Reserach Questions
When researching a project, the following questions provide a good guideline for evaluation.
First Look (most to least important)
- Token (Is the token fairly distributed? Does the project need a token at all?)
- Value/Mcap (How good is the value proposition, if any, relative to the market cap?)
- Price (Has the token survived at least one bear market?, Is price generally uptrending?)
- Development (Is there active development on Github? Are the commits/branches solid?)
- Team (Is the founder+team capable of executing, or fake/anon?)
- Potential (What’s the potential of getting exchange listings/CT attention/actual users?)
- Socials (Is the project active on socials? Is there a supportive community?)
Idea
- Is there a clear value proposition?
- Does the project solve a real problem and provide a valid use-case?
- Is the use case intentinonally based on hype/buzz words?
- Is there a hot narrative driving the momentum of the project?
- Is the project disrupting/innovating, or copying/forking?
- How crowded is the space? How many competitors are there?
- Can the project achieve a large network effect/go viral?
Intent
- Does the website urge to buy (with buy prompts etc)?
- Is the team shilling their own token?
- Is the project just in for the money, or to create value?
- Can the team execute on the intent?
- How scammy is the project/token?
Team
- Is the team fake/anonymous?
- Does the team has quality backers/founders?
- Is the team qualified and sufficient in man-power to realize the vision?
- Does the team or the backers have good connections within crypto?
- Does the team provide regular community updates from their individual accounts?
- Is the team working full-time from a single location, or sporadically from around the world?
- Do they have a large community & following?
- Do they have a marketing strategy & sufficient funds?
Technology
- Have they been audited by multiple parties?
- Is there regular & active development on Github?
- How technical is the whitepaper/the team?
Price
- Is the token recently launched with continuously declining volume?
- Was there a second push/demand run for the tokens?
- Is the token available on T1/T2 exchanges?
- Is there enough liquidity to enter/exit without large price changes?
- Is the price currently pumping, or in discovery?
- Is the token in accumulation or distribution?
- Is the market cap sufficiently small for 10-100x growth?
- What is the risk/reward given the current price?
Token
- What is the quantity of tokens controlled by the team? (Not just team tokens)
- What is the quantity of tokens controlled by VCs?
- What is the unlock schedule of tokens by team & VCs?
- What are the distribution, inflation, vesting periods, circulating supply schedules?
- Does the token provide a staking, locking or deflationary mechanism?
- Does the token provide actual utility beyond speculation?
- Does the token demand increase as the use for the project increases?
- Could the project operate without a token? Why exactly does it need a token?
- Is there a holder rewards mechanism (fee burns, revenue sharing, etc)?
- How obvious is it that the token is a security?