"Crypto Anonymous" 186 review

Grin - GRIN

Grin did a fair launch, no ICO or other shady stuff, has a huge team of open source developers (including serious blockchain developers). It's based on the Mimblewimble protocol (competitor building on the same protocol is the more commercial, more centralized Beam). Big drawback on Bitcoin is the fact that transactions and amounts are publicly visible on the blockchain, and it is becoming increasingly easy to do chain analyses and track users, especially with all the KYC by custodians and exchanges that expose a lot of addresses. Mimblewimble and with that Grin, is an innovative privacy focussed protocol that seems to solve that issue, because it has no amounts and no addresses, which could mean it has perhaps even more privacy than the current privacy champion Monero. I don't think there is anything scammy or shady to be found about this project. It is now also more available on more mainstream exchanges such as Kucoin and even Poloniex. A concern that I do have is the fact that if the technology for Grin is perfected, that (as far as I have understood it) it is very possible that the tech is easily integrated into bitcoin (perhaps via side-chain), giving bitcoin the privacy it now greatly lacks. In that case the value proposition for Grin coin itself would diminish substantially of course. At the start of the Grin launch there were several controversial issues however, as described in this article: https://steemit.com/cryptocurrency/@cryptopigmedia/don-t-just-smile-grin-review-of-usdgrin-and-mimblewimble, however none of that was directly at fault of Grin: - Before the first block was even mined, it was alleged that the coin was already trading on exchanges - Price dropped more than 98% (from ~$261) in the first 24 hours of trading (artificial exchange volume?) - Sirin Labs founder was scammed on an OTC deal on Telegram, trying to buy a large amount of Grin However, since these early days controversies were not related to the project itself, we can dismiss those for our judgment. Users should also be aware that unlike the fixed total supply of bitcoin, Grin has a perpetual inflation, which theoretically means an infinite supply. It should be noted that the inflation is a fixed amount per block and therefore the RELATIVE inflation will decrease over time gradually (and not in shocks such as bitcoin's halvings). Some hardcore crypto fundamentalists are allergic for such a feature, but to be honest, impo as soon as the inflation is lower than 1% per year, it already outperforms all fiat currencies. Reason for not choosing the fixed supply principle is that they want Grin to be more for transactions than as store of value (less HODL-ing); hopefully that doesn't turn out to be flawed thinking, but so far I am not negative towards this. Understandably this coin is still in its early development, but a decent user friendly wallet with an interface suitable for average users is not available yet, which at this time is not helpful for the onboarding of users. But I guess we'll just need to be patient for this to happen, until then, actually using this coin is primarily for tech savvy users. Last point is about the anonymity of the "founder" and absence of a CEO. For practically all projects that is otherwise the biggest red flag out there; in case of Mimblewimble I think that is actually a strong virtue. The strong extended open source developers community around this project, make it on development and "leadership" level very decentralized. Honestly, I did an effort to dig up dirt about this project, but it is hard to find or even non-existent. This perhaps, besides bitcoin and a tiny few other coins, is part of the handful of truly honest, legitimate, really decentralized cryptocurrencies that actually deserve that title. Keep in mind though that pure fundamentally ethical projects do not automatically translate into profitable "investments". Grin/Mimblewimble still have a long way to go to establish and prove themselves and then somehow attract adoption; and a lot can go wrong along the way still. So don't stare blind on the fact that it is so highly respected, it is not automatically a guaranteed profitable speculation and definitely a more risky one than for example bitcoin (impo).

Paxos Standard - PAX

Considering the regulated nature of this stable coin, it is likely to be trustworthy enough to assume that it won't collapse overnight and is indeed fully backed as it promises. There seem to be some issues for larger traders to redeem their tokens, with extra hassle created by Paxos for this process in individual cases, which seems to suggest some bad faith practices from the company, for more info about this, you can read the linked article and do more research about the legitimacy of these claims being made. Overall I don't expect this to be of any real issue for the average retail trader. However generally I wouldn't recommend keeping much money in any stablecoin for an extended period of time if it isn't absolutely necessary. Link to the article about hassle around redeeming Paxos tokens: https://www.ccn.com/paxos-standard-hassling-ethereum-traders-trying-to-redeem-stablecoin-pax-for-dollars/

