The world of “crypto” has become closer than ever to mainstream over the past months. Nowadays even local papers publish Q&As on cryptocurrencies and blockchain and most people in the world know what bitcoin is. The blockchain community is growing dramatically and as every society, it has people who stand out in the crowd. For ICObench, its experts are such “stars” and their contribution cannot be overemphasized. They bring life and dynamism to both our community and rating system, leaving numerous reviews and ratings every day and showing the human face of ICObench.

The experts evaluate ICOs fully voluntarily and are not paid for their ratings. Most of them have their own system of rating, but we suggest that they also use the guidelines provided by ICObench. It is very important for an expert to demonstrate good knowledge of ICOs, blockchain community and business, so these are the main factors we look at when accepting a person as an expert on ICObench.

It is essential for experts to be just and consistent while rating projects. We have high standards and we expect them to make a profound analysis of an ICO and rate it in accordance with their knowledge of the market and our guidelines. In exchange, the expert gets praise and respect of the blockchain community ICObench is building. On the other hand, it is unacceptable for an expert to take money for canceling or changing a rating as well as giving a project a bad rate out of revenge. Such behavior would be considered a violation and lead to a ban.

We asked our top experts to answer few questions and clarify the situation in the crypto experts community:

Do people contact you to evaluate their project?

Luca Cotta Yes, they have many times, I want them to contact me as well because it could be that I have missed some information. I have my own protocol: I tell them to read my article and then I ask what they think about it. After this, I ask them to provide information on their platform, if such exists, and compare their responses to see if there are inconsistencies. If I think they exist, I ask for more information and reevaluate my rate (for better or worse).

Nikolay Zvezdin Yes, quite often. Especially about changing the evaluation of their project.

Jason Hung People, who contact me to evaluate or advise, are serious, but some of them don’t even know how to promote their product, so they just wait and dream that money would fall into their wallet. Some of their project preparation is not ready (no marketing program, poor quality WP, the logo isn’t good, weak team portfolio, no financial model…). But when I point at it in my comments to the project owners, some of them don’t think so. In such cases, I just let it go and fail!

What are the first red flags those catch your attention in an ICO profile?

Luca Cotta For me it is a red flag if the pre-ICO price has discount or bonus of more than 35%. Another red flag is if there are many ‘big names’ advisors in the team profile. Most of them are there just to show off. I also want to know if there are an existing platform and project history on GitHub. I check if the team members tell about the project in their LinkedIn profiles. If they don’t, it’s a big warning for me. If there are scam accusations on the project thread on Bitcointalk it is also a red flag. The biggest “no” for me is any pressure from the project CEO or COO, trying to change my rating or review.

Nikolay Zvezdin The first red flags for me are: no need for tokens in the proposed business; no legal and compliance terms, and the project didn’t propose potential compliance issues resolutions; no product; no relevant real-life business experience.

Jason Hung Poor quality logo, bad team profile and no clear summary or abstract of the project. If I see all this in the ICO profile, I just reject to review it in details, as to me it means that the project team didn’t take the preparation seriously.

What in your opinion are the key qualities for an expert in crypto? What do you think should be considered unacceptable for an expert?

Luca Cotta Experts should know a lot about the world of ‘crypto’. They also should have deep knowledge of ICOs. They must provide good reviews for the investors and eliminate scam when they see it.

Nikolay Zvezdin Key qualities in my opinion are:

Ability to evaluate crypto project not as a part of isolated ICO-world, but as a part of global real-life business with real customers who have no idea about blockchain most of the times and don’t care about tokens, real corporate competitors with significant resources (human and capital), and with investors with decades of experience who can easily find ways to invest in crypto if they need, so if they don’t, why so?

Ability to think long-term and understand: will regulators allow such project/model to continue running after 5–10–100 years? Will the project be able to realize the promised terms? — maybe they have a good idea, and product, but their marketing team will fail. Will the corporations implement the same solution one day and erase all competitive advantages of the project? How is the project going to operate with the raised BTC/ETH/LTC/whatever-crypto? — they have real people and real expenses and are most likely to be unable to change a large amount of crypto-to-fiat without facing tax and compliance issues.

Capability to properly evaluate the real value added of the project, as well as its true innovation and creativity as important aspects to judge because there are so many replicas of the same idea in different forms

Understanding of how the establishing ICO-market is working, as some “good” projects are a pure product of professional Whitepaper-writing agencies.

Ability to think as an investor: “If you would have only $1, would you invest in this project, knowing there are deposits/ bonds/stocks / ETFs / etc. in the market, and having real-life expenses for your family?”

Only three things are unacceptable for an expert, in my opinion:

Thinking that ICO hype has no real-world connection and cannot be affected by anything by staying in the grey legal area.

Evaluating project on a basis of thinking “if this project is using blockchain/tokens it already has a competitive advantage”.

Thinking that “this time will be different”. We are the same people as 100–1000 years ago with the same basic needs (see Maslow’s hierarchy of needs) with advanced technology. But people are same, needs — same, psychology — same, biases — same, market bubbles are also the same.

Jason Hung An expert is a person in a specific domain, continuing the passionate asking, learning, and practice, and willing to share his knowledge. People who have excessive preconceptions and prejudices should be considered unacceptable to be experts.

What are your recommendations to people who would like to improve expertise in crypto?

Luca Cotta You must be smart and, before you rate, it is essential to check the team, advisors, pre-ICO / ICO price, marketing, platform and the project CEO.

Nikolay Zvezdin Get to know a real business and how it works, before trying to become an expert in crypto, as it’s only a part of real-world, which doesn’t work in isolation. See the big picture in connection with the project-specific details. Read news, but ignore most of them as they are part of PR campaigns, while paying close attention to the ones that really matter. Try to foresee long-term changes that might happen beyond the 1–5–10 years horizon. Estimate the potential of the project/idea to grow over time, not get stuck in the crypto/blockchain world, and increase its capacity, as other global variables evolve. Any ICO/crypto/blockchain-project is a combination of: legal, financial, marketing, product development, IT, management parts. You cannot be expert of everything, so develop expertise in only a few of those to make sense when you talk about that particular area of a project.

Jason Hung Keep reading news and white papers every day, at least join one crypto project for real practice.

We highly appreciate all of our experts and consider them an integral part of ICObench community. There are both good and bad sides of being just: people would praise you for a good rating, but other people would leave numerous emails with threats, bribery attempts and just questions “why”. Stay strong and stay ethical, only this way you can become top expert of ICObench.