Hi guys, I want to share with you my simple methodology (beta) of spotting ICO scams.

The methodology

There are criteria with various risk points. Summarize all the points of the criteria that the ICO meets to get total score. Total score represents a risk grade on which you can lean to take a risk or not.

Scam points and criteria:
1 point: minor suspicions (for each)
3 points: anon devs; no code snippets, videos, or beta; rushing
5 points: unrealistic goals; fuzzy whitepaper; self-mod topic
10 points: bought account; no escrow

Risk and total score:
low (0-5)
medium (6-10)
high (11-15)
very high (16-20)
extremely high (21 and more)

Example

Let's imagine there's an ongoing ICO of Supercoinxxx in which you want to invest some money.

The topic is self-mod (5 points) with devs that have unrealistic goals (5 points) like creating a decentralized stock market in 2-3 month and a fuzzy whitepaper (5 points) with no technical details. Also you found two minor suspicions (2 points) based on your experience. Which gives 17 points in total. Based on that score you conclude that risk is very high and skipping this ICO.

---

Updated: added "no escrow" criteria.