All social media was taken down for the Confido ICO, after the devs of the coin presumably dumped their holdings. At this time, the website, facebook, subreddit, and telegram have been taken down. The dev's Linkedin accounts have also been taken down. The scam appeared to have netted them anywhere between $300,000 to $400,000, and has left many holding the bag, unable to sell.
This scam is an unfortunate reminder of the dire state of ICO's. Anyone, it seems, can make a fancy website with a nice logo, and people will buy into it. So how do you make sure that the ICO you invest into is not a scam? Here's a few tips on how to make sure you don't get left holding the bag:
Do your own research. Do not rely on third parties to do research for you. Read the white paper, look up the team member's names on Linkedin to see if they are who they say they are. Make sure you have a solid grasp of the technology. If they have any tech to demo, try it out. If they say they are backed by a major bank or company, find sources for that. But most importantly, rely on yourself.
Watch out for ICO's looking for low hard caps. Confido had a hard cap of just $300,000, which is often indicative that these guys just want to make bank and run. Usually, ICO's require a large team of devs and advertisers, which means they need to be paid a salary and rent office space. This requires a lot more than just $300,000.
3.Watch out for shills. Hiring a social media farm is cheap and effective. Over the course of a few days they can seemingly change public opinion by posting shill threads about their coin all over biz, reddit, and other forums. Don't fall for buzzwords.
If you got burned by Confido, don't worry. There's still plenty of opportunities to make your money back in other coins. However, this was clearly a well executed scam, and the scammers should certainly be brought up on charges. Leave a comment below on how you feel about this situation.
Sources:
Reddit.com/r/confido
confido.io
