Why do crypto currencies have such a bad image in the “big” media? That’s a question you can ask yourself every time there’s a writhing, dragon of an article in the newspaper. Some journalists know about the ins and outs of course but that is unfortunately a small minority.

How is crypto money going to conquer the world when it is always displayed by 90% of the media with money laundering and other criminal activities?

Of course, it is mainly because of a lack of knowledge of the journalists that write such documents, or even worse, simply copies partly an other article.

But that is not the only reason in my opinion. Because aren’t the general media also a bit right when they write another negative article about an outgrowth in the crypto world? The crypto lovers are also allowed to put their hand in their own pockets. For why do the crypto investors and traders like blind chickens run after every new coin/token hype without taking a critical (read ethical) look at the presented characteristics of such a project? Why are there more than 2000 coin/tokens? Do they all really want to improve the world or make it more beautiful? No!

Research

The ICO consulting firm “Satis group” has reviewed all ICO’s that started in 2017 and comes to the conclusion in a report that 80% of the new Coin/tokens can be considered as a scam. Probably that is very short but also the Wall Street Journal has done research and comes to slightly less disturbing figures. Of the 1450 investigated crypto start ups, 271 appear to have red flags.

In addition, sites like Coinopsy and Dead Coins shows that a thousand coins have indeed died/leaved or that they turn out to be scams. But if you think that means that these coins are no longer traded, you are wrong.

And that’s exactly where I think the problem lies.

People and money

There are many kinds of people active with crypto. But let’s be honest, most people who are working with crypto are in for the “quick money”. Of course, there are also crypto-purists who see a new form of payment in crypto currencies, without a controlling government above or banks interfering in it. This group of course wants to work more on continuity and adoption and are less concerned with price development. But most crypto investors do not have this idea and only have an attitude that is based on only three principals:

1. Is there anything to earn from it? Then it’s good.

2. After me the flood. The losses are for the suckers.

3. As long as I leave the sinking ship on time.

It doesn’t matter if a coin/token is actually a scam. Every means is sanctified to reach the goal of winning. Most investors are not interested in the product or service that the coin represents, but only whether the coin has the potential to increase in value equally.

The value increase of a new coin/token is only very partially determined by the quality of the product or service but has much more to do with the quality and quantity of the marketing efforts. The motto is: It doesn’t have to be anything, as long as it seems like something.

And if it seems like what, the investor can join.

Once the increase has taken place, the investor can easily get out and then select a new coin to repeat his trick. Sometimes this strategy fails and the investor incurs a loss. But apparently it works more often than it fails, otherwise there wouldn’t be much investment in crypto’s.

These investors therefore maintain the system. Because with this attitude all scammers are of course played in the card and it remains very lucrative to start a scam coin. The attitude of the average investor is therefore the cause of the fact that new scam coins can be put on the market all the time. Is that what we want?

With this method we feed the journalism again to be able to say that the crypto world are all scammers and ponzi schemes and then they are a bit right. Unfortunately, the good crypto’s suffer from the evils.

White Hat Ethical Investor

Therefore, my call to invest and trade only in coins/tokens that are legal and genuine in the future. And if you do that, you may use the

Use White Hat Ethical Investor (WHEI) logo on your business card.

Logo WHEI

To make it easier for people to discover scams, a simple checklist has been developed that describes characteristics of scam coins and is easy to apply.

A roaring, flashy website with at least one countdown timer to something that needs to be hyped.

An ICO to start with.

The “pre-pré sale” has already ended and has raised X million (to give the project a reliable touch because so much has already been invested that it almost has to be done well).

A team of at least 15 people with a number of advisers. (Check if the names and pictures are real)

If there are wallets at all, they are not their own but third party wallets or worse, only a webwallet. (But if there is no wallet and coins are offered in a pre-sale, then you can be sure that you are dealing with a scammer)

A roadmap from here to there with the most fantastic vague plans.

With >10 times better claims than the “competitor”. Especially the number of TPS (transactions per second) is considered important.

Having nothing ready yet (except Marketing)

Not be mineable,

More than 25% of the coins are already pre-mined or otherwise magically created.

A white paper with many beautiful but incomprehensible pictures of layers and formulas and woolly language. (Or even a fully or partially copied from another coin. Just google on a piece of text).

Being a Token on an existing platform and then the transition to a Mainnet are very important to them. (They should be ashamed “the eyes out of their heads” that they haven’t done that before).

A long list of so-called partners. (Of the level: the local bakery, because they delivers the lunch sandwiches)

On Github nothing to find or a copy of an existing coin with less than 100 commits (name change only)

If some of the conditions from this list are met, it is a scam with almost 100% certainty and “the starters” are only interested in the ICO (Immediate Cash Out) phase.

It is of course not a salvific truth. But of course you can always say:

If in doubt do not invest!

If we all follow these rules, the scams will automatically die out because there is no more profit to be gained by these little scammers.

As a Gulden promoter I can guarantee Gulden (NLG) But it would be useful if there was a list of Coins that can be trusted and in which you can invest without any problem. An impetus for this is maybe this research The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Classifying the crypto-coins.

november 2018, Aat de Kwaasteniet

Other maybe relevant articles of the writer are:

The nonsense of Marketcap

Which crypto currency becomes the future payment system