Tutorial: How To Run Your Own ICO Scam in 2019

As many of you are painfully aware, investing in initial coin offerings (ICOs) simply isn’t what it used to be. With the number of exit scams, failed projects, and complete duds piling up, it has become riskier than ever to invest in the new fundraising method. However, while it is true that the investment route is becoming less appealing by the day, the scamming alternative is beginning to look like an enticing prospect. After all, if you can’t beat them, why not join them? In our handy guide, we teach you how to pull off the perfect ICO exit scam, rake in millions of dollars in the process, and potentially make it into the next update of our biggest crypto scams in history article!

The Hook: ICO

First thing’s first — your scam ICO is going to need a legitimate looking website to act as a front for the business. Since it’s unlikely that have design skills yourself or the money to hire a competent web developer, we recommend simply purchasing an ICO template from the likes of Themeforest. Using a template such as this, you will blend in with all the other ICOs while also using the exact same template. The Cryption template, in particular, appears to be the most common choice and will likely fit the bill for your project. While filling in your template, you might notice certain fields need completing. Don’t worry, we will talk you through how to frame the major details to ensure your plan is a success!

Project Premise

Starting with the premise of your project, this should be something that people believe in and one that addresses a real need in the market — such as a pair of drones that you attach to your shoes, allowing you to fly. Don’t worry if the project idea is technically impossible. Few people will read far enough into the details to notice this and, once they do, you will be long gone with their money. You absolutely must include the keywords “artificial intelligence, digital identity, and high-throughput” in the outline, since any ICO that doesn’t include these features is practically doomed to fail in 2019. Again, don’t worry if these keywords don’t fit the project description. People will assume that this is just a forward-thinking company.

Team Details

Just years ago, ICOs with anonymous teams raising several millions of dollars was relatively commonplace. However, things have changed for the worse in 2019, with it being practically a mandatory requirement that all ICOs have a public facing team. (Apparently, people want to know who they’re giving their money to.) You certainly don’t want anybody discovering your true identity, since that would mean extensive jail time and likely more than a few personal vendettas against you. However, any ICO scammer worth his salt knows that to get around this predicament, you absolutely must imitate the identity of somebody indisputably trustworthy — a recognized figure in the blockchain and cryptocurrency space. We recommend stealing the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto. After all, this trick has worked wonders for Craig Wright — and nobody has ever suspected he may be a fraud.

Social Media

Once you’ve selected your fake identity, you will want to create fake social media profiles to complement it — with a particular focus on Facebook, since this is arguably the largest crypto hub and a truly privacy-focused platform. LinkedIn is also an important platform but you will need to ensure you have at least 300 connections, with endorsements from every connection to appear extra qualified. Ideally, these endorsements will be from recognized leaders in the blockchain space, such as Dorian Nakamoto, Ian Balina, and Nicolás Maduro.

Whitepaper

Being as deviously cunning as you are, you have probably already realized that whitepapers have become increasingly common nowadays. Practically every ICO has one. However, did you know that only the most legitimate of projects tend to have what is now known as a ‘technical’ whitepaper — a document that outlines the core technology behind the product? Because of this, we recommend producing a technical document of your own, being sure to include as much complexity as you possibly can. This acts to produce the illusion that your project is underpinned by strong foundations. Again, don’t worry about it actually making any sense. People will automatically assume it is simply too complex for them to understand. Since these papers are invariably quite difficult to make, we recommend outsourcing the task to an expert on Fiverr — a website renowned for its accomplished writers and bargain-basement prices.

The Line: Marketing

As with any ICO scam, one of the major challenges is successfully marketing the ‘product’ to the right people — namely, those who are easily parted with their money. As far as we’re concerned, ICO marketing can be broken down into three distinct areas:

1. ICO listings
2. Spam
3. Press releases

After all, everybody knows that a high score on ICObench is one of, if not the, most important things an ICO can achieve — which is why you must make it a top priority if you want to succeed, particularly since you may be competing against the odd legitimate ICO on the platform. To accomplish this, we recommend purchasing positive ratings from the myriad low-life fake review providers on the website. You can usually tell who these are by looking through their previous reviews — if the great majority or all of their recent reviews are 5/5/5, then you’re likely on to a winner! Beyond this, you will then need to get the word out about your new five-star rated ‘project’ by using a cleverly-designed marketing scheme that puts your ‘project’ in front of all the right eyes. Arguably, the best way to do this is through carefully controlled spamming — whereby you make thousands of posts on other ICO community pages, Telegram groups, cryptocurrency forums, and social media. Ideally, these posts would be written in broken English, as posts that are too formal might appear to be canned or disingenuous. Last (but not least) are press releases. Unfortunately, this one will probably cost a significant amount of money, since paying for press releases (similar to bribing the media) can be a somewhat expensive endeavor. Finding these unscrupulous sites isn’t particularly challenging since all you need to do is look for the media outlets that published press releases for high-quality projects including BitConnect, Savedroid, or Block Broker. Publishing on a few of these outlets should be sufficient to help complement an effective spam marketing strategy.

The Sinker: The Getaway

Congratulations’ If you followed all the above steps, you have now successfully scammed thousands of men and women out of their hard-earned income! Now, you just need to find a way to get away with the money and avoid the dozens of blockchain analysis companies and governments looking to de-anonymize cryptocurrencies to reveal the real-world owners behind many wallet addresses. In our opinion, the best way to cash out your ill-gotten gains is by converting it to Zcash on Coinbase. To do this, you will need to open a Coinbase account and complete all the required KYC steps before finally sealing the deal by exchanging to Zcash. Sure, you may be constantly looking over your shoulder with the desperate worry that somebody might have unraveled your scam — but at least you’ll have financial security and can live the high life until you are eventually discovered! Which is the most comical ICO scam you have seen? Are there any that are so bad they might as well be satire? Let us know in the comments below! 

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Disclaimer: The article above is intended as satire, and should not be taken seriously. Please do not attempt any of the steps outlined in this article. BeInCrypto accepts no responsibility for readers that fail to recognize the irony of this article.