A suggestion for ICO promoters and bounty managers

[bryant.coleman]

KYC is not also just required upon the investors, but also for the team and the promoters behind the project. This is a must requirement, to ensure that when the ico turns out to be a scam, we know the backgrounds behind the team. And also we can easily detected if they have a bad intention of aiming to scam.

I agree 100%. ICOs in which the promoters refuse to undergo KYC should not be allowed to post in the ANN or bounty section of this forum. If this is implemented, then 99% of the scamming cases can be prevented.

[1714133737]

1714133737

[1714133737]

1714133737

[1714133737]

1714133737

[glasbren]

Being a member of Bitcointalk for more than 6 years, I am quite a bit bothered by what happening in the bounty section for the past few months. This is what I have noticed:

1. A lot of scam projects are creating bounty campaigns and ANN threads. Once the bounty campaign is finished, they vanish all of a sudden without paying the bounty hunters and leaving the investors in limbo.

2. The quality of the bounty managers have gone down. Junior level members are acting as bounty managers and they often don't update the spreadsheets and sometimes indulge in cheating by enrolling proxy accounts to the campaign.

3. Large number of newbs are signing up for bounty campaigns, often enrolling using purchased Facebook / Twitter accounts (esp. in Social media bounty). The quality of posts being done by the bounty campaign participants have gone down quite a lot during the last few months.

4. Even those bounties which pay end up listing at 80% or 90% discount to their original prices and in the end the honest bounty campaign participants end up with very small rewards. On the other hand, those signing up with 10-12 multiple accounts end up with sizeable rewards. And it is the latter category, which indulges in token dumping.

5. There is no incentive to hold on to the tokens, as a majority of the ICO promoters dump their tokens in the market and vanish. If you check, the vast majority of the listed ICOs are in a dormant or defunct state now.

I have a few suggestions to resolve some of the issues, before the issues go out of hand.

1. There should be a requirement that if anyone want to post an ANN in Bitcointalk, he must deposit 0.1% of the total amount (of the softcap) in an escrow account. For example, if a project is planning to raise $50,000,000 from the investors, then before creating the ANN thread the promoters must deposit $50,000 in either BTC or ETH to an escrow account held by the Bitcointalk staff. If the soft-cap is smaller, like $500,000 then the escrow amount should be 0.1% of that, i.e $500. If the promoters vanish, then this amount should be forfeited. Also, if the promoters go back on their promises once the tokens are listed, then this escrow amount should be frozen and may be (partially) released only if they achieve the objectives which they had promised earlier.

2. There should be a list of approved bounty managers and those outside this list should not be allowed to act in this role. There are a lot of trusted bounty managers here, like Yahoo62278 and Lutpin. I don't think that newbs should be given priority over them.

3. In order to participate in a bounty campaign, it should be mandatory for all the users to post their ETH address in the "Location" field in the profile. I have noticed a large number of spammers using someone else's BTT account and their own ETH address to enroll in to social media bounties. This step will put and end to the practise and will weed out the spammers.

4. All the bounty campaign participants must be carefully screened before the payout. In order to prevent token dumping, a few steps can be taken. Since the bounty reward is 1% to 3% of the total amount, the promoters themselves can purchase this portion from the exchanges. Or they can make the bounty payments in BTC/ETH. There should also be a condition that the promoters should hold on to 90% of their tokens for at least 12 months. (Because I have noticed that it is the promoters who do dumping in the vast majority of the cases, and they blame it on the bounty hunters).

5. KYC must be mandatory for ICO promoters and bounty campaign managers (unless they are on level 2 DT). If this is done, then the scammers won't be able to set up multiple fake ICOs.

I am posting this because now the real impact is becoming obvious. Experienced users are staying away from bounty campaigns and even very promising ICOs are getting listed at heavily-discounted rates. This can't go on forever.

Good ICOs need to be protected from the negativity in the market created by the fake ICOs.
Honest bounty hunters needs to be protected from the cheaters
Properly run bounty campaigns and airdrops should be appreciated and differentiated from the poorly managed ones.

That is indeed so sad, even in bounty participant side, there are also some scammer who are duplicating someone else profile to be used as their own.
They are hoping to get a payment by using someone else work, that makes me sick.

