Topic: How to combat the surge in scam ICOs (Read 2296 times)

Most likely this issue will not go away and no you will not give assurances that the ICO will make all commitments and not svalit with your money! you need to carefully disassemble the project in which you want to invest, then the probability is much higher)

there is a solution to reduce this problem

my sugestion:

create a group of DT members to inspect the

Announcements (Altcoins)

this group of DT members would have the difficult task of verifying whether there are real-life project team members and asking for the true contacts of ICO team members


having the true contact of the members of the ICO team is already possible to prevent them from stealing because we can arrest them

the best way is to both raise awareness and get a refundable collateral to be allowed to create an ICO topic here
lets say not 1 bitcoin,but 1000$ worth in coins,with 900$ refundable once ICO is complete,also have a standard mandatory warning for every ICO topic
but the most important thing is to educate people on what ICOs are and what  the risks and  rewards are for the participants
I can suggest a topic like the cloud mining 101 topic here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=878387.1880 ,stickied
in a way,it was almost the same phenomenon,most of the cloud minings were scam with several legit exceptions

yes i agree on this idea. this will greatlty stop the ico from  scamming us , because these days there are many ico's on the bounty altcoin sections are popping like a mushroom and disapper instanlty like a ninja after they fininished to scam their investors and bonty hunters here who waste their preciuos time advertising their crap coin.

"How..." bit more info:

1. "South Korean Government to Ban Domestic ICOs and Bitcoin Margin Trading"
link: https://themerkle.com/south-korean-government-to-ban-domestic-icos-and-bitcoin-margin-trading/
"The government completely prohibits ICO (Initial Coin Offering), which is a fund raising method"
link: http://news.joins.com/article/21983687

2. from China "Illegal elements often use the trading platform to obtain the so-called "virtual currency" to engage in illegal activities, there is a large legal risk, the recent large number of trading platform for support for currency issuance financing activities (ICO) has been stopped by regulators"
link: http://www.nifa.org.cn/nifa/2955704/2955770/2967733/index.html

3. from UK (FSA) "Consumer warning about the risks of Initial Coin Offerings (‘ICOs’)"
link: https://www.fca.org.uk/news/statements/initial-coin-offerings

4. from USA (SEC) "The SEC’s Office of Investor Education and Advocacy is warning investors about potential scams involving stock of companies claiming to be related to, or asserting they are engaging in, Initial Coin Offerings (or ICOs)"
link: https://www.sec.gov/oiea/investor-alerts-and-bulletins/ia_icorelatedclaims

5. from Canada (CSA) :We have received numerous inquiries from fintech businesses and their legal counsel relating to ICOs/ITOs. With the offerings
that we have reviewed to date, we have in many instances found that the coins/tokens in question constitute securities for the purposes of securities laws, including because they are investment contracts."
link: http://www.osc.gov.on.ca/documents/en/Securities-Category4/csa_20170824_cryptocurrency-offerings.pdf

6. from Singapore (CAD&MAS): "The Commercial Affairs Department (CAD) and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) have observed the emergence of initial coin (or token) offerings (ICOs), and other investment schemes involving digital tokens, in Singapore.... A consumer is exposed to heightened risk of fraud when investing in schemes that operate online or outside Singapore."
link: http://www.mas.gov.sg/News-and-Publications/Media-Releases/2017/Consumer-Advisory-on-Investment-Schemes-Involving-Digital-Tokens.aspx

7. from Australia (ASIC): "ASIC is aware of the global interest in the use of ICOs by businesses to raise funds. A number of international regulators have issued guidance on the application of their securities and financial services laws on ICOs."
link: https://www.asic.gov.au/regulatory-resources/digital-transformation/initial-coin-offerings/#what

The continuation will probably happen... enjoy
Have nice day to all "ICO Ceo"

Realistically I'd say the majority of ICO's right now are unfair or scams. There's so many I look at knowing that there is no way the people raising money could possibly give the investors any type of reasonable return for that investment. I don't see how a 1 bitcoin charge will do anything to prevent this, and it isn't really the job of a public forum to police this type of stuff, it never was done for any securities or ponzis on this forum.

Ultimately people need to be responsible for their own actions and do their own due diligence before investing. That being said a lot of this investment is just being driven by greed by people wanting to get in first to get a % token bonus, wait for most of these weak businesses to collapse. If I could bet money against 99% of the ICO's I would.

"Re: How to combat the surge in scam ICOs"?:

there is the way: http://www.newsbtc.com/2017/09/26/sec-opens-cyber-unit-govern-ico-projects-tackle-cybercrime/

"...Thanks to the launch of their new cyber unit, the SEC will police ICOs and other “illicit” blockchain-based activity"

I never thought that I would be grateful boys from SEC for something, I wish you fruitful work guys.

