Many crypto currencies are offering ICO phase nowadays and make huge amounts of Bitcoin.
The problems I have with ICOs:
- People on bitcointalk.org could easily buy LinkedIn accounts and identify themselves as people who are professionals and crypto or IT experts.
- Some of the project don't even show up a single line of code and already start the ICO phase, they could run away with the bitcoins at any moment.
- Many of them use self-moderated threads on bitcointalk, and they delete comments with people asking questions they do not want to be asked.
- They give "early bonuses" of 20-25% to early investors of the project, to milk early money.
- Some of them don't even keep a share of their own coin, so they have no interest of the project succeeding.
- They buy trusted bitcointalk accounts and start their threads with them, this way less people are suspicious.
I really do not think people should invest big amounts of money in something that doesn't even exist yet, surely something that is shady and suspicious. there are projects who made 1000 BTC in their ICO phase, this is 650,000$, that they could run away with.
Someone could make a good-looking thread with pictures, explain his wonderful crypto technologies with shiny photoshoped images, open an ICO website to raise money, make 50-1000 BTC in a month or so and then run away.
How much do you think a trusted LinkedIn account is worth? not that much, I'll tell you that. let's assume 1 BTC.
How much is a trusted bitcointalk.org account to post the thread with? 0.5 BTC?
How much would it cost to make the alleged pictures of the project's wallet, features, etc? very little with a good photoshop artist, let's say 0.5 BTC..
How about an ICO website? a little php code, a VPS and a domain? 0.1 BTC
Together it's just 2.1 BTC, yeah, I might be using the wrong amounts than what it costs in reality but I'm just assuming. those 2.1 BTC could make you 50+, easily. many even 1000 BTC if you're a scam genius.
An example for a suspicious ICO project: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1558596.0
Have you guys invested in a coin during its ICO phase? did you make investment back? did you make profit?
I'd love to hear you opinions.
-SoapSadu