It has become a common practice to launch an ethereum token and just dump it .
A new token and a new airdrop is being done every day. A new project is launched, then airdropped. A telegram group is created where all sort of big promises are made. Every one is asked to make donations or buy the coins on etherdelta to support the project and raise the price and when dev feels he just dumps all the remaining coins and vanish.
I just can't forget that evening , when I was having discussion with ethergold dev in their discord group, he made so many promises and I went ahead and bought 1 eth worth coins. Next day morning when I wake up , everything was gone. There was no website, no discord .
Now these guys have started a new thing, they ask for 0.01 or 0.001 eth donation for donation. They call it anti scam check.
Even though the B2X was called off that day, a B2X on ether was launched .
Is there a way to stop this. Can we take any legal action?
If someone takes a legal action against one of these I think it would set an example and this might stop. But I know it will not be easy as there are countries which have no or very week cyber laws. But still I want to do something about this. Lot of newbies get burned due to this. Its bringing bad name to crypto too.
ICO market has become very similar to ponzi market. 95 out of 100 ICOs are scam. They are just raising investment from the market by promising a great product but eventually runs away with the money. The legal action is not a particularly feasible solution unless you know the scammers behind it and their location. Only governments can pass a new law to control this illegal activity.
China has already banned ICO, Canada has started cracking down the ICOs that are popping up from their soil and doing shady things. We need a proper legislative framework provided by the governments to cut down such illegal activity.
Even though I don't invest in ICO, but I always try to check details about the developers before joining any bounty program. Good ICO with a proper future plan usually shares their developer details and the linked in profiles. Try to see the age of those linked in profiles and if you see that those profiles are recently created, avoid that ICO. There ate lot of ICOs who Don't bother to provide their team details, avoid them at any cost. Try to find real profile that are old in linkedin. They are less likely to scam people because their real identity is publicized.