This is a good idea. A price for every new altcoin announcement thread. 


There are indeed some interesting projects.

Here's a metric.


Bitcoin will be less exciting without competition. They aren't really competition, they all do different things.

there is "great ICO story" on here: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/annwaste-waste-your-money-are-you-or-your-friends-stupid-enough-2191699 , you can join and make post, it will help keep topic on first page of altcoins anno.

some tweets as well: https://twitter.com/farelka9/status/908056850091986946  - important links in comments.

Successful? By what metric are you claiming success?

Of course, there is a lot of scams and people who want to get some money but among these projects, there are really interesting and successful projects. Or do not you think so?

by the regulation of them, that is just what happened on china in the last two days, i think that is the only way that scammy icos can be over. Also this is a good movement for banks to make a little fud over bitcoin.
but obviously the best strategy to avoid scammy icos is just by no investing, and do not feed the developers and founders by supporting them, without funds, they are not gonna do anything/steal from anyone.

Just ban ICOs. The huge majority are scams and hurt the bitcoin and altcoin economy, the little legitimate rest would be successful even without Bitcointalk.

Most of the ICOs I would consider a scam are these fly by night token ICOs. Sure, there have been a few ICOs that offered token payments that were legit but for the most part like Cryptodevil said these guys have a whopping 200$ at most wrapped up in an idea and have no intention of following through on promises. They are offering tokens basically because there's no risk to them this way.

A team spends 100-200$ and gets some wallets made and tokens produced. Then they launch their ICO(paying bounties with tokens) and if they don't make any money they can still pay out tokens and only lose the 200$ investment. Who cares if it gets listed or not in their opinion. If they don't make money obviously it's not gonna be listed. I get contacted by at least 5 companies a week that have this strategy going on.

As far as making ppl pay a 1btc listing fee, that wont exactly solve the problem completely as others have stated. A company can spend 1btc 100x in 6 months on 100 campaigns. As long as they make more then the 1btc fee they paid, they still profit and still spam the fuck out of the forum.

I personally do not touch the token campaigns(least not very many unless i trust the team), but there are plenty of new managers out there willing to take on any project offered.

My suggestion to go a little further than others suggestions would be to not allow bounty campaigns period. If they want to do airdrops sure, but all campaigns must pay in an asset that's listed on an exchange in order to be using this forum+the 1btc list fee.

I doubt that changes much either but i'm sure it wouldn't hurt

Given that scammers are now realising that we can routinely post warnings in their unmoderated threads, which alerts non-forum users reading it who are oblivious to the negative trust rating they wear, moderated threads are being used instead.

This means they can keep deleting our warnings and non-forum users won't see the red trust text alerting them to the scam accounts.

The best solution to this problem would be for Theymos to set Default Trust-issued ratings to be visible even when viewed by guests. I don't imagine it would be that difficult to implement, as everybody has DT as their default from the get-go and have to actually opt-out of it if they don't want to see it, so making it visible for non-members, too, makes sense, no?

The idea is inherently flawed and will not work with the current state of things here.

Because you are a newcomer who has no idea what he/she is talking about? Spend some actual time here before posting more bullshit. Thanks.

The people being real does not guarantee legitimacy. There is no way to know when we have cases of people who nobody has heard of. Occasionally scammers slip up and use images that are found somewhere online, and get exposed.

The forum and the forum.

Hmmm, is there any way to know if those behind the ICOs are legit o not? Maybe during all those numerous ICOs before, there are personalities that were involved in shady and scam ICOs, so if they will be part of new ICOs then someone can raise a red flag for that one. There is too much ICOs today and reviewing each and everyone of them is an essential part in understanding on what is their purpose,as well as if investing in the said ICO will be worth it. But the biggest issue is determining if the ICO is a fraud. Making ICO pay before the start is ok, but to whom they will pay? and who will regulate?

But you do understand that I made this impulse for the sake of the community not because of my self, I do not have nothing from it personally... And I will certainly not come up with a FULL developed concept ALONE!

And why you think things must go like you suggest? Well nvm, I see you are not a big help to this topic! Sorry again to distract you, and just let it go please...


P.s.: Making a fee for ANN is something good I can agree to it...

I thought it was doable, or was that only when others do the thinking for you?

Create a proposal alone then come to the public with it and discuss.

Your idea/suggestion is flawed and easily got shot down, which you see as hostility. That's how weak the thinking behind it is.

Ya sure I will do it alone.... Why not...  How is about making a public discussion and take other options on board... I dont know why you hostile, but ok... Sorry for distracting you trying to give an impuls!