How To Create An ICO Scam in 5 Simple Steps
DISCLAIMER: The intention of this post is not to actually teach you how to scam people (it’s wrong you idiot!) but to raise awareness on how easy it is to do and to fall for. A lot of newcomers are getting familiar with the world of cryptocurrency and looking for investment options so having as many warnings out there as possible is never enough. Better be safe than sorry.
Let’s start!
Step 1: Name And Brand
Like naming your high school band this sounds easy on paper but it shouldn’t be overlooked, a great catchy name can start selling the idea right from the start. You don’t want to use the world coin, that’s so 2013. So pick a name that sounds ethereal (did I went too far that with the pun?).
Effortless, celestial, interconnection...yeah! that’s the good stuff. It should also have a modern social media app ring to it but don’t overdo it or it will sound too gimmicky.
BARDO (BDO) sounds great to me!
The Tibetan word bardo (བར་དོ་ Wylie: bar do) means literally "intermediate state"—also translated as "transitional state" or "in-between state" or "liminal state".
A generic symbol to accompany the logo will do, just don’t get too fancy and keep it simple. And finally we will name our tokens eONS.
Step 2 - Getting Your Hands Dirty
In the immortal words of Steve Ballmer: DEVELOPERS! DEVELOPERS! DEVELOPERS!
You need to show the faces of the people behind this world changing project. So get some at uifaces.com, come up with some common names (so they are very hard to google) and add the most ridiculous resume you can think of.
Think of these guys as if they had been working on the decentralization of the Antarctica resources for decades. They helped develop the new Svalbard Global Seed Vault sorting method. King penguins swear by them. Albatros don’t get caught in fishing nets anymore thanks to these guys. I’m not sure why that used to happen but who cares right?
The team is complete, just add one marketing girl who will bring in the herd home.
Now get a cool background possibly with nodes and space/constellation undertones. We are going to the moon, get it? It’s brilliant!
And finally, don’t forget some icons to describe Bardo features.
Step 3 - Buy Several Bitcointalk Accounts
Bitcointalk is the most active Bitcoin forum on the internet, they basically grew together. Any developer, investor or enthusiast is familiar with it and almost all cryptocurrency projects are first announced there. The thing is, you can actually buy accounts there, they have value because they can participate in Signature Campaigns and earn Bitcoins based on their ranks. An old and active member is usually respected by the community.
We would need to buy 4 or 5 Member ranks and one Sr or Hero (these will cost some money). The last one will be the one from where you will make the announcement, the others will bump the thread and pump the interest from time to time, keeping in check the sea of comments, FUD and other questions.
This would cost close to 0.5-0.8 BTC depending on the quality of the accounts you get (previous post quality and trust for example). Don’t forget to create a self-moderated thread so you can delete any accusations or hot questions right off the bat.
Step 4: The Pitch
Make it as complicated as possible, throwing so much mumbo-jumbo as you possible can. Keywords are: Tokens, Assets, Blockchain, Ledger, Disruptive, Decentralized, Shares, Platform, Intermediary, Publishing, Trustless, Fixed, Digital.
Create a new Proof Of System! As many know the most popular are Proof Of Work and Proof Of Stake. And hybrid of these won’t cut it anymore so you need to get creative. Proof of Incarnation sounds great, it involves checking for certain unadulterated information to create new blocks or something like that, we can revise this later!
BARDO is the new disruptive tokenizing ledger for the development of digital products and services on a decentralized trustless platform. Featuring the innovative Proof Of Incarnation, BARDO Crowdsale is a one in a lifetime opportunity to become part of blockchain technology’s future.
Get your eONS (Bardo tokens) Now!
Step 5: Putting it all together
It’s time to complete this malevolent puzzle, my horns sure are ready!
Compile all graphics and create images you can embed in the project thread. Getting bardo.io domain is a great idea too, you don’t need to build an actual site, just add a countdown clock widget, a subscribe/sign up button and an Ether and BTC address and you are good to go!
Remember to pump up the raised funds figure daily so users get reassured that a lot of money is getting invested.
Funny how now the ICO bubble is going like crazy :P
Great Post! I used it to help identify this one as a scam. Here is a textbook example of a SCAM AIOS All in One Social Network. https://steemit.com/blog/@adsactly/aios-all-in-one-social-secure-and-private-decentralized-social-network
I wrote a post exposing the AIOS scam. https://steemit.com/cryptocurrency/@cryptick/help-me-report-the-all-in-one-social-networks-aios-is-an-ico-scam
This comment has received a 0.31 % upvote from @bellyrub thanks to: @isacoin.
This comment has received a 0.41 % upvote from @bellyrub thanks to: @isacoin.
Where can I invest in Bardo? nsounds great
jokin
thanks @moonjelly
For many ICOs the single biggest problem is governance, or a lack of it, closely followed by clarity of how the founders’ feet will be held to the fire to ensure they deliver what was promised for investors. Happy that Tezos Foundation was not in my ICO's portfolio
Just found this article couple of our ago that is also stating similar points:
https://api.cointelegraph.com/amp/v1/news/what-lessons-can-be-learnt-from-tezos-ico-debacle?lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Ad_flagship3_profile_view_base_recent_activity_details_shares%3B48ioJjbQSqe%2BHQ4zqWzxlg%3D%3D
Whahaha.. LOL this is really a good one... and an eyeopener, maybe i trusted some to quick. Great post!
Thanks! Its a little exaggerated of course but sadly not so far off from some recent examples.
Following you now, waiting for my eONS!
We'll get right back at you very soon, thanks for participating in the ICO!
Beautiful. I haven't seen the #satire tag being used as much as the #funny tag, if you do another one.
Haha, yeah, sadly there are some actual scams going on right now on Bitcointalk. They don't even follow the proper steps, just 1, 2 and 4 are enough!
it's hilarious. Pity it's so true!
Excellent. Love this. My only point of critique would be that the icons of BDO's features do not include a banana for scale.
You're right, it does look a little shady without the banana!
This would be a valid critique except you forgot to add step 6: get coin listed on poloniex and pump it up with fake news written by bitcoin news media shills everyone thinks are actual reporters.
and Step 7: Dump coins until the trading volume is non-existent, then slowly accumulate, then return to step 6.
If Step 6 does not work, you need to return to Step 1 and start over.
You've been awarded 1000 eONS!
Whao! that's almost 30 cents!
It's the ICO season. This post should be pumped to awareness! People think that just looking at a page of an ICO will tell them if it's a scam. But the truth is that if you don't search the team, you will get scammed.. and sometimes even though you search the team that may happen.
Thank you, I will follow you. <3