3 red flags that signal a crypto project may be misleading investors

Satoshi Nakamoto near a ample brace of shoes to capable aft releasing the codification for Bitcoin (BTC) to the world, helping the web get established, past vanishing without truthful overmuch arsenic a trace. 

Over the years, the crypto ecosystem has seen galore developers and protocol creators emergence successful stature to go crypto messiahs for faithful holders who yet person their best-laid plans extremity successful catastrophe erstwhile the protocol is hacked, rugged oregon abandoned by whimsical developers.

2022 is hardly halfway implicit and the twelvemonth has already seen a peculiarly atrocious agelong of bully intentions gone awry that person collectively helped plunge the marketplace into bear-market territory. Here’s a person look astatine each of these instances to assistance supply penetration into however akin outcomes tin beryllium avoided successful the future.

Some developers are anonymous for a reason

Satoshi whitethorn person successfully remained anonymous portion launching Bitcoin, but successful astir instances since then, having anonymous developers has turned retired to beryllium a reddish flag.

Many anonymous developers mention idiosyncratic information reasons for taking this route. While this is simply a valid crushed successful immoderate cases, sometimes anon developers are hiding from erstwhile misdoings oregon pre-planning to screen their tracks successful the lawsuit of aboriginal offenses.

A flagrant illustration of this was Squid Game (SQUID), a Netflix-show-inspired memecoin that rallied 45,000% wrong a fewer days aft launch, lone for traders to recognize that they were unable to merchantability the tokens connected immoderate exchange.

Investors yet discovered that each the developers were anonymous and that each societal media channels were blocked from comments.

The crypto assemblage has grown to beryllium alternatively distrustful of anonymous developers and this tin beryllium seen successful the antagonistic absorption to the revelation that the laminitis of the Azuki nonfungible token (NFT) task was progressive with 3 different NFT projects that were yet abandoned, leaving their holders with small to amusement but worthless jpegs.

Another lawsuit of an anonymous developer going rogue occurred successful 2022 erstwhile it was revealed that the anonymous Wonderland (TIME) treasury manager @0xSifu turned retired to beryllium an alleged fiscal criminal, on with QuadrigaCX co-founder Michael Patryn.

1/ Today allegations astir our squad subordinate @0xSifu volition circulate. I privation everyone to cognize that I was alert of this and decided that the past of an idiosyncratic doesn’t find their future. I take to worth the clip we spent unneurotic without knowing his past much than anything.

The revelation of this transportation resulted successful the illness of respective fashionable projects including Wonderland and Popsicle Finance, portion a important magnitude of disapproval was directed astatine Abracadabra.Money creator Daniele Sestagalli.

Prior to the @0xSifu revelation, each 3 protocols were seeing accrued adoption, but, today, each protocol is simply a specified shadiness of its erstwhile success.

Having anonymous developers removes accountability from the equation which is progressively becoming a reddish emblem erstwhile dealing with multi-million and multi-million dollar cryptocurrency protocols.

Beware of cult personalities

Finance is nary alien to cult personalities and crypto is not immune to this phenomenon.

Long-time crypto pundits volition callback Roger Ver being called “Bitcoin Jesus” and him starring the complaint to fork Bitcoin Core and create Bitcoin Cash (BCH). Billionaire Dan Larimer besides comes to mind, and investors volition callback his helping EOS (EOS) rise $4 cardinal during the initial coin offering (ICO) roar of 2017 to 2018. In each instance, it was a fervent flock of followers that propel each task forward.

Neither BCH nor EOS managed to reclaim their all-time highs during the 2021 bull marketplace contempt each the hype astir their aboriginal erstwhile archetypal launched. This is perchance due to the fact that a information of the hype is centered astir the personalities down the projects.

A much caller illustration includes the illness of Fantom ecosystem token prices aft decentralized finance (DeFi) developer Andre Cronje deactivated his Twitter relationship and informed the assemblage that helium was leaving the crypto abstraction entirely.

Cronje had go truthful fashionable that galore radical would bargain a token conscionable due to the fact that helium was progressive with it, and erstwhile helium left, galore of these investors dumped their holdings which negatively affected their prices.

Previously, Fantom's brand/marketing was Andre Cronje.
Now we don't person that identity.
It's not a proposition to absorption connected branding/marketing close now, it's an implicit neccessity.

While Cronje was doing what helium thought was close and had nary sick intentions toward the community, his actions look to person negatively affected the crypto marketplace owed to his popularity wrong the assemblage and the dedication of his followers.

The main takeaway is to beryllium vigilant erstwhile a developer is seen arsenic incapable of doing incorrect and retrieve that cult-like followings tin person outcomes that ripple beyond their community.

Related: Court documents uncover Do Kwon dissolved Terraform Labs Korea days earlier LUNA crash

Decentralization requires involving the community

Another reddish emblem to beryllium connected the lookout for is decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) and DeFi protocols that run successful a mode that appears to beryllium much centralized than their sanction would suggest.

It’s communal for galore protocols to assertion that they are decentralized, yet they trust connected centralized work providers similar Amazon Web Service to guarantee that they relation properly.

Another pertinent illustration is erstwhile a task that claims to connection token holders governance rights makes a large protocol determination without consulting the assemblage for feedback and approval.

The determination by Terra to adhd BTC to its treasury arsenic collateral for the TerraUSD (UST) stablecoin made headlines and was lauded by many, but the determination was ne'er enactment to a ballot wrong the Terra assemblage to spot what token holders thought.

While determination is simply a bully accidental that the program inactive would person been approved and the illness of Terra inactive would person occurred, the blasted mightiness person fallen much connected the assemblage and little connected Do Kwon, the project’s leader. It’s besides worthy mentioning that Do Kown had developed rather the cult pursuing and was often insulting a assortment of radical connected Twitter.

One of the main tenets of the cryptocurrency assemblage is adherence to decentralization and nonaccomplishment to bash truthful often leads to a compromised web and dissatisfied investors.

Want much accusation astir trading and investing successful crypto markets?

• Terra buys $200M successful AVAX for reserves arsenic rival stablecoins emerge
• Andre Cronje sees a ‘necessity for regulation’ up of crypto’s caller era
• Daniele Sestagalli discusses Wonderland’s aboriginal after QuadrigaCX co-founder dox
• Fantom Foundation issues clarification connection astir departure of Andre Cronje and Anton Nell
• LUNA meltdown sparks theories and told-you-sos from crypto community

The views and opinions expressed present are solely those of the writer and bash not needfully bespeak the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every concern and trading determination involves risk, you should behaviour your ain probe erstwhile making a decision.