Knowing how to check an ICO takes about 30 minutes and can prevent a total loss. An ICO (initial coin offering) is a token sale where a project sells tokens before they trade on exchanges. Anyone can launch one, and a payment cannot be reversed. This checklist covers what to look up before you send any money.
Contents
How to check an ICO: 7 steps
1. Confirm the official website and links
Do this first when you check an ICO, because every later step depends on the right links. Get the website from the project’s official X account and check that it matches the address in the project’s documents. Check the web address letter by letter. Buy only on the sale page linked from the official website. Do not use links from direct messages or replies.
2. Read the whitepaper or docs
Find out what the product does, who it is for, and whether anything works today. The FTC lists vague explanations of how an investment works as a warning sign. If you cannot explain in one sentence what the project does, keep reading or skip it.
3. Check the token allocation
Look for total supply, the share sold in the ICO, and the shares for the team, marketing and liquidity. Check the unlock schedule (vesting) for team tokens. For example, the Phew ICO docs state 400,000,000 of 1,000,000,000 PHEW (40%) for the presale, split over ten stages.
4. Compare the sale price with the stated listing price
Find the price at each stage and the price the project says tokens will list at. Phew, for example, lists a Stage 1 price of $0.01 rising to $0.0516 in Stage 10, with a stated listing price of $0.258. A stated listing price is the project’s claim, not a market price.
5. Check the team
Look for real names, a track record, past projects and a GitHub account with activity. If the team is anonymous, there is no named person to hold responsible if funds disappear.
6. Check the contracts and the audit
Find the token and sale contract addresses in the official docs. Look both up on a block explorer and make sure they match across the website, the docs and the project’s social accounts. If there is an audit, check who did it and read the findings. An audit reduces risk but does not remove it. On the explorer you can also open the token’s holder list. If a few wallets hold most of the supply, you can see that before you buy.
7. Read the sale terms
Find the hard cap (the most the sale can raise), the soft cap (the minimum target), the dates, the accepted payments, KYC rules, refund terms, and when and how tokens are delivered. Also check which network the sale uses. Send payment only on the network named in the official docs, because funds sent on a different network can be lost. For example, Avirvox Labs lists a hard cap of $6,750,000, and Phew lists $10,383,600.
Red flags that mean you should stop
- A promise of guaranteed returns or “zero risk”. The FTC lists both as scam signs.
- A request to send payment to a personal wallet or through a direct message.
- A countdown or “last chance” message that pushes you to pay quickly.
- A contract address that differs between the website and the docs.
- No documents and no named team.
Where to find ICOs to check
The ICO Hub lists active and upcoming token sales with prices, dates and chains. See also the ICOs to watch in October 2026. CryptoLaunchHub lists details from project documents and public sources and does not verify them, so use the steps in this guide on how to check an ICO for every project you find.