According to WSJ study, almost one in five ICOs are fraudulent
1 min readJun 24, 2018
The Wall Street Journal analyzed 1,450 Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) and found that nearly 19 percent of them had fraudulent elements. Non-existent team members, plagiarized white papers, and promises of guaranteed returns were repeatedly discovered among crypto-funded projects, giving credence to the many warnings about investing in what has been a mostly unregulated space. Out of 124 of the projects studied had either no or fake team members; 111 used the same language as other projects, suggesting plagiarism; 48 had no website; and 25 offered a guaranteed return on investment.
Bradley Bennett, a former employee at the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, told the WSJ that these are all “warning signs for investors”.