[Mypanara19]

Being a member of Bitcointalk for more than 6 years, I am quite a bit bothered by what happening in the bounty section for the past few months. This is what I have noticed:

1. A lot of scam projects are creating bounty campaigns and ANN threads. Once the bounty campaign is finished, they vanish all of a sudden without paying the bounty hunters and leaving the investors in limbo.

2. The quality of the bounty managers have gone down. Junior level members are acting as bounty managers and they often don't update the spreadsheets and sometimes indulge in cheating by enrolling proxy accounts to the campaign.

3. Large number of newbs are signing up for bounty campaigns, often enrolling using purchased Facebook / Twitter accounts (esp. in Social media bounty). The quality of posts being done by the bounty campaign participants have gone down quite a lot during the last few months.

4. Even those bounties which pay end up listing at 80% or 90% discount to their original prices and in the end the honest bounty campaign participants end up with very small rewards. On the other hand, those signing up with 10-12 multiple accounts end up with sizeable rewards. And it is the latter category, which indulges in token dumping.

5. There is no incentive to hold on to the tokens, as a majority of the ICO promoters dump their tokens in the market and vanish. If you check, the vast majority of the listed ICOs are in a dormant or defunct state now.

I have a few suggestions to resolve some of the issues, before the issues go out of hand.

I agree with most of what was said here in the post because it concerns about the bounty managers, the bounty hunters and the legit crypto projects and icos. This post is very considerate with all the people or group of people involved like the bounty hunyers, bounty managers and others and it should be given the attention to maintain the quality of works and also the credibility of everyone involved. Awesome!

[PancherBitCoin]

KYC is not also just required upon the investors, but also for the team and the promoters behind the project. This is a must requirement, to ensure that when the ico turns out to be a scam, we know the backgrounds behind the team. And also we can easily detected if they have a bad intention of aiming to scam.

I agree 100%. ICOs in which the promoters refuse to undergo KYC should not be allowed to post in the ANN or bounty section of this forum. If this is implemented, then 99% of the scamming cases can be prevented.

but how to implement these requirements? I also support your opinion and I believe that the biggest problem in the market of ico companies is the presence of a large number of scammers. Moreover, to date, Bounty Hunters are used as slaves, while paying very little and in most cases very often changing the terms of payment.

[babyxxbaby]

The author made good suggestions. About KYC very true statement. I have repeatedly met the same managers of different ICO. My suggestion is that would Amazis, Sandra Events, Ltcbtcdigger introduced a black list of fraudsters. Then deception will be less.

[Fidelius]

Being a member of Bitcointalk for more than 6 years, I am quite a bit bothered by what happening in the bounty section for the past few months. This is what I have noticed:

1. A lot of scam projects are creating bounty campaigns and ANN threads. Once the bounty campaign is finished, they vanish all of a sudden without paying the bounty hunters and leaving the investors in limbo.

2. The quality of the bounty managers have gone down. Junior level members are acting as bounty managers and they often don't update the spreadsheets and sometimes indulge in cheating by enrolling proxy accounts to the campaign.

3. Large number of newbs are signing up for bounty campaigns, often enrolling using purchased Facebook / Twitter accounts (esp. in Social media bounty). The quality of posts being done by the bounty campaign participants have gone down quite a lot during the last few months.

4. Even those bounties which pay end up listing at 80% or 90% discount to their original prices and in the end the honest bounty campaign participants end up with very small rewards. On the other hand, those signing up with 10-12 multiple accounts end up with sizeable rewards. And it is the latter category, which indulges in token dumping.

5. There is no incentive to hold on to the tokens, as a majority of the ICO promoters dump their tokens in the market and vanish. If you check, the vast majority of the listed ICOs are in a dormant or defunct state now.

I have a few suggestions to resolve some of the issues, before the issues go out of hand.

1. There should be a requirement that if anyone want to post an ANN in Bitcointalk, he must deposit 0.1% of the total amount (of the softcap) in an escrow account. For example, if a project is planning to raise $50,000,000 from the investors, then before creating the ANN thread the promoters must deposit $50,000 in either BTC or ETH to an escrow account held by the Bitcointalk staff. If the soft-cap is smaller, like $500,000 then the escrow amount should be 0.1% of that, i.e $500. If the promoters vanish, then this amount should be forfeited. Also, if the promoters go back on their promises once the tokens are listed, then this escrow amount should be frozen and may be (partially) released only if they achieve the objectives which they had promised earlier.

