When first ICOs came out they were honestly raising money to their smart contract. They were transparent and anyone could see how much money they had really raised. Sadly the good times are now over.
Today most ICOs hide their investments and you can no longer track their activity or check if they are lying. But quite recently some ICOs start to raise funds in a way that is close to a scam: they do it completely without a smart contract.
Unfortunately there are quite many such ICOs, but we will discuss here about the one who does this in the dirties way: Fetch AI.
You see many ICOs that don’t have smart contract still state on their website that they are indeed an ICO, have specific amount of tokens and a hardcap. The only problem is that you cannot find their token on Etherscan.
But Fetch goes beyond that. On their website there is no information about ICO sale, but out of sight they are aggressively pushing their fundraising: contacting ICO investors and different ICO pools and begging for money. If you ask about this in their Telegram group they will lie about it and you will get banned.
The amount of raise by Fetch is unknown, but I hope for investors sake that it’s low. In order to tempt investors Fetch is claiming that price of their tokens will raise after every sale they make. But there is no proof if this will happen for real.
So what is it like to invest in Fetch (or to another ICO that has no smart contract)?
- It’s not an ICO, and may never be
- There may never be any tokens.
- The whole fundraising may be a giant scam.
- You are not investing. You are giving money for free and hoping that you will receive one day something in exchange.
- Hardcap is unknown and probably very huge. Token will be sold to everyone who wants them and therefore after token sale will be finished there will be no demand anymore.
- Number of tokens may be subject to change and if there is more demand they will be printed like fake money.
- Price may go up and down without your knowledge. You may buy tokens for 1$, but after a month they will be sold for 0,50$.
- Token sale may last for ages. And since it’s not publicly announced they will still tell new investors after a year that they just begun raising money.
- It may take years before tokens will be released and get listed in exchange, which will result in massive dump from frustrated investors.
- The team may reserve huge amount of tokens for themselves (e.g. 90%) and manipulate the market after they get listed in exchanges.
So are you still thinking of investing in ICO that has no smart contract? Don’t be fooled. Always check Etherscan!