Quote from: JapieAmerika on May 19, 2017, 07:58:27 AM

Quote from: Landical on May 18, 2017, 11:18:36 PM

Hi everyone, I'm pretty new to this new world of crypto. I dove in head first a few weeks ago, learning about cryptocurrencies and how they work, how the blockchain technology works, reading Nakamoto's Whitepaper. And being a computer science major its all really interesting to me.

Deciding mining coins wasn't for me, I decided the best route for me would be to invest and make my money work for me since I'm single and in college and don't have anything to lose haha.

After reading up on ICOs in the Announcements part of the altcoins subforum the main thing that I'm seeing when people ask for advice on whether to buy in on the coin or not is to "Do your research." Yesterday someone came into a Slack channel that I was in and was all, "This ICO starts in 5 minutes tell me why I should invest in this coin." And after people emploring him to read the Whitepaper, he says, "I don't have time to read, money is too valuable." Which made me chuckle.

After doing some google-fu and youtube videos, this is what I was able to compile when doing research on what to look for before making a decision on investing in an ICO:

Team

- Open Identities with social media, videos explaining the ICO
- Experience

Whitepaper

- Solution to existing problem presented in the details
- No "water" sentences and is all essence
- Economic sphere and market review with economic and market data
- Includes code or technical details

Business Idea

- The idea can be implemented in reality
- Detailed, well-thought out economic plan
- Roadmap is adequate and logical
- Do your own market research

Competition

- Existing players that don't use blockchain technology advantages
- Competitors that are coming to market w/ blockchain tech
- Ability to compete w/ a monopoly (e.g. Wikipedia)

Working Prototype

- Existing working prototype
- Lots of finished work before IPO
- Competitive product

Token Characteristics

- Supply characteristics
- Are tokens being churned out after the IPO? Inflation?
- Percentage distributed to investors vs. developers
- 70% TO 80% is ideal
- Does it have inner value? Better if token can be used inside of project.

Look at

- Idea Quality
- Website Quality
- Dev Team Quality
- Direct social media to reach team members
- What company is behind it
- History
- Team member experience
- Company experience
- Background
- Solid roadmap
- Make sure devs aren't previous scammers and the project is legit

Red flags

- Devs anonymous/unknown
- No escrow wallet
- Unrealistic/unclear goals
- Lack of transparency, no work-in-progress
- Don't release code snippets, demo/beta version of their product
- No behind the scenes videos

I would really appreciate anything you guys have to add and I look forward to learning from you guys during my time here. Grin

This is really a good summary of the investigation and research one has to do in order to enlighten yourself before jumping in to investing into a coin. Although I think a lot of people speculate on the short term (intra day) and therefore don't do this at all.

Thank you, I know that ICO flipping has become a thing as of late and day trading with altcoins is also a part of the culture here. But I don't plan on flipping I plan to HODL until the main features of their project come out in a year or whatever the time frame is. But if I see an opportunity to take a 10x return before then I'll take profits but not completely remove myself from the position in case things go even higher.