For an average investor looking to make some easy money in crypto world is becoming more and more interesting. However, it is not easy to distinguish between good structured ICOs and scam ICOs. Somehow the golden rule has become, make a fancy website & put some text that no one really understands, pump it up with fake users, bounty program & make millions.

If you are not careful then you would end up as a “bag holder” — term used for investors who are stuck with the coin that they invested in & which never takes off to the moon.

My experience has taught me to just run a simple 10-point checklist for ICOs & then decide to invest or not. The main factor, that has become more & more important, is investing not only in an idea but in a company & team. Lots of ICOs with fancy websites have raised millions & disappeared without a trace. Unfortunately, it is the investor who wants to really believe in blockchain & support it, loses the most.

Here is my 10 Point Checklist for careful ICO Investment

1. Company Legal Structure

Check if the people conducting an ICO have formed a company & registered it in the country, that they want to operate the business in. Lots of ICOs are creating shell companies abroad in order to escape legal investigation. Stay away from such ICOs.

Check if the founders reveal the address of the company on the ICO site. If not, then they do not have an office & are operating from a garage. And ask yourself — do you want to invest your hard-earned cash in an ICO, which wants to hide its identity?

2. Informative Website & explainer Video

Check that the website is done professionally & is not another WIX template. It should be responsive & intuitive. I am a big fan of good designed website but the question you should ask is, if the team doesn’t even bother to design a decent Website, then imagine how much fun they are going to have with your investment.

Check if you can understand & explain the concept of the ICO to your non-techie friend. Most of the dishonest ICOs will confuse you in the first 2 blocks & make you think that they are reinventing the world. There have been ICOs trying to stop time & put teeth on a blockchain.

Explainer Video should explain in less than 2 minutes, what the hell this thing on the blockchain does. If the Video is not done professionally then either you make one for them or send them begging somewhere else.

3. Prototype or Product

Now this is becoming more & more important. If the team can’t even program an app or a prototype to present you, then kick them out of your investment list. Just having rotating JavaScript objects on the website is not enough anymore.

ICOs which have a working product are always a good choice. They bring the experience & knowledge to develop the product that they promise to the investors.

4. Business Cases

90% of the ICOs have no real business cases except for raising money for Hookers & Lambos. If you cannot find a single use case that is practical & can be implemented in the real world, then stop supporting these teenagers who dream of retiring at 18.

Think about how the company is going to implement these use cases & what risks are involved. If your idea is dumping this ICO at an exchange the moment it is listed, then don’t care & skip this article.

5. Smart Contract Code

If the ICO is not revealing their Smart Contract code, then either they don’t have a developer & they just copied the code from another ICO or they have unstable code which might have security problems & you could end up losing all your investment.

Good ICOs always share their GitHub repository & gets the code audited by the community. Also, investors can look at the smart contract to determine, if the token sale conditions are exactly as promised.

6. Token Sale Information

Token Sale information should be clear & precise.

Number of tokens generated & offered is very important. Most of the people think that getting 1000 tokens for 1 ETH with a circulating supply of 1 Billion is a great bargain. Actually, it is not. The smaller the number of total tokens available, the bigger chance it has of reaching to double figures. Just look at the list on Coinmarketcap.com & you will see that tokens, which have less than 100 Million circulating supply are flying to the moon faster.

7. Team Information & Experience

Strong team & vision is important for success of any company. No matter how much money you have. I have worked on $500 Million projects, where the team was completely inexperienced & management just bunch of wankers, money could not stop the failure of the company.

Invest in entrepreneurs who have achieved something on their own. Look at how diversified their team is & whether they could make this project a success for you.

Look if team photos & LinkedIn profiles are shared & really traceable. Just to give an example, Monetha ICO put a lot of important people on their website but their LinkedIn profiles did not mention that they work for Monetha. Lots of scam. So be careful. Don’t care much about the advisors on the website, unless it is Elon Musk, Bill Gates or Vitalik Buterin, & that they confirm that they support this ICO. You can buy advisors like bananas on a market.

8. Clear Roadmap

Check if the team has mentioned a clear roadmap on the site or in white paper. Also check the history of the roadmap. Scam ICOs normally have roadmap starting with preparation of ICO. If these junkies have never done anything except for planning the ICO, then stay far away from them.

Check if the roadmap is really practical. Most of them will mention very optimistic plan.

9. Detailed Whitepaper

Well documented white paper is like a business plan, which investors should be excited to read about. If the team has not put effort in documenting what their goals, vision and revenue model is, then they don’t really care about their business.

Investors are likely to invest in an ICO with good white paper than in a research paper.

10. Good Social Media Presence

Check the social media presence of the ICO. It is very easy to buy fake followers & have bounty hunters praise you like god. Important is if they have decent posts & interact well with their followers & answer their questions professionally.

Listing sites are also very important. Many listing sites also rate the ICO, like ICObench.com. Check if the ICO has at least score of 4 + on any rating site.

Finally, do your own research but this 10-point checklist should help you assess an ICO. This list is what I follow to make my next profits from ICOs. Remember ICOs & cryptocurrencies are extremely volatile & don’t bet more than you can afford to lose.

Check out my recent review of 3 Top ICOs in October, which I evaluated with this checklist.

https://medium.com/@reviewcryptos/top-3-icos-of-october-2017-4b00a01e711b