2. There should be a list of approved bounty managers and those outside this list should not be allowed to act in this role. There are a lot of trusted bounty managers here, like Yahoo62278 and Lutpin. I don't think that newbs should be given priority over them.

3. In order to participate in a bounty campaign, it should be mandatory for all the users to post their ETH address in the "Location" field in the profile. I have noticed a large number of spammers using someone else's BTT account and their own ETH address to enroll in to social media bounties. This step will put and end to the practise and will weed out the spammers.

4. All the bounty campaign participants must be carefully screened before the payout. In order to prevent token dumping, a few steps can be taken. Since the bounty reward is 1% to 3% of the total amount, the promoters themselves can purchase this portion from the exchanges. Or they can make the bounty payments in BTC/ETH. There should also be a condition that the promoters should hold on to 90% of their tokens for at least 12 months. (Because I have noticed that it is the promoters who do dumping in the vast majority of the cases, and they blame it on the bounty hunters).

5. KYC must be mandatory for ICO promoters and bounty campaign managers (unless they are on level 2 DT). If this is done, then the scammers won't be able to set up multiple fake ICOs.

I am posting this because now the real impact is becoming obvious. Experienced users are staying away from bounty campaigns and even very promising ICOs are getting listed at heavily-discounted rates. This can't go on forever.

Good ICOs need to be protected from the negativity in the market created by the fake ICOs.
Honest bounty hunters needs to be protected from the cheaters
Properly run bounty campaigns and airdrops should be appreciated and differentiated from the poorly managed ones.

Please stop participating bounty until until it becomes clear to the whole situation. The probability of wasting your time is extremely high, so you can spend it on something else.

[Shatterlean22]

How about if bitcointalk should hold the percentage of tokens that are meant to be paid to bounty hunters to avoid not getting paid after bounty ended? Any ICO who is willing to do this no doubt a real project and not scam

[MrPao]

I support your suggestion. I always think that when all the bounty activities can pay a certain amount of prepaid funds from the beginning, it will attract more investors and hunters!

[TomInVa57]

KYC for ICO - a very good idea, but I believe that it is too late. Teams will do so only if investors will strongly push them.

[memFISTO]

Being a member of Bitcointalk for more than 6 years, I am quite a bit bothered by what happening in the bounty section for the past few months. This is what I have noticed:

1. A lot of scam projects are creating bounty campaigns and ANN threads. Once the bounty campaign is finished, they vanish all of a sudden without paying the bounty hunters and leaving the investors in limbo.

2. The quality of the bounty managers have gone down. Junior level members are acting as bounty managers and they often don't update the spreadsheets and sometimes indulge in cheating by enrolling proxy accounts to the campaign.

3. Large number of newbs are signing up for bounty campaigns, often enrolling using purchased Facebook / Twitter accounts (esp. in Social media bounty). The quality of posts being done by the bounty campaign participants have gone down quite a lot during the last few months.

4. Even those bounties which pay end up listing at 80% or 90% discount to their original prices and in the end the honest bounty campaign participants end up with very small rewards. On the other hand, those signing up with 10-12 multiple accounts end up with sizeable rewards. And it is the latter category, which indulges in token dumping.

5. There is no incentive to hold on to the tokens, as a majority of the ICO promoters dump their tokens in the market and vanish. If you check, the vast majority of the listed ICOs are in a dormant or defunct state now.

I have a few suggestions to resolve some of the issues, before the issues go out of hand.

1. There should be a requirement that if anyone want to post an ANN in Bitcointalk, he must deposit 0.1% of the total amount (of the softcap) in an escrow account. For example, if a project is planning to raise $50,000,000 from the investors, then before creating the ANN thread the promoters must deposit $50,000 in either BTC or ETH to an escrow account held by the Bitcointalk staff. If the soft-cap is smaller, like $500,000 then the escrow amount should be 0.1% of that, i.e $500. If the promoters vanish, then this amount should be forfeited. Also, if the promoters go back on their promises once the tokens are listed, then this escrow amount should be frozen and may be (partially) released only if they achieve the objectives which they had promised earlier.

2. There should be a list of approved bounty managers and those outside this list should not be allowed to act in this role. There are a lot of trusted bounty managers here, like Yahoo62278 and Lutpin. I don't think that newbs should be given priority over them.

