Good morning, so I am unable to upload any videos to DTube (it keeps crashing), so I am delivering this message in a blog post. I want to talk about three things everyone needs to check before they invest in any ICO. Now I want to start with these are not the ONLY three things you need to check before investing, be sure to do thorough research on every ICO and don't buy just because of the HYPE! These three items are just a starting point and should help you avoid buying into anything that could be a scam or even worse...
1.) Token Count
EVERY ICO should readily have available how many tokens they will be producing for their company or product, if you are unable to find this information you should immediately walk away...Now some people may disagree with my opinion, but I generally believe it is best to avoid any ICO that will be producing more than 100 million tokens. I will also add that I am someone looking for a relatively quick turn around on my investment (~3 months), so if you are a long term HODL type of person then you most likely will have a different strategy. The reason I look for 100 million or less is relatively simple, the basic economics of supply vs. demand. If an ICO produces a large amount of tokens, unless the demand for these tokens is extremely high, the price of the tokens will be very low. An ICO with a very high token count will start with a higher market cap and will have less room for growth in the short term, part of the reason for bitcoin's high price is the high demand for the coin with a limited supply.
2.) Is there an actual product or just promises?
I consider this part to be the most important, mostly because I feel that this is the area where most people get burned. Are you investing in an ICO that actually has a working product or are they just promising they will use your money to build the greatest technology the world has ever seen? If you are familiar with the disastrous Tezos ICO then you will know that they are currently being sued because people have invested and haven't received anything in return. PLEASE do your research and make sure that you are investing in something that actually exist, if it sounds too good to be true then it most likely is. Also just because an ICO has raised a large amount of money does not mean that it is a good investment, a vast majority of industry experts believe that over 99% of these ICOs will fail, make sure that you invest in the 1% that will succeed.
3.) Do your proper research on the team
Last, but not least, be sure to do some decent research on the team behind the ICO. The team behind the ICO should be extremely easy to locate on the ICO's homepage with their full name and their position in the company. It is very common for each team member to provide a link to their LinkedIn account so that you can also get a feel for their work experience. If you are unable to locate information on the team behind the ICO that is a VERY big red flag and you should NOT invest! It could be a scam with the perpetrators trying to hide their identity, the team behind an ICO should be very proud and willing to share their information with potential investors. The right team can make the difference between an ICO that is successful and one that fails, do your research!
I hope this is helpful for the newbies out there, if you have any questions be sure to leave a comment and upvote! Thanks!