What are you paying per token? Has someone else payed less? What can you expect short-term, and long-term?
Many projects has 'private sales' for big investors, who gets to buy tokens at a much lower price.
This could for example be motivated as 'a sure way to reach the softcap', which might be true, but that could also mean you're making a bad investment.
The softcap is the minimum amount needed to continue on with the project.
The hardcap is the maximum amount.
Ensure that you're aware of this, since it's quite common for big investors to simply let the ICO run it's course, and once it's over, they can sell off a large amount at a higher-than-paid price, thus damaging the short-term value, and in extension, you would've been able to acquire a larger amount of tokens for the same price. This is not always the case, but it's quite common.
Look if there's 'vesting periods', for example, any early-investors has their tokens locked for X time to ensure stability.
Another thing to consider is; will a certain amount of tokens be held by the team?
If so, what prevents them from selling off a large amount? Will a contract hold the amount for a certain length of time?
It surely can benefit the development; but not necessarily your investment.
Be certain that you have a clear view of what's coming in the future in terms of the supply.
Many projects has 'private sales' for big investors, who gets to buy tokens at a much lower price.
This could for example be motivated as 'a sure way to reach the softcap', which might be true, but that could also mean you're making a bad investment.
The softcap is the minimum amount needed to continue on with the project.
The hardcap is the maximum amount.
Ensure that you're aware of this, since it's quite common for big investors to simply let the ICO run it's course, and once it's over, they can sell off a large amount at a higher-than-paid price, thus damaging the short-term value, and in extension, you would've been able to acquire a larger amount of tokens for the same price. This is not always the case, but it's quite common.
Look if there's 'vesting periods', for example, any early-investors has their tokens locked for X time to ensure stability.
Another thing to consider is; will a certain amount of tokens be held by the team?
If so, what prevents them from selling off a large amount? Will a contract hold the amount for a certain length of time?
It surely can benefit the development; but not necessarily your investment.
Be certain that you have a clear view of what's coming in the future in terms of the supply.
I very much agree with this and this a very important tip, this is very common these days and I'v seen it played out over and over again in the last few months. The reason this year.
More important is that a project/token that checks well against all other analysis factors could still encounter this problem.
I don't want to mention names but for example I missed a token pre-sale recently and while I was mulling over the miss, I became aware (from the telegram group) of it selling far less that the pre-ico price and the community was angry, those that bought during the pre-sale were bitterly complaining and couldn't understand while the Team decided to make the token available on DEX instead of Top Exchanges promised. So, it lost its short to mid-longtem prospect, though the project is still a very viable long-term project with solid foundation and unique idea.
you dodged a bullet!
I actually found out the same not long ago, I was ready to invest but then I found out that their private sale had raised many millions - ok great, but they don't want to tell us how much the private investors paid
but as long as they make it clear from the start, that there'll be a private sale, it's fine - one has to make their own decision then.