Koi - KOI

When it comes to innovation with regards to this token: there is none. It is just a standard ERC20 token of which there are thousands and the whitepaper does not convince me that there is anything special about this particular token. They claim to be building a wide range and variety of projects around this token, which so far are only promises on paper. Btw the whitepaper's text is pretty awful and hard to follow, seems as if it is directly translated by Google. On various occasions I read about "business opportunity" and ways to make money, or at least suggestions are made towards this, however no explanation on how the token investor would make profits. Github shows only the erc20 token published, nothing else. I have seen so many projects like this and it is usually just a money grab. Hard proof for that I can't find, only the lack of proof that something is actually happening. I would be extremely skeptical, which I am, because it looks and smells fishy. In short, you will be sending your hard earned money to some stranger on the internet, that has made all kinds of promises, without a clear description on how the promised objectives are going to be achieved and why there would be a token needed for that (apart from the team raising money from uneducated investors, which clearly seems to be the (easy) target audience; advanced crypto users/investors will directly reject any project similar to this).

Monero - XMR

One of the few true privacy coins that is leading the pack with its privacy features and very important for privacy coins: privacy is the default, not an option. This is important because this improves fungibility. Long track record and has a fair amount of brand recognition and adoption. The project also continues to innovate to improve privacy and make the network more secure. Eventhough Monero is much more private than bitcoin for example, it is also very experimental and all transactions are still recorded forever (though shielded). If privacy of transactions is more vital than for an average bitcoin user, Monero is probably the best and most reliable alternative, but if your life depends on the secrecy or you are going to use it for criminal activity, it is probably not a good idea. Keep in mind that as soon as bitcoin gets much more privacy improvements, the usecase for Monero might diminish. Overall impo fully legit project.

IOTA - IOT

Always proclaimed as the next generation cryptocurrency, utilizing so-called DAG technology. Technically speaking IOTA is not even a blockchain. The technology and its implementation are highly experimental and their main focus is to be THE cryptocurrency for IoT. Gotta give the project credit for still being around. However the project is not without some criticism, as few are anyway of course. However some (near) scandals have put the project often in bad light, such as overhyping or misrepresenting influential partnerships and a nasty debate between the IOTA team and MIT about a major vulnerability in their cryptographic function. Also despite the centralized coordinator necessity being promised to removed at some point, this still remains a sensitive issue. Read more about some of the past issues: https://www.coindesk.com/iota-2-7-billion-cryptocurrency-developers-love-hate. Or here the rebuttal in the fight with MIT: https://medium.com/iota-demystified/debunking-the-iota-vulnerability-report-c40fb07a6ae8. I would suggest anyone looking at IOTA to familiarize yourself with the good and the bad of this project and make your own judgments, because although I don't think this project is inherently shady and in fact likely to overcome a lot of its struggles, but it does seem to have some issues of its own where interested participants should be aware of.

SingularityNET - AGI

This is the AI token project that has the AI "Sophie" behind it, or better put the company that has developed Sophie. They are building an AI network and eco system around the token with the purpose of democratizing AI so that the technology doesn't only become available to the elites. Their ICO was 10x oversubscribed (whitelist) and sold out in no time. they raised about $40 mln, remarkably, because they clearly stated that they would NOT be involved with any exchange listings, which is highly unusual for token projects. Reason is ofcourse to circumvent SEC retaliation. THe token was initially only tradable on IDEX, but later got listed on Binance (by community effort, team was not involved, allegedly). Team is very active and present at many occasions, communicating progress. I cannot possibly know or predict if this project is going to achieve its mission, but by my observation they are sincerely trying. In my opinion in terms of seriousness and ethics, this project stands with head and shoulders above the crowd.

Augur - REP

One of the top performing projects for decentralized finance in terms of actual use of the product, prediction markets. It's an Ethereum based project with REP as ERC20 token. The prediction markets smart contracts can be used to construct all kinds of decentralized derivatives for examples. Top notch team that is also visible and engaged in the cryptocurrency industry. I have no doubt that this project is legit.

Dai - DAI

The ERC20 token stable coin that is governed by the Maker DAO project, the Maker token is the coin used for governance of the stable price of DAI against the dollar. 1 DAI is supposed to be worth $1 without the backing of actual dollars. Backing is achieved with the staking of Ethereum in smart contracts through a complicated process that involves some kind of arbitrage. Very successful project as a whole in the Ethereum eco-system that deserves a lot of credits. Large trading volumes and the DAI has been surprisingly successful in keeping a relatively stable value near $1, even when the bear market battle tested the token, while the value of Ether was dropping. I have no doubt this project is totally legit and brings very valuable results from their experimentations in real life decentralized finance.

