICOs that are doom to fail.

Nice point helping with identify scams


I just dropped a detailed explanation on whitepaper and it's usefulness .

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5039628.0

[Daboy_Lyle]

Personally i think it would be easier to do opposite. Not what things to avoid, but how to confirm ICO as legimate. Because if 95% of ICO's are scams, its easier to just look for legimate one's in garbage bin of all others.
Its very very very risky business.

I think so making an opposite thread on this topic will make ICO investor helped by finding legitimate ICO.
I'm challenging someone who can do opposite thread.

[blogardianz]

Well, this is so true. A lot of ICO project only selling an idea without a real plan.
Since I joined a lot of ICO project. The team only talk and promote their token sales. They did not prioritize about their latest product updates.

[Ramtapsbtc]

    
Team

      This is very important. Who is behind the project? Is the team made up of well-known members of the cryptocurrency community? Are they known in other areas? Have they been involved in previous projects? If the answer is yes, then this may be an interesting opportunity. Just remember to check if the person is actually aware of the project as scammers may use famous names just to get people interested even though these are not part of the team.

Though all of your checklist on how to avoid scam ICO is useful but my own way of spotting scam is the team behind the project. My thinking is that if the team is not clear or the presentation is doubtful then the project itself is doubtful also. You can also search the name of the CEO in the net and make your own decision on whether he is fake or legit.

[kryptqnick]

• Unrealistic goals
• Buzzword salad
• No Code Repository

I agree with unrealistic goals being a bad sign. There are so many projects claiming to change the world. But at the same time, I find it reasonable for an ICO team to set a goal higher than they themselves would expect an ICO to perform. It should not be something completely unrealistic, but it should sound a bit impossible. If people don't aim for hard things, they will not accomlish even the rather easy ones. Higher than normal self-esteem helps to find new and creative ways to approach things. As for Buzzword - yes, sure, it's not a very good thing. But if the text is mainly fine and only has some sentences like the one you mentioned - maybe it's just because the team thought it would attract people more. Okay, they were wrong, but it doesn't mean they are scammers. And I also think that code might not be that important if the project is generally not related to IT. I mean, if that's just a token for payments on some cool platform, what matters is a platform, the token should just be stable, nothing more or less.