3. In order to participate in a bounty campaign, it should be mandatory for all the users to post their ETH address in the "Location" field in the profile. I have noticed a large number of spammers using someone else's BTT account and their own ETH address to enroll in to social media bounties. This step will put and end to the practise and will weed out the spammers.

4. All the bounty campaign participants must be carefully screened before the payout. In order to prevent token dumping, a few steps can be taken. Since the bounty reward is 1% to 3% of the total amount, the promoters themselves can purchase this portion from the exchanges. Or they can make the bounty payments in BTC/ETH. There should also be a condition that the promoters should hold on to 90% of their tokens for at least 12 months. (Because I have noticed that it is the promoters who do dumping in the vast majority of the cases, and they blame it on the bounty hunters).

5. KYC must be mandatory for ICO promoters and bounty campaign managers (unless they are on level 2 DT). If this is done, then the scammers won't be able to set up multiple fake ICOs.

I am posting this because now the real impact is becoming obvious. Experienced users are staying away from bounty campaigns and even very promising ICOs are getting listed at heavily-discounted rates. This can't go on forever.

Good ICOs need to be protected from the negativity in the market created by the fake ICOs.
Honest bounty hunters needs to be protected from the cheaters
Properly run bounty campaigns and airdrops should be appreciated and differentiated from the poorly managed ones.

It makes no sense to talk about it until it is a reliable company that will control the entire market. Perhaps I am not affiliated with any of the county, but we need it right now.

[EducoinVietnam]

Identity theft - a very common problem in the digital market, and I believe that KYC and AML for each member of the team must be fully binding.

[alexsoul]

This is a great idea, your suggestions are really reasonable and able to make bounty companies more attractive for honest bounty hunters. What is happening now is lawlessness and fraudsters enjoy their impunity. I suggest we put a vote on the promotion of your idea, it's really necessary.

[ryanfromrethink]

Being a member of Bitcointalk for more than 6 years, I am quite a bit bothered by what happening in the bounty section for the past few months. This is what I have noticed:

1. A lot of scam projects are creating bounty campaigns and ANN threads. Once the bounty campaign is finished, they vanish all of a sudden without paying the bounty hunters and leaving the investors in limbo.

2. The quality of the bounty managers have gone down. Junior level members are acting as bounty managers and they often don't update the spreadsheets and sometimes indulge in cheating by enrolling proxy accounts to the campaign.

3. Large number of newbs are signing up for bounty campaigns, often enrolling using purchased Facebook / Twitter accounts (esp. in Social media bounty). The quality of posts being done by the bounty campaign participants have gone down quite a lot during the last few months.

4. Even those bounties which pay end up listing at 80% or 90% discount to their original prices and in the end the honest bounty campaign participants end up with very small rewards. On the other hand, those signing up with 10-12 multiple accounts end up with sizeable rewards. And it is the latter category, which indulges in token dumping.

5. There is no incentive to hold on to the tokens, as a majority of the ICO promoters dump their tokens in the market and vanish. If you check, the vast majority of the listed ICOs are in a dormant or defunct state now.

I have a few suggestions to resolve some of the issues, before the issues go out of hand.

1. There should be a requirement that if anyone want to post an ANN in Bitcointalk, he must deposit 0.1% of the total amount (of the softcap) in an escrow account. For example, if a project is planning to raise $50,000,000 from the investors, then before creating the ANN thread the promoters must deposit $50,000 in either BTC or ETH to an escrow account held by the Bitcointalk staff. If the soft-cap is smaller, like $500,000 then the escrow amount should be 0.1% of that, i.e $500. If the promoters vanish, then this amount should be forfeited. Also, if the promoters go back on their promises once the tokens are listed, then this escrow amount should be frozen and may be (partially) released only if they achieve the objectives which they had promised earlier.

2. There should be a list of approved bounty managers and those outside this list should not be allowed to act in this role. There are a lot of trusted bounty managers here, like Yahoo62278 and Lutpin. I don't think that newbs should be given priority over them.

3. In order to participate in a bounty campaign, it should be mandatory for all the users to post their ETH address in the "Location" field in the profile. I have noticed a large number of spammers using someone else's BTT account and their own ETH address to enroll in to social media bounties. This step will put and end to the practise and will weed out the spammers.