Elite Coin - 1337

this coin has a trading volume of about $100, yet a marketcap of over $1 million, so for those speculators should probably pay attention if the trading volume justifies such market value. But I will leave conclusions about that for anyone's own research. No whitepaper and no visible team, which normally would be red flags, however considering this coin already exists something like 5 years (correct me if I am wrong) and is still actively supported by its community, I will give it some benefit of the doubt on that point. If I am correct this project has no ICO and no funding and the pre mine, they claim is for giving away and promotion. I can understand why transactions are fast, because practically all blocks are empty, plus Proof of Stake nature of mining allows for easier scaling and considering that no critical infrastructure is built on this blockchain, security doesn't have to be the highest priority. Games can be bought from their webshop, where you can pay with Elite coin only (formerly 1337, which is still its ticker). I don't know about the quality of the games that they develop themselves where Elite should also be the in-game currency (inter-exchangeable between other games), but I hope their website is not an indication of the quality of their game developers. For example take a look at the coinmarketcap widget in the top right corner of the website: clearly their design has improvement points. Overall looking at this project as an outsider I don't get the feeling it is an outright scam, but only interesting for those that are part of the community. The coin has had some pump and dumps but keep in mind that this is due to low liquidity. last pump in May19 was at a volume of $1200. So if you would be betting on selling in one of those pumps, you might have a hard time achieving that. I see plusses and minusses with this coin, so I am going to give this one a neutral vote. I am not overly excited nor do I think it's a scam (like I already said).

0x - ZRX

This must be one of the most legit ERC20 token protocol projects out there. The team is developing a protocol that can be used for launching decentralized exchanges in the Ethereum blockchain. Working product that already has already processed large sums of money. Disclosure: i do not own any ZRX at time of writing this nor have I plans in the short term to purchase any either. Real team, real project, real product with real innovation, fundamental to the DeFi (decentralized finance) eco system. The 0x protocol could eventually work on the backend of universal wallets to exchange any token into any other token for Dapp access without a user even knowing what is happening under the hood in a token economy where 1000s of Dapps have their own utility/access token. This is just 1 aspect of the entire project that I wanted to highlight.

Bulwark - BWK

Reasonably confident that this privacy coin is likely not a scam. They even appear to have won some contest for Masternode coins, or at least turned out as one of the better ones on several aspects. Development looks promising and the team is building different hardware solutions as well for improving user privacy by incorporating TOR in their tech for example. They also have some sort of online shop where you buy online services such as domain names, email hosting etc., and alongside normal currencies, BWK is also one of the currency payment options. I could not identify any substantial or particular red flags.

Bloc.money - BLOC

Yet another cryptocurrency project that claims to be better than bitcoin. It is also a privacy coin, that is using tech from Cryptonote. They did not do an ICO and one of the co founders wrote a post saying that he was particularly disappointed in a project that according to his description has to be Electroneum. That aside they claim to be better than all the ICO's by not doing an ICO, however, they did a 10% pre mine, which is most definitely a red flag according to general crypto standards. They claim to be developing several projects around the Bloc currency, but it seems many of those are already late in road map delivery. Then I will quote a couple of posts from different profiles on their bitcointalk channel that seems to coincide with the observation: "SHITCOIN DEV VERY SILENCE VERY SLOW SHIT PROJECT DONT CARE DUMP EVERY DAY" "Do NOT expect much. It's just a turtlecoin fork ,but with 10% pre-mined for dump." "is the project dead?" "looks like it is dead." Github only shows recent tiny activity last month, with all prior activity stopping at 6 months ago. It would very much surprise me if this project turns out not to be dead after all, but, hey, anything is possible in crypto! For the time being I will pass on the "opportunity".

Sperocoin - SPERO

The purpose for which this coin of Brazilian origin claims to be invented for, is already been invented by 100s of other coins and frankly does not bring any innovation in that regard. The website tries to convince people that this coin is inherently built to solve poverty, well its properties don't do that any better than for example bitcoin already can. Their other claim is that they are ecologically sustainable because they use PoS mining, which is not unique at all either. Yet they still continue to use PoW as well. Looking at Github, there hasn't been any meaningful development for a long time. Social media presence is very limited and very low following. Only available on a small number of tiny, shady exchanges and very low trading volume.

