LoopX was said to be a Startup company with a working software which is supposed to be an algorithm based crypto trading platform. Now all of a sudden they pulled down their website, deleted their social media accounts in Facebook, Youtube, Twitter and Telegram. It is a clear sign of a SCAM ICO.

LoopX had Presale in early Jan 2018 and their token sale started on Jan 10, 2018. Now that all their social footprints are gone, only remains of them is their bitcointalk thread. They were able to fool everyone by just saying that they have a working product with a magical algorithm and stole $4.5 Million easily.

What went wrong?

PEOPLE BELIEVED IT and that is what went wrong. I know that many people would just check for basics, which is that it is should be a good idea and it should be product based. Nothing wrong with that but one shouldn't believe whatever they claim to be without doing any research. Did LoopX show some signs of scam ICO? Lets run through some the questionable facts of LoopX before getting on to what should one check for in an ICO.

Questionable facts of LoopX:

Lack of information on the Development Team and no LinkedIn Profiles.
Lack of Evidence on the fact that their trading algorithm have been running successfully for over half an year
Whitepaper with no in-depth information

Of course it is possible that i may have missed many facts but above does raise a concern on its legitimacy. And i know that it is easy to highlight these facts after one knows that it is indeed a scam. So lets go over few basic things which one need to check for in an ICO

Complete Team Information along with LinkedIn Profile

It is very important that there is transparency on which team is working behind the ICO and what role is played by each one of them.

Well documented Whitepaper

Some white does get very technical and not easy for general public to understand them. But it is very important that the Whitepaper is well documented and covers all aspects of their goals, vision, ecosystem and revenue system.

Github Repository

If the Github repository is shared with the community for them to be able to audit the information then the ICO can be considered legit. If they are not willing to share to the code or audit details to the community then the ICO is a questionable one.

Working Product

Working product does not mean just a statement in their website that they own a working product (Just like the one in LoopX). They should have an actual working product used by people like Dent. Or at least a prototype/beta version which people can test.

Registered Company

Most of the ICO company are new ones, so many won't have a proper background. But atleast one should research and check if the company is a registered one and has an proper office location and also ensure that the office location provided is correct.