How to spot an ICO SCAM - page 4. | Bitcointalksearch.org

shinratensei_

legendary

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Quote from: -Greed- on November 12, 2016, 03:24:27 AM

Hi guys, I want to share with you my simple methodology (beta) of spotting ICO scams.

The methodology

There are criteria with various risk points. Summarize all the points of the criteria that the ICO meets to get total score. Total score represents a risk grade on which you can lean to take a risk or not.

Scam points and criteria:
1 point: minor suspicions (for each)
3 points: anon devs; no code snippets, videos, or beta; rushing
5 points: unrealistic goals; fuzzy whitepaper; self-mod topic
10 points: bought account; no escrow

Risk and total score:
low (0-5)
medium (6-10)
high (11-15)
very high (16-20)
extremely high (21 and more)

Example

Let's imagine there's an ongoing ICO of Supercoinxxx in which you want to invest some money.

The topic is self-mod (5 points) with devs that have unrealistic goals (5 points) like creating a decentralized stock market in 2-3 month and a fuzzy whitepaper (5 points) with no technical details. Also you found two minor suspicions (2 points) based on your experience. Which gives 17 points in total. Based on that score you conclude that risk is very high and skipping this ICO.

Updated: added "no escrow" criteria.

Greed i have the two example for you and hoping if you can reviewing those ico project because in my mind it's familiar with bought account or farmed account in some threads on meta sections.

I guess there are two are running by bought account in my mind.

aioc

hero member

Activity: 2926

Merit: 567

These are good guide,people are now learning,they want roadmap,projects and return of their investment ,you can easily spot a pump and dump coin because it's obvious by the way they hurry setting up their ico with nothing to show.

digaran

copper member

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Merit: 899

🖤😏

I think escrow would do the trick don't you think? after all what good is escrow for if can't prevent scam or money loss?
Also the seriousness of dev team, yes team and not just one person.

collin_thompson

newbie

Activity: 6

Merit: 0

Quote from: -Greed- on November 12, 2016, 07:17:24 AM

Quote from: megadouble on November 12, 2016, 04:35:55 AM

There are several issues with this way of assessing an ICO.

Firstly, the idea of 'self-mod topic' scoring on your list 5 points doesn't make any sense. As you are all aware, this forum is full of idiots, trolls and otherwise people with nothing sensible to say just clogging up the threads looking to increase their post count. So, some level of editorial control should not be a measure of anything. You should rather look at the nature of the posts getting deleted. If the mod deletes proper questions and critical posts that have some substance then you might draw your own conclusions. If the posts being deleted are just mindless drivel, then all the better for the thread.

Have a look at the GitHub and the code and see if it's just a basic clone or something a bit more planned and thought out.

Firstly, it absolutely does for ICO topics but ann topics. According to my experience most of scams were self-mod. Secondly, it is supposed to be used for the first glance when you either want to get a quick review or have no time for a deep research (like finding nature of removed posts).

Quote from: megadouble on November 12, 2016, 04:35:55 AM

Also, there are clear issues with posting your true identity online. It could be for tax reasons and for privacy so this is not a measure of an dodgy ICO. Do you research in what is being offered, it makes no difference if the dev is called Yolobeast of John Smith.

Well, this is disputed I guess. Legit projects tend to have a team with real members that also had experience in other start-ups. Unlike them scams can't have a team which members have linkedin, github, and other profiles.

I think you got it more accurately on the last point. Real people, they have a recognized network eg people or relationships, visibility in forums/social networks where you can see thier worldview/thought process, and it can be peer reviewed. This essentially falls under "team" in the sense that although we all love anonymity/pseudonymity, when it comes down to investing money. it human to know who you're dealing with and who is leading the ship and if you find them credible. some things will never change.

spacehopper

member

Activity: 121

Merit: 10

One distribution method repeated often in ICO scams is for the dev to do a signature campaign with scam ICO coins as promised payment. That gets him free publicity and the rest of the ICO coins are sold in two batches, one with escrow, and the other without escrow. What the dev wants is bitcoins from those who buy without escrow. At the end of the ICO he disappears with those bitcoins, the signature campaigners don't get paid, and the buyers who used escrow get their bitcoins back but lose the escrow fee they had to pay.

I rate the half with escrow, half without escrow model as equally likely to be as scam as the no escrow model.

pereira4

legendary

Activity: 1610

Merit: 1183

Self moderating threads is a double edged sword indeed. You may think it's a good idea to keep trolls away, but other people might thing what you are doing is shutting down the opposition which may be calling you out on your ICO bullshit. It is very difficult to maintain a balance... how do you control the trolls without a self moderated thread, and how do you keep people happy if the thread is self moderated? (because they may think it's on purpose to shut down legitimate critics)

Robertqueen2

hero member

Activity: 826

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This threads is very useful for the people who want to invest and don't know which ICO to choose. for the guy who said ICONOMI is a scam, ICONOMI is a great project and will never be a scam, you can't say that just because the price is low, and the investment fund still in the wallets, you can check that.

-Greed-

hero member

Activity: 910

Merit: 1000

Decentralized Jihad

Quote from: equator on November 12, 2016, 07:27:36 AM

Even then if a coin goes for escrow they can scam and you can see latest in ICONOMI ICO it went highest and after that now the Developers are enjoying the ICO money giving all shit ideas and peoples are still believing them.