Tangle - TGL

Why the odd name that doesn't have anything to do with its usecase in any shape or form, but also has a very clear other meaning in crypto space (for example IOTA's Tangle). Yes, listed developers are active on github, but not particularly yet on the Tangle project (yet). The fact that they only allocated 10% of the supply and claim that they won't be paying out salaries to the team from the ICO funds at least make it appear that it wouldn't be a money grab. Well, let's see how that will turn out. I couldn't find anything particularly suspicious about this project, so I am going to rate this cautiously with a degree of confidence until proven otherwise (innocent until proven guilty). My gut feeling is just a bit uncomfortable when looking at it as a whole, after seeing so many crypto projects in so many years, I can't help being a little skeptical. Hopefully the team will prove to be as legit as they want us to believe.

Elitetreum - ELT

EverGreenCoin - EGC

They do not seem to be misleading investors in any form and as long as you consider this a community coin to incentivize charity without profit expectations, I don't see much of a problem with it. I also don't see reasons to not trust this foundation to actually employ the intended funds indeed for charity. 

Everex - EVX

They seem to be a legit company that is supposed to be a sort of Paypal for the unbanked by utilizing blockchain for remittances and microlending. Although more coins/tokens often claim they solve the remittance issue by just launching a cryptocurrency that should be the solution in and out of itself, at least Everex seems to be building a system of remittances by using e-money tokens that are (let's assume their claim is real) backed by actual fiat currency deposits. This usecase does however entirely depend on the Everex company as a centralized entity to be successful, so the token does not represent a decentralized value proposition. so investors need to be aware of that. 

TopTen - TPT

I don't trust this at all. Seems like team is trying to leverage the blockchain cryptocurrency hype to launch a token for a project that doesn't seem to need any blockchain or cryptocurrency (top 10 list site), because first and foremost it also doesn't seem to need some of the primary aspects of the technology (censorship resistance, unconfiscatability, immutability, etc). As no further information is available, I am unaware if they have been trying to raise funds from crypto investors somehow to get their project off the ground, which would make my view even worse. So in my personal estimation this project is leaning shady under the information available at time of writing. 

OLXA - OLXA

Be very cautious with this coin. Apart from issuing the ERC20 token there has been no innovative development anymore on the cryptocurrency. Only accomplishment apparently is the admycash platform that doesn't seem to be needing a token at all (but only for that at least they have been delivering more than most of these types of shady projects). Whitepaper explanation about solving double spending problem is laughable and clearly intended to mislead uninformed readers. Claim of being a private and anonymous cryptocurrency is honestly just completely irresponsible and dangerous + the (poor) pseudonymous feature has nothing to do with the project itself but is inherent to Ethereum; and even bitcoin achieves more pseudonimity than Ethereum AND is a more secure network as a bonus. 92% of supply is held by 1 address. Don't be naive and think twice,thrice before handing out your money to people that are deceiving you. These types of bogus cryptocurrencies are just bad for the reputation of legit projects, because people are going out there promoting these crap coins to the outside world, which will not leave a favorable experience for them. So kudos for the team to deliver an unrelated to OLXA token utility with admycash (but as per what was mentioned by someone else about what kind of crypto business users will be promoting through that platform, one should be very cautious not to be promoting scams unknowingly), but the amount of misrepresentation and red flags are just too overwhelming. 

Wixlar - WIX

Part of the team is some entity called "Cash Global Marketing", which name only should already raise the highest suspicion, well and indeed, if you click on their link http://cashglobalmarketing.com you will be directed to a "parked for free" page. If I look at the sum total of this page, my first feeling is that this project is secretly being used to sell some pyramid scheme, although I couldn't find direct evidence (yet). Great marketeers and the buzz words are all over the place. 

Tratin - TRAT

Github shows you that there were 14 contributions last year (between Aug and Oct), 7 months with no contributions at all. The only released code is less than 150 lines nothing more than a standard ERC20 token smart contract. Hopefully the ICO didn't raise too much money because this is vaporware, guaranteed to lose your money in!

