After getting rugged (twice), I’ve started developing my own personal checklist to spot red flags in new altcoin projects. Here are a few I now take seriously:
Team not doxxed: If there’s no face, it’s a risk.
No GitHub activity: A “project” with no code is a meme, not a coin.
90%+ tokens held by insiders or devs: Obvious exit trap.
Whitepaper is vague or just buzzwords.
No clear revenue model: If it doesn’t generate value, it won’t last.
Just wanted to throw this out there for discussion: What are some of your “dealbreaker” red flags when it comes to altcoins?
A: Doxxed team doesn't mean real team, because these days anyone can create fake profiles or steal identities. I would look video interviews for confirming and homepages where they confirm that they are working on it.
B: Most of them aren't coins anyway, but L2 tokens
C: One dev wallet holding most of them is a red flag, but you can't easily prove that tokens would be held by insiders. And what many of them do is that they create several wallets with transaction history, looking
like other people's real wallets.
D: I actually agree about the whitepaper.
E: Explain generating value? Bitcoin doesn't "generate value". Value of it is based on cost of mining and speculation.
My deal breaker is when team is openly lying or misleading people. I guess i could make money with those if i would sell at the right time, but it just doesn't suit me.