I cannot stress this more, No.1 is the whitepaper. Always look at the whitepaper. If you can understand what the team wants to do, and like the concept, consider putting money - else no use. No2. is the team. Look at the engagement that they are having with the community, also look at how old are their public profile like linkedin. QUtm CEO changed his name recently before doing qtum, he has been known for doing frauds in past- so do look into the history of people involved. No3 thing that I check is the community around the project.
This is bang on the money in my eyes. Here is what i would look for in an ICO, a little more than 3, but they are all interconnected.
- Strong team - Both in development team and also the CEO's / marketing (People focus too much on the developers which is important but not everything. no point having a great team to create something, if nobody can advertise it and push the startup in the right direction.)
- Realistic vision - not aiming too high or if they do not reach their target everyone who invested will be disappointed
- Solid whitepaper - Well thought out, shows realistic goals, a strong good vision and a plan of action
- Strong social media presence - A social media that shows they are connected with everyone
- Good customer support - Shows they care, and they have invested time and money into making sure the average investor can ask questions
- Good website - A business who is willing to throw time and effort into a good website are less likely to be a scam
- finite supply - ICO's with no cap can be dangerous and can simply just damage their own coin by releasing more for more investment.
-Market they are getting involved with - Is this a new market? or a dying one? who controls the market?
Finally
- Good concept and catchy name - A good ethos and a name that makes them stand out. Personally i would avoid anything that is something "coin".
If these are in place, then it's a good sign. I am looking at Crowdholding at the minute, seems like a good upcoming ICO (They are in their pre-sale). I like this one because it is about co-creation (Which i am interested in, which also helps and i would advise) and also you can get more for your investment as they are in their pre-sale.
https://ico.crowdholding.com/Based on the above points mentioned by you and myself, I am putting my money on Blackmooncrypto!
Their vision is to eliminate black box investments. They have mentioned this in their whitepaper and many other places. This stuck out to me significantly. If you are familiar with some unethical strategies that are implied is the regular financial system, you will know that building a portfolio of lets say questionable loans and then selling those assets to a pension fund is the kind of behavior that was a major contributor to the 2008 financial crisis. Because selling funds to pension funds that you know are toxic to some unwitting buyer, this is what you might call black boxes. This happens when local municipalities who are not professional investors and do not understand how the investment funds work and is structured and hence they make poor decisions. So creating transparency on what is in each of these funds that are available is exactly what blackmooncrypto is focusing on and I think they should get credit for this.
By providing the investors with tools to get detailed information about what is inside their funds that they are about to invest in, the investors are more aware and can hence make much more informed decisions. More awareness investors have, more better decisions they can make.