By: Melanie Kramer
CCN
According to new research from the Wall Street Journal, more than 15% of crypto projects raising funds through initial coin offerings (ICOs) have serious red flags that should give investors pause. The investigation, which analyzed the whitepapers of 3,300 cryptocurrency offerings and ICOs launched in 2017 and 2018, found that 513 of them likely committed plagiarism, misrepresented the identities of project founders, or promised unrealistic returns.
The Wall Street Journal examined the white papers of all 3,300 projects which it found listed on ICOBench.com, Tokendata.io, and ICORating.com. To identify plagiarism, the reporters compared sentences in all the reports to find duplication, with reporters identifying over 10,000 sentences that appeared more than once.
The papers were also searched to identify offerings where no team members were provided, and the publication reverse image searched photos to identify fake team listings. Lacking or fraudulent team, founder, or sponsor details have long been a red flag for illicit crypto projects and should be one of the first details an investor scrutinizes for accuracy.
(THL) Only 15 percent? From what I've seen out there I'm very surprised to hear it's not more than that. There is a lot of total charlatanry out there. I'd have guessed like 50 percent.
This actually reflects very well on the crypto economy in my opinion. If they did a study of non-crypto tech startups, I'd be curious what percentage of them have one of these red flags.
CCN
According to new research from the Wall Street Journal, more than 15% of crypto projects raising funds through initial coin offerings (ICOs) have serious red flags that should give investors pause. The investigation, which analyzed the whitepapers of 3,300 cryptocurrency offerings and ICOs launched in 2017 and 2018, found that 513 of them likely committed plagiarism, misrepresented the identities of project founders, or promised unrealistic returns.
Significant Number of Crypto Projects are Highly Questionable
The Wall Street Journal examined the white papers of all 3,300 projects which it found listed on ICOBench.com, Tokendata.io, and ICORating.com. To identify plagiarism, the reporters compared sentences in all the reports to find duplication, with reporters identifying over 10,000 sentences that appeared more than once.
The papers were also searched to identify offerings where no team members were provided, and the publication reverse image searched photos to identify fake team listings. Lacking or fraudulent team, founder, or sponsor details have long been a red flag for illicit crypto projects and should be one of the first details an investor scrutinizes for accuracy.
Read more at CCN.
(THL) Only 15 percent? From what I've seen out there I'm very surprised to hear it's not more than that. There is a lot of total charlatanry out there. I'd have guessed like 50 percent.
This actually reflects very well on the crypto economy in my opinion. If they did a study of non-crypto tech startups, I'd be curious what percentage of them have one of these red flags.