4. All the bounty campaign participants must be carefully screened before the payout. In order to prevent token dumping, a few steps can be taken. Since the bounty reward is 1% to 3% of the total amount, the promoters themselves can purchase this portion from the exchanges. Or they can make the bounty payments in BTC/ETH. There should also be a condition that the promoters should hold on to 90% of their tokens for at least 12 months. (Because I have noticed that it is the promoters who do dumping in the vast majority of the cases, and they blame it on the bounty hunters).

5. KYC must be mandatory for ICO promoters and bounty campaign managers (unless they are on level 2 DT). If this is done, then the scammers won't be able to set up multiple fake ICOs.

I am posting this because now the real impact is becoming obvious. Experienced users are staying away from bounty campaigns and even very promising ICOs are getting listed at heavily-discounted rates. This can't go on forever.

Good ICOs need to be protected from the negativity in the market created by the fake ICOs.
Honest bounty hunters needs to be protected from the cheaters
Properly run bounty campaigns and airdrops should be appreciated and differentiated from the poorly managed ones.

You have described what every second bounty hunter who has worked on more than 40 projects knows. This is not some kind of discovery, but only a banal statement of facts. You should have called the theme "Farewell to new bounty hunters!".

[megaplage]

Being a member of Bitcointalk for more than 6 years, I am quite a bit bothered by what happening in the bounty section for the past few months. This is what I have noticed:

1. A lot of scam projects are creating bounty campaigns and ANN threads. Once the bounty campaign is finished, they vanish all of a sudden without paying the bounty hunters and leaving the investors in limbo.

2. The quality of the bounty managers have gone down. Junior level members are acting as bounty managers and they often don't update the spreadsheets and sometimes indulge in cheating by enrolling proxy accounts to the campaign.

3. Large number of newbs are signing up for bounty campaigns, often enrolling using purchased Facebook / Twitter accounts (esp. in Social media bounty). The quality of posts being done by the bounty campaign participants have gone down quite a lot during the last few months.

4. Even those bounties which pay end up listing at 80% or 90% discount to their original prices and in the end the honest bounty campaign participants end up with very small rewards. On the other hand, those signing up with 10-12 multiple accounts end up with sizeable rewards. And it is the latter category, which indulges in token dumping.

5. There is no incentive to hold on to the tokens, as a majority of the ICO promoters dump their tokens in the market and vanish. If you check, the vast majority of the listed ICOs are in a dormant or defunct state now.

I have a few suggestions to resolve some of the issues, before the issues go out of hand.

1. There should be a requirement that if anyone want to post an ANN in Bitcointalk, he must deposit 0.1% of the total amount (of the softcap) in an escrow account. For example, if a project is planning to raise $50,000,000 from the investors, then before creating the ANN thread the promoters must deposit $50,000 in either BTC or ETH to an escrow account held by the Bitcointalk staff. If the soft-cap is smaller, like $500,000 then the escrow amount should be 0.1% of that, i.e $500. If the promoters vanish, then this amount should be forfeited. Also, if the promoters go back on their promises once the tokens are listed, then this escrow amount should be frozen and may be (partially) released only if they achieve the objectives which they had promised earlier.

2. There should be a list of approved bounty managers and those outside this list should not be allowed to act in this role. There are a lot of trusted bounty managers here, like Yahoo62278 and Lutpin. I don't think that newbs should be given priority over them.

3. In order to participate in a bounty campaign, it should be mandatory for all the users to post their ETH address in the "Location" field in the profile. I have noticed a large number of spammers using someone else's BTT account and their own ETH address to enroll in to social media bounties. This step will put and end to the practise and will weed out the spammers.

4. All the bounty campaign participants must be carefully screened before the payout. In order to prevent token dumping, a few steps can be taken. Since the bounty reward is 1% to 3% of the total amount, the promoters themselves can purchase this portion from the exchanges. Or they can make the bounty payments in BTC/ETH. There should also be a condition that the promoters should hold on to 90% of their tokens for at least 12 months. (Because I have noticed that it is the promoters who do dumping in the vast majority of the cases, and they blame it on the bounty hunters).

5. KYC must be mandatory for ICO promoters and bounty campaign managers (unless they are on level 2 DT). If this is done, then the scammers won't be able to set up multiple fake ICOs.

I am posting this because now the real impact is becoming obvious. Experienced users are staying away from bounty campaigns and even very promising ICOs are getting listed at heavily-discounted rates. This can't go on forever.