Dropil - DROP

I do agree that indeed the only aspect that would warrant for caution would be the DEX trading bot, other offered services seem reasonably legit and real. I do have some concerns:

BravoCoin - BRAVO

I wish there was a whitepaper to explain why a restaurant review site needs censorship resistance? Maybe this website has great utility and if they are really good they might take on the competition with Tripadvisor or Yelp, but I don't see any usecase for the cryptocurrency attached to it, other than reward points that you get on many community/forum/review sites (including cryptocanary). So where why would anyone want to buy this coin? how does a coin holder benefit from the success of the service? These questions are hard to answer because the project doesn't provide transaparency about the project's eco system and the role of its coin. We don't even know anything about supply, distribution, inflation, etc. Not even a blockexplorer. Is there even a blockchain or is it just a regular database on a centralized server? No apparent fund raising and virtually no one can buy the token anyway, so small change anyone would be able to lose money by investing in this, because that would require quite an effort (at least for now until they get listed on more mainstream exchanges)

Doubly -

Hey Hey Heeeeeyyy! We got another one: Bitconnect 2019! Technically this is not a coin (oddly enough, because usually all these have their coin as well, but I hope the admins will approve this anyway, because the word needs to get out). Has all the same red flags as Bitconnect, promising even higher "guaranteed payouts" than Bitconnect, of course with absolutely no risk and money back guarantee:

Help The Homeless Coin - HTH

This seems either a well intended but failing project due to lack of interest of the audience or a project that was trying to bank on the charitable character of a great part of human society. After all, who can criticize noble initiatives? Well, in crypto unfortunately this is a must. Why in the world does this project need a coin, instead people can just donate bitcoin, there doesn't seem to be any use for the coin except mining and masternodes. Apart from a 15% block rewards taxation that goes to charity, there is also a 10% block rewards taxation that goes to the devs. They claim there is no pre-mine though (contrary to what a previous reviewer suspects), so if there appears to be a pre mine after all, then that could be a huge red flag, but as said, so far there seems to be no indication of a (secret) pre mine.

Triwer - TRW

I don't know what happened to this project, little to be found about its destiny. At best it has just died, at worst it was an exit scam. Website doesn't exist anymore, social media abandoned (TG account doesn't exist anymore either) since summer 2018 and Github not updated since a year and only contained the ERC20 token contract. Looks a lot like they just issued a token, made some marketing material, did the ICO and then abandoned the ship. According to one of the ICO tracking websites I found that they raised around $5 million. Makes you fear the worst for the investors' money. Does anyone has a clue what happened with this project? For now I am just gonna assume the worst.

Slicecoin - SLC

1 person project opened like a week ago (social media and github launched as recently as that). No information available on the website except social media accounts (with few following so far). It is supposed to be a mineable (Qubit) community coin and you can mine through a couple of pools apparently. It is based on litecoin code (so in that sense it seems to be a fork) which according to the github page has many improvements on the LTC code, whatever those might be. So far no sign of innovation and it aims to be exactly what coins like litecoin and bitcoin aim to be: 

ARBITRAGE - ARB

Yet another typical ponzi arbitrage trading bot with coin attached to it. 0.7% monthly payout promise and your typical red flag under the category "if it sounds too good to be true, it is probably not true." Exit scam in progress probably. Payments started out rock solid to give the platform credibility. Of course there is no proof of the bot working; there is "proof" provided by the team, but that is highly circumstantial. However as per usual the signals of an exit in progress are there also: "ddos attack" (platform down), restricted payouts and from what I understand many users are unable to withdraw anything. This video gives a pretty good insight of what is going on: https://youtu.be/_JUs-ndhVys. 

CryptoLux - CLX

Cookie cutter ponzi/MLM bitconnect imitator. It may be a russian platform, the founder, sole owner and sole director is a Robert Alexander as shown in the incorporation filing in British chamber of commerce. 

RxSmartCoffee - RXSC

Huge red flag: this project smells like a pyramid scheme. It has already some of the tell tale signs on the website, where special cure all health benefits are assigned to the coffee products they sell in combination with video testimonials of people who suffered from all kinds of health issues that disappeared thanks to this coffee. This is template MLM offering. And a quick google search brings you to this page where the MLM is clear, because you can earn commissions on distributors that you sponsor. http://www.familybiz.rxsmartcoffee.com/opportunity.aspx. 

BOMB - BOMB

I think there is a lot more to criticize this project on in terms of its merits rather than if it is shady or not. Considering the focus this reviewing platform I will only look at its trustworthiness. It seems this team is quite upfront about their intentions and that is a social experiment. They are clear that they don't aim to be a transactional currency, but rather focus on store of value. They don't promise high profits and didn't do an ico, instead giveaway all coins. Interesting concept that they try to experiment with a true deflationary currency, because 1% of coins is burned of each transaction. They seemed to have developed a passionate community around the project. However that is not yet reflected in trading volume on the only decentralized exchange (DDEX) that they are listed on.

