Kudos to Reddit user ICOETHICS and Bitcointalk forum Hero Member, Slow death, and others for exposing the fact that the ICO rating site ICOholder (ICOholder.com) is willingly promoting a scam ICO (Initial Coin Offering), Tkeycoin (TCD). We commend and support this effort to help clean up the crypto space. Self-regulation is key to the crypto space not being subjected to totalitarianism. It is important that the crypto community identify and dissociate from the ‘bad apples’ in our midst. We looked into this and were also shocked to learn that ICOmarks (ICOmarks.com) - an outfit that claims to “research” new ICOs - also falls horribly short of the mark. We discuss this and more in this blog post.

ICOholder warns about scam ICO at first, makes u-turn

Tkeycoin (TCD) was caught using fake images or stock photos for their team. Despite this, ICOholder claimed to have no problem verifying the identity of all the team members, fake images and all. After others in the community pointed out the fake images, they were all removed from Tkeycoin’s site. ICOHolder then updated their website to warn that Tkeycoin may be a scam. However, as Slow death rightfully pointed out, “It May be a scam? they have FAKE TEAM, It is clear that it is a scam project” (Tkeycoin - FAKE TEAM - SCAM, Slow death, October 03, 2018, 08:27:07 AM).



The unimaginable then happened. ICOholder removed the scam warning about Tkeycoin and featured the listing on the front page of their website with a 3.85 rating as reported at r/Scams. At the time of writing the listing was no longer featured on the front page, but it was still active at the ICOholder website.

Tkeycoin review by ICOmarks

Even more shockingly, the Tkeycoin listing at ICOholder now reflects that ICOmarks has given it a rating of 8.8 (see below). This can be confirmed by heading over to ICOmarks (see below). They did in fact give Tkeycoin a rating of 8.8 out of 10.







Tkeycoin listing ICOHolder







Tkeycoin listing ICOmarks



Furthermore, Samson Owiti - "Cryptodrader, Crypto investor, Blockchain business expert" - includes the following in his review of Tkeycoin (TCD) at ICOholder: "I will invest in Tkeycoin DAO" (see below).





Conclusion

Did money change hands? Why did ICOholder remove the scam warning about Tkeycoin? Why did they verify the team members in the first place, despite their use of fake images?



As we mentioned at the start of this article, self-regulation is key for the success of the crypto industry. ICO rating sites which are willing to take money for a better rating, or ignore blatant issues like a clearly fake team, are no better than a corrupt police offer taking bribes to ignore criminal activity. This is why Cointelligence is dedicated to calling out these scams, and teaching the community how to perform their own due diligence. If you can't trust rating sites and crypto experts to protect you from scams, you will have to learn how to spot them yourself.



Again, kudos to ICOETHICS, Slow death and others for exposing ICO rating site ICOholder (ICOholder.com), and ICO scam Tkeycoin (TCD).