Good ICOs need to be protected from the negativity in the market created by the fake ICOs.
Honest bounty hunters needs to be protected from the cheaters
Properly run bounty campaigns and airdrops should be appreciated and differentiated from the poorly managed ones.

You have painted so much about what can happen and how we should act, but we do not see your results in this activity. In the beginning we should say why we should listen to you or at least take your words into account.

[jpnl0008]

Good that is someone who is concerned about the whole situation on bitcointalk if only this idea can implemented then it will be good for us all for so longer as there is lawlessness there wont be any regulation thanks

[nemesio]

Being a member of Bitcointalk for more than 6 years, I am quite a bit bothered by what happening in the bounty section for the past few months. This is what I have noticed:

1. A lot of scam projects are creating bounty campaigns and ANN threads. Once the bounty campaign is finished, they vanish all of a sudden without paying the bounty hunters and leaving the investors in limbo.

2. The quality of the bounty managers have gone down. Junior level members are acting as bounty managers and they often don't update the spreadsheets and sometimes indulge in cheating by enrolling proxy accounts to the campaign.

3. Large number of newbs are signing up for bounty campaigns, often enrolling using purchased Facebook / Twitter accounts (esp. in Social media bounty). The quality of posts being done by the bounty campaign participants have gone down quite a lot during the last few months.

4. Even those bounties which pay end up listing at 80% or 90% discount to their original prices and in the end the honest bounty campaign participants end up with very small rewards. On the other hand, those signing up with 10-12 multiple accounts end up with sizeable rewards. And it is the latter category, which indulges in token dumping.

5. There is no incentive to hold on to the tokens, as a majority of the ICO promoters dump their tokens in the market and vanish. If you check, the vast majority of the listed ICOs are in a dormant or defunct state now.

I have a few suggestions to resolve some of the issues, before the issues go out of hand.

1. There should be a requirement that if anyone want to post an ANN in Bitcointalk, he must deposit 0.1% of the total amount (of the softcap) in an escrow account. For example, if a project is planning to raise $50,000,000 from the investors, then before creating the ANN thread the promoters must deposit $50,000 in either BTC or ETH to an escrow account held by the Bitcointalk staff. If the soft-cap is smaller, like $500,000 then the escrow amount should be 0.1% of that, i.e $500. If the promoters vanish, then this amount should be forfeited. Also, if the promoters go back on their promises once the tokens are listed, then this escrow amount should be frozen and may be (partially) released only if they achieve the objectives which they had promised earlier.

2. There should be a list of approved bounty managers and those outside this list should not be allowed to act in this role. There are a lot of trusted bounty managers here, like Yahoo62278 and Lutpin. I don't think that newbs should be given priority over them.

3. In order to participate in a bounty campaign, it should be mandatory for all the users to post their ETH address in the "Location" field in the profile. I have noticed a large number of spammers using someone else's BTT account and their own ETH address to enroll in to social media bounties. This step will put and end to the practise and will weed out the spammers.

4. All the bounty campaign participants must be carefully screened before the payout. In order to prevent token dumping, a few steps can be taken. Since the bounty reward is 1% to 3% of the total amount, the promoters themselves can purchase this portion from the exchanges. Or they can make the bounty payments in BTC/ETH. There should also be a condition that the promoters should hold on to 90% of their tokens for at least 12 months. (Because I have noticed that it is the promoters who do dumping in the vast majority of the cases, and they blame it on the bounty hunters).

5. KYC must be mandatory for ICO promoters and bounty campaign managers (unless they are on level 2 DT). If this is done, then the scammers won't be able to set up multiple fake ICOs.

I am posting this because now the real impact is becoming obvious. Experienced users are staying away from bounty campaigns and even very promising ICOs are getting listed at heavily-discounted rates. This can't go on forever.

Good ICOs need to be protected from the negativity in the market created by the fake ICOs.
Honest bounty hunters needs to be protected from the cheaters
Properly run bounty campaigns and airdrops should be appreciated and differentiated from the poorly managed ones.

Payments really fell, especially when compared to those that were a year ago. I was still not happy that I was paid $ 500 for one company, wanted more, and now me and$ 200 lead to a smile. Oh, so good time...

[TamaraKul]

Being a member of Bitcointalk for more than 6 years, I am quite a bit bothered by what happening in the bounty section for the past few months. This is what I have noticed:

1. A lot of scam projects are creating bounty campaigns and ANN threads. Once the bounty campaign is finished, they vanish all of a sudden without paying the bounty hunters and leaving the investors in limbo.

