The DeFi Red Flags

[Jaered]

ICO is stone dead(RIP) and IEOs are on its death throes. Now its Decentralized Finance season and everyone and his pet cat are launching projects, and slapping DeFi on it. I would be attempting to point out the points to look out for in scammy DeFi projects.

1. Fake/Non-existent team
It is an increasingly common trend for scammers to invent fake founders and biographies for their projects, and stick it o their websites. Some don't bother at all. Having said this, some legit DeFi projects have anonymous team members. This point shouldn't be a deal breaker though.

2. No or almost no social media presence: These projects can go days or weeks without any posts or tweets. That's simply because there is absolutely nothing to report. They are simply waiting to snap up your cash

3. Poor Grammar
One of the hallmarks of a scammy project is a hastily concocted whitepaper. Even with the Google Translate, the website, whitepaper and blogs are bloated with poor or elementary English.

4. Poor and/or plagiarised whitepaper
This one is a no-brainer. From copied whitepaper content, blog news these guys copy content from successful projects and gleefully slam it on their whitepaper. Many times they are successful with this ruse.

5. Audits
I have made it a point of duty to always check if any DeFi project I associate with has an audit with a reputable and well-known firm. Audits simply mean if there actually is a real project and whether such tokens exist.

Final Thoughts
Never take my word as gospel. Some DeFi can still exit scam or rug pull even after fulfilling these conditions. Remember: ALWAYS DYOR

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[ryzaadit]

And another one "Meme Token"

There a lot Meme Token DeFi offering a thousand APY to all user, and you want know the weird things? everyone trade that token without fear the token going to be zero on the market.

[Jaered]

And another one "Meme Token"

There a lot Meme Token DeFi offering a thousand APY to all user, and you want know the weird things? everyone trade that token without fear the token going to be zero on the market.

What actually are those Meme Tokens

[aysha9853]

Lots of defi tokens are listed on uniswap, when the list price immediately went up drastically but after a day after a few hours it started to drop dramatically, and lots of new Defi projects that copied other projects, I think sooner or later defi will be like an ICO

[nicecrypto]

What about the Emporium project! this is a clear example of a real scam project, what i think they did was to create  enough hype for the project so that people will trust and invest on it then they stop being active on the telegram group, they are only keeping their social media active to dump the last batch of the tokens before they zoom off
Defi's are bad news....

[Sterbens]

therefore, I personally feel that more and more tokens are slapping DeFi on it popping up as if it's a sticky material that many people have come to believe in these weird tokens.

I myself am not at all interested in investing in the token you mention in the thread.

I hope it will end in some time.

[Mulann2]

There are red flags in all other investment trend, ico, ieo sto and now defi, but i have seen some defi that have give good returns to the investors, the defi project that should be avoided or watch very closely are those ones without any team or have anonymous team, i don't understand the reason why they like to stay anonymous to begin with, probably they have something to hide.

[ryzaadit]

What actually are those Meme Tokens

Meme tokens is a project created for fun there is no use case at all, vision, and progress about the project itself. But, because DeFi meme token coming again on our community with insane interest APY.

You can search Defi Meme Token on Google, I believe there already so many lists about these, and most of them exit scam

[thesmallgod]

People take advantage of you the first series of DeFi project to also decide to launch similar projects and we keep on seen numerous similar project. The most annoying thing is that most of them do not even have a properly developed platform. They all relying on integrating component such as yield farming, staking etc thereby causing unnecessary increase in gas fee on the ethereum blockchain. The issue of anonymous team has been existing for awhile now. It is very common to most of this scam projects. Some of them also make use of stock images which might be very difficult to search for the person in question on the web. Some of them are already moving to the BSC blockchain for faster and lower fee but many of them are already dead while some of them remain inactive

[plvbob0070]

It is strictly necessary for an investor to execute a research of the listed red flags by the mere fact that it involves money and everything associated with it comprises a high-risk. Especially in these times, where defrauders are fabricating unusual ways to deceit the investors. A Defi project that contains one or any of those red flags should be avoided, especially with the information about the team and white paper simply because such information is relevant for an investor to make an effective investment decision.