NovaChain - NOVA

First red flag: Arbitragebot!!! Come on people, anyone that has an active working arbitrage bot is not gonna share it with the public because profits that the edge the bot would have, would instantly disappear. Any sight that offers an arbitrage bot is just using that as disguise of their ponzi-like scam. Ofcourse there is never any LIVE proof given of such a bot actually existing and doing what it promises to do. 

OneCoin - ONE

And for those that still aren't convinced, there have been recent developments with regards to One Coin: FBI has arrested one of the ringleaders recently. Apparently One coin didn't even bother to launch an actual blockchain or even an ERC20 token, instead they just used an SQL, so much for the "revolutionary" cryptocurrency. Even Bitconnect at least had their own blockchain (I believe).

Topinvestmentcoin - TICO

Ayayayay, this should be called "Nigerian Prince Coin" lol! Whitepaper is an absolute joke! They are essentially selling Ethereum as a wonderful solution and then conflate their ERC20 token as a natural success because of Ethereum's success somehowm but nothing about what actual benefit the token brings. I managed to find this of very few sentences that are actually about TICO coin: "With Topinvestmentcoin you will have access to marketplace to ask&bid including the mobile staking wallet which gives you 3% monthly for every investor." No actual value to be found here people!

Edcash - EDC

Zero innovation on this Brazilian copycat of the already questionable Bitcoin Green project (Green Protocol). Even the Readme text is precisely the same as for EDCash as it is for the Green Protocol. Team consists of 3 people according to the website, that are completely anonymous (only avatars). Team is 1 business manager (description: "public relations) and 2 developers, also without background information at all. 

EOSBet - BET

At first glance this seems pretty solid and innovative project with a promising future looking at the license and popularity (biggest dapp ever in usage and volume apparently). Also it seems to introduce radical fairness to betting by an innovation where the user him/herselve generates the seed for randomness apparently. I do have to state some reservations because of the following observations that may or may not have any significance, but at least raised my eye brows more than just a little: 

Nasgo - NSG

Pure pyramid and ponzi scheme scam! There seems to have been an ICO, but that was done in secrecy so it seems, so there is no definitive proof of that. Will summarize the red flags soon. I would rate this as "Shady AF" if I could, but that rating tier doesn't exist, so I have to go with the milder "Super Shady". Pay attention, the actual pyramid/ponzi activity is done through Sharenode (with their own internal SNP token, not exchange listed). Eventhough Nasgo (NSG) is technically listed on Bitforex, it doesn't appear (yet) on CMC. 

Beam - BEAM

I do have high hopes for MimbleWimble and I do believe that this team can generally be considered not be scammers. I understand that a team needs some form of funding somehow, but the 20% taxation on mining rewards model is generally seen as a sin in crypto ethics and I would side with that. 

Bitcoiin - B2G

Oh boy do I have a gem of a scam for you here: BITCOIIN, yes you read that right, these mf-ers were banking on the name bitcoin with double "i", clearly trying to deceive people by using this name. 

ClearPoll - POLL

I am going to second the previous review, however I am going to double down on it by giving it a tier worse rating because I just read that ClearPoll will be part of the JOHN MCAFEE 2020 presidential campaign!!! Yes, you did read that right! What a way to spend your ICO funds/tokens! They say it is to gain exposure for ClearPoll token through the presidential campaign, but I have serious reservations around this whole idea! Or am i being too suspicious?

DeepBrain Chain - DBC

Chinese AI project on NEO blockchain that is allegedly implicitly backed by the chinese government. Couldn't find much that is negative about the project, except maybe this post on r/cryptocurrency that is quite technical:  https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/7od7vg/deep_brain_chain_dbc_is_vaporware_and_heres_why/. 

Divi - Divi

The more I look at this the more shady I think it is. Red flags all over, marketing gimmicks, focus on making money, subscription for masternodes, and looking at the storm of reviews here, brigades of shillers that come to the rescue immediately (usually that smells fishy to me). Also, any coin that claims to become a worldwide adopted currency, but has a CEO, is almost by default not going to be successful. A Youtuber that i kinda think is reasonably credible said that he has met members from the team in person at some conference, so at least there are real people, so I don't think it is an exit scam or anything, just your average money grab. Bag holders, I'm afraid it is time to realize the harsh reality: this coin is not likely to go anywhere, not enough traction, not enough innovation, just vaporware.