2. The quality of the bounty managers have gone down. Junior level members are acting as bounty managers and they often don't update the spreadsheets and sometimes indulge in cheating by enrolling proxy accounts to the campaign.

3. Large number of newbs are signing up for bounty campaigns, often enrolling using purchased Facebook / Twitter accounts (esp. in Social media bounty). The quality of posts being done by the bounty campaign participants have gone down quite a lot during the last few months.

4. Even those bounties which pay end up listing at 80% or 90% discount to their original prices and in the end the honest bounty campaign participants end up with very small rewards. On the other hand, those signing up with 10-12 multiple accounts end up with sizeable rewards. And it is the latter category, which indulges in token dumping.

5. There is no incentive to hold on to the tokens, as a majority of the ICO promoters dump their tokens in the market and vanish. If you check, the vast majority of the listed ICOs are in a dormant or defunct state now.

I have a few suggestions to resolve some of the issues, before the issues go out of hand.

1. There should be a requirement that if anyone want to post an ANN in Bitcointalk, he must deposit 0.1% of the total amount (of the softcap) in an escrow account. For example, if a project is planning to raise $50,000,000 from the investors, then before creating the ANN thread the promoters must deposit $50,000 in either BTC or ETH to an escrow account held by the Bitcointalk staff. If the soft-cap is smaller, like $500,000 then the escrow amount should be 0.1% of that, i.e $500. If the promoters vanish, then this amount should be forfeited. Also, if the promoters go back on their promises once the tokens are listed, then this escrow amount should be frozen and may be (partially) released only if they achieve the objectives which they had promised earlier.

2. There should be a list of approved bounty managers and those outside this list should not be allowed to act in this role. There are a lot of trusted bounty managers here, like Yahoo62278 and Lutpin. I don't think that newbs should be given priority over them.

3. In order to participate in a bounty campaign, it should be mandatory for all the users to post their ETH address in the "Location" field in the profile. I have noticed a large number of spammers using someone else's BTT account and their own ETH address to enroll in to social media bounties. This step will put and end to the practise and will weed out the spammers.

4. All the bounty campaign participants must be carefully screened before the payout. In order to prevent token dumping, a few steps can be taken. Since the bounty reward is 1% to 3% of the total amount, the promoters themselves can purchase this portion from the exchanges. Or they can make the bounty payments in BTC/ETH. There should also be a condition that the promoters should hold on to 90% of their tokens for at least 12 months. (Because I have noticed that it is the promoters who do dumping in the vast majority of the cases, and they blame it on the bounty hunters).

5. KYC must be mandatory for ICO promoters and bounty campaign managers (unless they are on level 2 DT). If this is done, then the scammers won't be able to set up multiple fake ICOs.

I am posting this because now the real impact is becoming obvious. Experienced users are staying away from bounty campaigns and even very promising ICOs are getting listed at heavily-discounted rates. This can't go on forever.

Good ICOs need to be protected from the negativity in the market created by the fake ICOs.
Honest bounty hunters needs to be protected from the cheaters
Properly run bounty campaigns and airdrops should be appreciated and differentiated from the poorly managed ones.

I think there are chances to restore this sphere, due to the fact that it is very difficult to come up with a better way to raise money for such a high-tech production. The state will not Finance such projects.

[burky156]

I believe that the ICO's are all dead right now. I used to invest in some ICO's in the past but right now i would never invest them! When the ICO finishes and the coins go to the markets the first price would be too low for the ICO price. For example i did invest Farma Trust ICO and bought some coins from there. The ICO price was  $0.05. The ICO was successful and more than $20 millions of coins sold. But when the coins arrive to the market the price was $0.001. Today when you check the price it is $0.0022. So why would i invest in ICO's? I wait for the ICO finishes and i buy way cheaper from the market in the first days..

[hanxinvwang]

Your suggestion is very good. If you need more support, then I will be your first follower. I think the current ICO market is in urgent need of improvement because the ICO scam has caused the market to lose many investors.

[avonka]

Great views on the current market. For the solution proposal I am not sure as we should not over regulate the bounty market. I have some negative experience with Hero and Legendary managers who do not update the spreadsheet and they are running like 10 campaigns and delegating the jobs and do not taking responsibility for the cheating and non transparency in their campaigns.