How To Spot Bad Airdrops?

Table of Contents

• 1. Check the website 
• 2. Check the team
• 3. Check the white papers
• 4. Watch out for the KYC's
• 5. Check the ICO ratings
• Conclusion

When you are applying for crypto airdrops it is important to have the same mentality as you are investing in the ICO. You are not investing your money in the airdrops, but you are investing your time. Occasionally you are sharing your private information. There is no point in applying for the airdrops if the cryptocurrency project has no potential. Even if you will get earned tokens, they may never gain value. 

You do not need to invest the same amount of energy into the project research like what you will do if you are investing in the ICO, but there are the minimum things you should be aware of. Just for the case to not get scammed. This research can be completed in a short period and should be sufficient for safe airdrop participation.

1. Check the website 

The first thing you should do is to check the website. If you have already seen the same template then that is the first sign that something may be wrong with the project. Most of the projects are using WordPress for website developing. There is nothing wrong with it. I like WordPress and have been using it for building dozens of websites. Even the new Facebook cryptocurrency Libra (it may be discussed if Libra is even a real cryptocurrency) is using WordPress for the website. You can check if the website is using WordPress by examining the source code or you can use wpdetector.com to check it. But if the project is built around the website platform, then WordPress may have difficulties with it and it may not be the best solution.

2. Check the team

The second thing you should check is to visit the team section on the website. If there is no team section then that is a huge warning. Only exceptions may be exchanges since in most cases they do not have team sections.

Team members should have a LinkedIn profile. It is a warning if they do not have it. If you are suspicious in the project legitimacy you can check the member's photos. It is easy. You need to use the Chrome browser and select “Search Google for image” on right-click. If a photo is already used by someone else then that is an ultimate scam warning.

3. Check the white papers

If the project doesn't have white papers, then that is another big warning. Yet again, only exceptions are exchanges. They often do not have white papers. If there are white papers and you have doubts regarding project legitimacy, it will be good to check the white papers. If you are not feeling like reading the whole papers, then at least check it for plagiarism. The simplest way is to use quetext.com or some similar website.

4. Watch out for the KYC's

Due to regulations projects don't have alternative options but to implement KYC. KYC stands for “Know Your Customer”. That means that users need to provide personal information, like photos of the ID or passport to participate in the ICO or airdrop. If checking the above steps raised your suspicions about the project never do the KYC. In most cases those kinds of airdrops are scams and they are selling personal information on the dark web. The average price of a digital passport scan is $14.71.

5. Check the ICO ratings

For a quick check of the project good thing is to see the ICO ratings. Most popular sites for ICO reviews are ICObench.com and ICOmarks. Even if it is found out that lots of ratings are rigged those ratings still have a weight. In airdrops you are not investing money, but time and those ratings will give you perspective about the project potential.

Conclusion

Analysis can be done in a really short time. It will be sufficient to decide if airdrop participation is worth of your time. If you have not found any sign of a bad airdrop, and the project has good ICO ratings then participation is strongly recommended, especially if airdrop has referral rewards. But, if you have found a sign of a bad airdrop don't waste your time in participating. You will probably never get tokens, and if you get it there is a small chance they will ever have some value.