Ethos - ETHOS

I do believe this project in and out itself is fairly legit and even though it might be controversial if the wallet is as secure as claimed, mobile wallet security in general is very deemed very controversial all around, so as long as they are at least as safe as most other wallets, I'd say it must be a reasonable product, no criticism there! The only thing I have some concerns about is the actual related token: I have still to find out where its value comes from, what its actual usecase is in relation to the wallet that justifies its existence. After all, they did raise a lot of money in return for those tokens. Not saying that the token is shady, but I think it is wise for every investor to clearly find out where the value of this token is supposed to come from before considering buying it as an investment.

BitTorrent - BTT

Well if only whales get burned by this latest Justin Sun money grab. I wouldn't mind it so much, but unfortunately also average retail investors can be this token on the market from the whales. I was disappointed they did an ICO for this; if they wanted to use a fair token reward system, they should have airdropped it. Imo this is a stab in the back for TRX holders. Not sure about the eventual token utility or if it could have any meaningful future value to consider investing in it regardless of its inception, but the pile of red flags make it really hard to trust this.

Dignity - DIG

This is actually a confirmed scam with 99% probability. This project was supposed to be backed by gold and have its own mining operation. Founders even suggested that they knew Satoshi and were actively in contact with him! Top directors have been involved with brokers that have received penalties for violations by FINRA. Lots of promises; no delivery. Very elaborated scam! They were able to fool Ronnie Moas into believing and endorsing the project! Ronnie Moas is an influencer and reputable analyst that has appeared on TV often. Recently he has called out DIG as a scam and is in the process of trying to get the ringleaders punished by legal action. On his Twitter is a lot of his research available.

Litecoin Cash - LCC

Sorry but this looks totally like somebody printing their own money by doing a hardfork on LTC just like Bitcoin Cash did on BTC, hitch-hiking on the name and reputation of Litecoin. It smells like garbage on all sides, so I wouldn’t touch it with a 5 feet pole. Please people, don’t fall for these obvious scams and shitcoins, get-rich-quick schemes usually turn out to be get-poor-quicker, so don’t waste money and time on this crap; focus on high profile quality projects only!

Credits - CS

This project was initially highly criticized by Ivanontech because of its lack of transparency in publishing the source code on Github, which increased the potential of it being a supershady project. As of recently Ivan seemed to have been more favorable (less unfavorable) towards the project, because he even did a (sponsored) tutorial about coding on the project. He did say that he thought the transparency had improved, though not optimal yet. I would therefore go with a 50/50 on this project. It is centralized as hell though, so buyer beware, then again, which of 99,9% of all crypto coins/tokens isn’t completely centralized?

Steem - STEEM

Fuel to power the steemit network. I know many are very skeptical towards Dan Larimer’s projects, especially the latest EOS, but I think with Steemit he built a solid decentralized blogging platform with a cryptocurrency rewards element. It is unfortunate that nowadays it will be hard to earn a substantial amount on the platform from content creation. Another criticism is that Dan always leaves his projects to start another; but the fact the founder is not in charge anymore and stays afloat anyway, the decentralized nature in terms of leadership is achieved as well. Not sure if it is the best investment as of right now, but I do believe the Steem project has brought a valuable contribution to the cryptocurrency and blockchain space. I believe this project is far from shady imho.

TenX - PAY

This was a very successful and promising ICO back in 2017 that got off a decent start, partly fueled by the 2017 bull run and ICO madness. The team, with Julian Hosp as visible leader of the project, always seemed serious and genuine in their efforts to become a successful crypto business. One of their key features was a VISA card that could be loaded with crypto balances. They actually shipped a lot of cards that have been used by many clients. However the project got into trouble when their card provider was ordered to stop services for European clients and their cards project grinded to a halt which was a major setback. They then pursued a banking license to become a crypto bank, but unfortunately I don’t know how that turned out or how far this process is. The project fell more and more into the background and likewise the TenX token fell lower and lower on Coinmarketcap. The token was supposed to be used for fees for transaction that are done using their services and I believe a profit sharing was part of the deal for token holders. Personally I don’t believe TenX is a shady project; I do believe they genuinely try/tried to make it successful, however I worry that it might be a dying project nevertheless.