[tvplus006]

Everyone who uses Uniswap should remember that any tokens, including scams, can be placed on a decentralized exchange. Therefore, anyone who decides to buy tokens should conduct their own research before buying. Be sure to check the smart contract to avoid buying a fake token.

[Lrshohag]

Lots of defi tokens are listed on uniswap, when the list price immediately went up drastically but after a day after a few hours it started to drop dramatically, and lots of new Defi projects that copied other projects, I think sooner or later defi will be like an ICO

I think uniswap is the best platform for scammer.
It is very simple to list a token on uniswap. Just create a liquidity pool and contract. And it is listed.
First time scammer pump the price,  when investor come and invest then they dump tbe price continiously.

[gwdf1]

DeFi is designed so that technicians can create "cloned tokens", which means that investors may not understand what asset they are investing in. It should be noted that technical difficulties may arise during transactions. As well as an impressive increase in the transaction fee, which is to pay for gas.

[pedrillo0]

DeFi has its days numbered, but IEO has a little more to life.
Since it is valued even by major exchanges such as binance!
But what will happen when IEO stops being part of exchanges like binance?
It's very sad but scammers are winning...

[InwardContour]

Three things that give me confidence to invest in a DEFI project include : well recognised team / reliable team with good project backings, good product or at least MVP, and regular updates. If these factors are absent, I look far away from the project. For projects that list on uniswap, I do check their uniswapinfo or dextools to ensure there is high liquidity, especially when locked for at least a year.

[crzy]

DeFi has its days numbered, but IEO has a little more to life.
Since it is valued even by major exchanges such as binance!
But what will happen when IEO stops being part of exchanges like binance?
It's very sad but scammers are winning...

Scammers wont stop simply because they make money in this market and of course, we are still vulnerable. Every project has its own weaknesses, we have to see those before we invest to confirm its legitimacy. If you do invest without proper research then you can be a victim of scam project so don’t over confident when you invest, not all DeFi are worth investing for.

[zasad@]

Audit means nothing.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5267124
If you look at the history of hacks, you will find projects there that have been audited.
I would not confuse scam and developer errors in smart contracts.
If you want to invest in DeFe projects, then see where Andreessen Horowitz invests
https://a16z.com/portfolio/
and other investors.

[judeafante]

4. Poor and/or plagiarised whitepaper
This one is a no-brainer. From copied whitepaper content, blog news these guys copy content from successful projects and gleefully slam it on their whitepaper. Many times they are successful with this ruse.

5. Audits
I have made it a point of duty to always check if any DeFi project I associate with has an audit with a reputable and well-known firm. Audits simply mean if there actually is a real project and whether such tokens exist.

Final Thoughts
Never take my word as gospel. Some DeFi can still exit scam or rug pull even after fulfilling these conditions. Remember: ALWAYS DYOR

Number 4 and number 5 is very important I have seen a lot of DeFi projects reported because of these two things Poor and/or plagiarised whitepaper and  Audits, getting audited is very important because this is a smart contract-based project, it should be checked if there are loopholes on the project and the smart contract will be used as intended to be.

[TimeTeller]

DeFi has its days numbered, but IEO has a little more to life.
Since it is valued even by major exchanges such as binance!
But what will happen when IEO stops being part of exchanges like binance?
It's very sad but scammers are winning...

Scammers wont stop simply because they make money in this market and of course, we are still vulnerable. Every project has its own weaknesses, we have to see those before we invest to confirm its legitimacy. If you do invest without proper research then you can be a victim of scam project so don’t over confident when you invest, not all DeFi are worth investing for.

But sometimes even if we do our part, we can still be deceived by these projects.
One section here that we can initially check potential scam projects is to look under Scam Accusations board.
If you will observe, a lot of DeFi projects are guilty with various issues and allegations.
Not only DeFis but all crypto projects in general. And since the hype now is in DeFi, scammers are using this as breeding ground for now.

[btcltcdigger]

Good points, and definately something everyone should keep in mind.
Nowadays 9 out of 10 defi projects is either a scam, a rugpull or a money grab. Stay safe