Of course it's more complicated. Like escrow releasing 100% funds towards devs on token distribution is bad escrow. Good release conditions is when parts of funds get released on development progress: 20% on tokens distribution, 50% on beta release, etc.

Iconomi is not a scam in anyway. You will see that soon.

equator

legendary

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Quote from: -Greed- on November 12, 2016, 03:24:27 AM

Hi guys, I want to share with you my simple methodology (beta) of spotting ICO scams.

The methodology

There are criteria with various risk points. Summarize all the points of the criteria that the ICO meets to get total score. Total score represents a risk grade on which you can lean to take a risk or not.

Scam points and criteria:
1 point: minor suspicions (for each)
3 points: anon devs; no code snippets, videos, or beta; rushing
5 points: unrealistic goals; fuzzy whitepaper; self-mod topic
10 points: bought account; no escrow

Risk and total score:
low (0-5)
medium (6-10)
high (11-15)
very high (16-20)
extremely high (21 and more)

Example

Let's imagine there's an ongoing ICO of Supercoinxxx in which you want to invest some money.

The topic is self-mod (5 points) with devs that have unrealistic goals (5 points) like creating a decentralized stock market in 2-3 month and a fuzzy whitepaper (5 points) with no technical details. Also you found two minor suspicions (2 points) based on your experience. Which gives 17 points in total. Based on that score you conclude that risk is very high and skipping this ICO.

Updated: added "no escrow" criteria.

Even then if a coin goes for escrow they can scam and you can see latest in ICONOMI ICO it went highest and after that now the Developers are enjoying the ICO money giving all shit ideas and peoples are still believing them.

-Greed-

hero member

Activity: 910

Merit: 1000

Decentralized Jihad

Quote from: megadouble on November 12, 2016, 04:35:55 AM

There are several issues with this way of assessing an ICO.

Firstly, the idea of 'self-mod topic' scoring on your list 5 points doesn't make any sense. As you are all aware, this forum is full of idiots, trolls and otherwise people with nothing sensible to say just clogging up the threads looking to increase their post count. So, some level of editorial control should not be a measure of anything. You should rather look at the nature of the posts getting deleted. If the mod deletes proper questions and critical posts that have some substance then you might draw your own conclusions. If the posts being deleted are just mindless drivel, then all the better for the thread.

Have a look at the GitHub and the code and see if it's just a basic clone or something a bit more planned and thought out.

Firstly, it absolutely does for ICO topics but ann topics. According to my experience most of scams were self-mod. Secondly, it is supposed to be used for the first glance when you either want to get a quick review or have no time for a deep research (like finding nature of removed posts).

Quote from: megadouble on November 12, 2016, 04:35:55 AM

Also, there are clear issues with posting your true identity online. It could be for tax reasons and for privacy so this is not a measure of an dodgy ICO. Do you research in what is being offered, it makes no difference if the dev is called Yolobeast of John Smith.

Well, this is disputed I guess. Legit projects tend to have a team with real members that also had experience in other start-ups. Unlike them scams can't have a team which members have linkedin, github, and other profiles.

megadouble

jr. member

Activity: 51

Merit: 10

There are several issues with this way of assessing an ICO.

Firstly, the idea of 'self-mod topic' scoring on your list 5 points doesn't make any sense. As you are all aware, this forum is full of idiots, trolls and otherwise people with nothing sensible to say just clogging up the threads looking to increase their post count. So, some level of editorial control should not be a measure of anything. You should rather look at the nature of the posts getting deleted. If the mod deletes proper questions and critical posts that have some substance then you might draw your own conclusions. If the posts being deleted are just mindless drivel, then all the better for the thread.

Have a look at the GitHub and the code and see if it's just a basic clone or something a bit more planned and thought out.

Also, there are clear issues with posting your true identity online. It could be for tax reasons and for privacy so this is not a measure of an dodgy ICO. Do you research in what is being offered, it makes no difference if the dev is called Yolobeast of John Smith.

-Greed-

hero member

Activity: 910

Merit: 1000

Decentralized Jihad

Hi guys, I want to share with you my simple methodology (beta) of spotting ICO scams.

The methodology

There are criteria with various risk points. Summarize all the points of the criteria that the ICO meets to get total score. Total score represents a risk grade on which you can lean to take a risk or not.

Scam points and criteria:
1 point: minor suspicions (for each)
3 points: anon devs; no code snippets, videos, or beta; rushing
5 points: unrealistic goals; fuzzy whitepaper; self-mod topic
10 points: bought account; no escrow

Risk and total score:
low (0-5)
medium (6-10)
high (11-15)
very high (16-20)
extremely high (21 and more)

Example

Let's imagine there's an ongoing ICO of Supercoinxxx in which you want to invest some money.

The topic is self-mod (5 points) with devs that have unrealistic goals (5 points) like creating a decentralized stock market in 2-3 month and a fuzzy whitepaper (5 points) with no technical details. Also you found two minor suspicions (2 points) based on your experience. Which gives 17 points in total. Based on that score you conclude that risk is very high and skipping this ICO.

Updated: added "no escrow" criteria.

Topic: How to spot an ICO SCAM - page 4. (Read 9097 times)