Monetha - MTH

I tried to participate in their ICO, which was hyped AF that time. Almost nobody was able to send their Ether to participate and it was sold out in minutes because of the huge gas war as well and they didn’t seem to care that smaller investors didn’t have a chance. I perceived it as a big money grab. After all I was happy I couldn’t participate because the token did absolutely nothing but tanking after listing on exchange(s). Every once in a while I check to see if there is progress and I can’t really notice anything of substance. ICO was 1.5 years ago; Monetha what’s up?

Envion - EVN

After seeing and hearing the story from both sides in the conflict, it seems one of both (founders or CEO) have been trying to hijack the project for their own benefit. First of all tokens were still being sold eventhough the ICO already had ended, which was shady in and out of itself already. Then right after the ICO process was concluded, nobody heard from the team anymore for months, until the internal dispute was announced. Anyway still no mining units in operation and token holders are not receiving any benefits from their investment that went from a $1 ICO price to $0.04 currently.

Verge - XVG

Endlessly postponed the Wraith Protocol, which has also been very controversial if it adds even anything substantial as they hyped it. They tried to raise funds from their coin holders for a huge announcement that would only go through if they reached a certain amount: that appeared to be the Pornhub partnership. Also they suffered a 51% attack 3 times. Seems a shady, unprofessional project and far from a secure store of value. Has also been through multiple epic pump&dump cycles

Electroneum - ETN

I don't see value added in this project. Enormous shillers community. They copy/pasted Monero code to launch this cryptocurrency and then forgot to take out a bug that was in the original code. So on the tech side not much going for. On the promotional side: claiming mobile mining with your mobile device, while in fact your wallet doesn't do any mining; it is just a "mining experience"; in fact coins are just airdropped; which seems fair enough as distribution method, but then promoting it as mining seems a bit sketchy. Useless, unnecessary vaporware for people that "missed the boat" with bitcoin and ethereum and now hope to get rich quick with this. Oh and did I mention that it seems completely centralized, as it is a registered company.

Bitcoin Cash - BCH

I agree with the previous review. I do believe that the majority of people behind Bitcoin Cash are not intentionally trying to scam people because they genuinely believe that BCH represents real Bitcoin. They have of course the right to believe that. Problem is indeed if they use shady tactics to convince newbies that bitcoin cash is the real bitcoin and trick them into buying. So in this case I would highly recommend: buyer beware!! And do a ton of research on both coins (BTC and BCH) to form your own opinion about both coins.

Tether - USDT

Indeed there is no proof at all that circulating tokens are fully backed by USD and thus the fractional reserve banking theory Tether is accused of can't be debunked so far. The mere fact that they aren't able/willing to provide an official audit despite their promise to do so, makes it all the more suspicious. It has been the only functioning stablecoin for the longest time though and due to its liquidity quite useful and convenient on most exchanges. But because there is practically no way of cashing out USDT tokens at Tether for regular users, a real bank run seems quite impossible. The market price could however completely implode and we already have seen the first crack in its reputation with the recent Tether crash where it lost its dollar peg for quite some time and has a hard time to recover. I would only use USDT if I absolutely had to and for the shortest amount of time have funds in it. There are other stablecoins available now if you wanna store against USD value for a bit longer.

EOS - EOS

Highly controversial project within the cryptospace. Dan Larimer's reputation because of Steem has given him a good amount of credibility. The amount of money they raised through the ICO seems beyond any reason though and there seems to be a lot to be fixed on the tech side as well as the governance side. This is either the most overpriced software of all time, the biggest crypto heist of all time or (if all current issues are being resolved) it turns out to be a new force in the crypto space. I am personally 90% confident that this is not an intentional scam, but that doesn't mean it couldn't fail either.

Ripple - XRP

Company that launched a centralized digital currency XRP as a project that has nothing to do with decentralized cryptocurrencies. They are potentially even guilty of selling unregistered securities to fund their business and used hype marketing to pump up the price beyond all reason. They frequently conflate Ripple company's achievements that have nothing to do with the digital token XRP in order to push up the token price. Ladies and gentlemen, this is your anti-cryptocurrency with a centralized company that conducts shady business practices.

TRON - TRX

Uses deceitful marketing techniques and tries to overhype prices in order to lure uneducated retail investors. Don't know much about the technical side of this project, which could perhaps give it some legitimacy, but as far as I'm concerned, completely disqualifying based on marketing tricks.

Dogecoin - DOGE

This coin has such a long track record and acceptance in the broader crypto community and being part of the early beginnings of crypto, that even though it might have started out as a joke (of which everybody was fully aware), it has certainly reached a level of legitimacy, at least far more than 95% of all other coins!