It has been said many times that ICO investment is high-risk. As an investor, we merely rely on the word of the project team that they will deliver what is written on the whitepaper. We send in our contributions, receive an equivalent project token in exchange, and carry on with the optimism that these tokens will rise in value. I have enjoyed some good gains from this myself.
However, like anything and everything, ICO also has two sides- the all sun-shiny wins and the gloomy losses. Today we have a peek at the later.
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The Not-So-Awesome Side of the ICO World
Sad as it may be, fact is there are people out there who would jump at any opportunity to scam people out of their crypto. Let me tell you of three instances that ICO investors can learn from.
1). The Vanishing Prodeum Project
Prodeum, a start-up company that was set to bring fruits and vegetables to the blockchain, has launched an ico with the goal of raising 5400 Ethereum, which is over $6M in current prices.
February 28, Sunday, prodeum.io site only had one word on the screen, and it wasn't an encouraging word for investors. Although some reports say they only were able to receive $11 contribution, it is a nice reminder to always DYOR ( Do Your Own Research) thoroughly when choosing ICO's to invest on.
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2). The Changing APEX Contribution Address
APEX is set to build an ecosystem that will decentralize the way Brand to Consumer interactions take place across the entire consumer lifecycle. The ICO took place January 29th and is one of the most anticipated ones this quarter with its telegram channel having over 18,000 members. It is built over the NEO platform and thus accepted only NEO tokens during the crowdsale. Prior to the ICO start, investors were instructed to login to their accounts in the apex site and send tokens only to the address that will be shown there.
I luckily have logged in to their site a few minutes prior the official crowdsale start. I would normally set-up the needful minutes before tokensale start, so I'd only need to click the "send" button once it starts. I had the NEO address AG4R1KnEi37XEonsH1mY77UGJyANVm1fKs to send to.
Others weren't so lucky. APEX site was hacked and the address was changed to
ALBH8s24bBAyuaNTKyjiuGB1vbgK95BCgT. Some investors sent in their funds in the hacker address.
APEX did good by honoring the NEO sent to the hacker address though and investors who sent their contribution to the wrong address still received their APEX tokens.
Image from APEX telegram chanel
3). The Many Different "Official" Smart Contract Address on Every ICO
It has been a trend to have a telegram channel for ICO projects where the team would send in the announcements, and would answer potential investor's queries. The great things about this is that there is the easy access to someone from the project team. Another is seeing the community perception on the project, the enthusiasm or the lack of it. For popular ICO's, it would usually get crazy-busy during the crowdsale period.
Scammers take advantage of this situation by posting their wallet address on the official channel, by creating a fake channel of their own, or by impersonating admin teams and sending direct messages to people informing them of the "official" contribution address.
A fellow ICO investor unfortunately copied the wrong address on an ICO telegram channel and sent his funds to a scammer in error. (Worry not, he was able to recover his funds via trading of other coins.)
There are many more reasons to not get the expected returns in your ICO investment. The realization I had during the APEX crowdsale is, "If you can't brush off being scammed, then you're not built for the high-risk ICO world. Cliche as it sounds, really invest only what you can afford to lose."
The high returns really does come with high risks.
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I buy when the coin/token goes live and the whales do their dump instead. It served me well so far, despite some misses.
BTW, have nominated you (just in case you want to take on the challenge^^): https://steemit.com/sevendaybnwchallenge/@dean101/seven-day-black-and-white-challenge-day-1-the-gathering
Oh yeah, if i miss an ico thats what I do also. Still prefers to be able to join the ico though.
Re: black and white challenge, photography? I'm not too good with it but I'll check it out thanks ^_^
Good article, any tips on how to avoid investing in a shady ICO?
I say the team behind is the most important factor. Invest only on trusted teams, and here is where thorough research comes at play ^_^
See? Friends with benefit sa ICOs🤣🤣🤣
Make sure the team is real first of all. Try to put names with faces by looking them up and doing some diligence. Make sure the ICO has a twitter or social media and are updating on a weekly basis. A good project will be transparent with its investors. Hope this helps. Uplike and follow me I tend to put out similar content. Be safe and God bless y'all
It's very informative. Thanks for this :)
Welcome Pam! Namimiss na kita.
Hahahahahaha separation anxiety lang 😂😂
Hindi po tayo mag pang abot sa discord hehe
Imissyoutoo mam dyosa!
A lot of these new trending ICOs are ruining the crypto community image. For example this new one called VICE, its suppose to pay people in crypto to watch porn... The industry is big and has a net worth of 97 billion but I don't think this will work out. Its basically a huge legal crowdfunding scam.
Yeah some are, some are really good projects too. Investors should just be mindful where they put their money to.
Nice kabayan ! good thing i found you're post . dami talaga ako narinig about sa APEX . The prodeum ICO is really nasty. I heard about it and i saw na parang may mali talaga sa site and kulang ng mga details. it is really helpul talaga to do some extensive research because in the end . it is still your money :) It's nice to see some kabayans also here ;) Keep it up ! i'm still in the process of adopting the environment of steemit :)
Oh welcome to steemit! How is the journey so far? Feel free to join us on steemit philippines discord to get connected with other ph steemians!
Nag ico ka rin?
kakajoin ko lang maam , and i cat register about yung 0.001 SBD ? kasi wala po ako as of now , medyo self taught through youtube kaya di ko pa masyado alam ano itong steem power and everything , @cordeta rin po yung name ko sa Discord
oh, pasilip silip ako da discord di pa yata kita ntyempuhan. i'll send you 0.005 sbd. register ka na rin sa PAL search for minnowsupport project I think dalawang 0.001 sbd din yun. goodluck goodluck!
maam no po yung PAL ? sorry i'll try to be progressive talaga dito . i just need to learn the environment first before start posting :)
I've sent the sbd. PAL stands for Peace, Abundance and Liberty. Search for articles here on how to join Minnow Support Project. Btter yata if google search mas madali. may discord din ang PAL.
Mem..ako need din sbd..pang-join yan??
sige maam thank you God Bless
Good idea joining the minnow support project!
How would you recommenced to vet the team. Look them on a linkedin or send them an email to see their ideas? how would you go about it.
Linkedin works, yes. Search for their past work and past projects also and the results of these. Advisory team as well can help in filtering which projects to support.
Other than the team, project github and progress is a good indicator also of how seriously the team is working on the project.
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You got a 12.98% upvote from @postpromoter courtesy of @dreamiely!
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