Choose an ICO whose tech you can understand. If the philosophy and mission of the ICO makes sense to you, then that's one green sign.

Then look at the team of the ICO, do they have many years experience? Are they well-known people? IF you can answer yes, then that's another green sign

People with reputations and degrees will not burn their lives just to scam a few thousand dollars from an ICO. So if these team members have valid backgrounds, then you know they won't exit scam you.

Use GOogle too. See if other people are already calling the ICO a scam and find out why they're doing so.

I believe in Linux over Microsoft because Linux is non-profit. However, both OS's are centralized, so don't fool yourself.

Linux's Ubuntu are good for creating cold wallets tho . You can't boot windows cleanly from a USB, but you can certainly boot Linux from a USB!!

This is a difficult question. And tbh, the idea of treating exchanges as wallets has been appealing to me for a long time.

I'll tell you why: Exchanges have 2fa and 2fa for sending out coins too. Your wallet and private keys don't have 2fa unless you're using an expensive hardware wallet.

So even if someone hacks your computer and puts a keylogger, they can't access your exchange without your 2FA.

But exchanges can get hacked, and that's how people can lose their coins.

I personally feel that Coinbase's Vault option is a good wallet. I believe you can't take things out of their vault without 2fa and some other security measure.

If you MUST use an online wallet for a significant amount of time, then do the following:

1. Only store small amounts of BTC on an online, web wallet. This way, if it gets hacked (even if the server gets hacked), then you only lose a little bit.

2. I would take the highest security measure and use a $200 notebook that only runs on a bootable USB drive (clean OS install each time) to manage your online wallet. Never use that notebook for anything else but logging onto your online wallet and conducting transactions. This way, there's a very infinitesimal chance that your notebook will ever get malware that could steal your online wallet's login info.

All altcoins can't be a scam. It's too much of an over-reaching statement to say that they're all a scam. That's like saying that all fast food joints have E.Coli or something.

Some altcoins are headed by respectful people, while others are even headed by governments.

Anything can be a scam, yes... but not all altcoins are scams.

Eth is definitely not a scam because of its integration into so many things.