Introduction

Recently, Tonstakers published an introductory post on financial literacy on the TON network, highlighting the connection between the rise of meme coins and fraud in the network (if you haven’t read it yet, now is the time). Almost immediately after its publication, a study was released, stating that 2023 was a record year for the number of closed crypto projects.

Alpha Quest & Storible report, 2024

The study showed that each year sees an increasing number of crypto projects being created, but most of them quickly close down (for various reasons, including fraud). Therefore, in 2024, users should be even more cautious when choosing a project to invest in, as the number of closed projects will continue to rise. This is due to the following reasons:

• Firstly, since the beginning of 2024, the TON blockchain has seen a significant influx of new users (due to the release of Notcoin, the announcement of advertising payments in Telegram Ads through TON, TON listing on Binance, TON price growth, etc.);
• Secondly, the overall growth of the crypto market (bull run) contributes to the increase in the number of users. For example, the BIS study provides the following example:

We find that 73% of users downloaded their app when the price of Bitcoin was above $20,000 — above the price of Bitcoin in October 2022).Sensor Tower; World Bank

• Thirdly, according to experts’ estimates, the crypto market in 2024 will grow to as many as 900 million users.

For the crypto market, these are excellent news, indicating economic growth for the entire market and, consequently, its participants. However, ordinary users need to be more careful than ever.

This can be compared to the economic growth of a city to the level of a metropolis: its residents have many new economic and financial opportunities, the standard of living has increased, but at the same time, new risks emerge. Due to the increase in cars and roads, there is a higher frequency of road accidents, and due to the growth of small and medium-sized businesses, there is an increase in the number of violations in competition and entrepreneurship. Therefore, in such moments, the role and importance of behavioral rules increase.

The crypto market also has its own rules, known as DYOR (do-your-own-research). Simply put, DYOR involves thoroughly researching information about a project before investing in it (even in the case of hype and popular projects).

DYOR in Practice

We have prepared a list of recommendations and tools to help you conduct thorough DYOR.

Less Talk, More Numbers

Assets, market capitalization, transaction volume, and other important data are always stored on the blockchain, and you can use tonviewer or tonscan to verify this data. In the latter, for example, you simply need to enter the name of the project, and you will be able to obtain all the necessary information about transactions, TVL volume, etc.

Furthermore, valuable information can be obtained by learning about the number of active users and trading volume, where services like dyor.io, redoubt.online (DefiLlama for other projects) can help verify projects on TON. If you want to check projects on other blockchains, Glassnode.com is an excellent tool for this purpose.

Who Stands Behind the Project?

There is often a misconception that the main criterion for determining the quality of a project is its community and so-called project ambassadors.

However, when it comes to the community, it’s worth knowing that there are things like Sybil attacks, shilling, and other tools used to artificially create an audience and buzz around the project. To avoid falling for such tricks, you can use services like tonradar.app (DappRadar for projects on other blockchains) or telemetr.me to obtain data on unique users in project channels. For example, on tonradar.app*, the list of TON community channels looks like this:

*in addition to regular participants, we see the number of active users (UAM).

When it comes to ambassadors or influencers of a project, it’s essential to remember that if these individuals are not well-known developers or founders of such projects but rather media personalities, such behavior can be considered a commercial move and marketing strategy, rather than a guarantee of project security and reliability. In most cases, major projects share information about their team, which you can find in public sources or on CoinMarketCap.

Moreover, on CoinMarketCap, you can find information about the investors of many major projects. Additionally, in the dedicated section of Cryptorank, you can find the primary information about funds and investors in crypto projects, including their portfolios with detailed data on the date and amount of investment, as well as other important details. Finding a project in a major fund’s portfolio saves you the hassle of conducting in-depth fundamental analysis, studying the project’s tokenomics, roadmap, business model, and other important documents, as the fund has already scrutinized them before investing in the project.

Social Media

Similar to analyzing community engagement, the analysis of social media involves examining the following phenomena:

• Audience growth chart (typically, a regular growth chart is linear, but in the case of manipulation, you may observe sharp spikes in subscriber growth).
• Engagement Rate (the interaction of the audience with the project’s social media accounts shows how many of the total users are genuinely interested in the project).
• Mentions of the project in other channels and social media platforms.
• Specific subscribers of the channel (the proportion of popular and reliable market players among subscribers is particularly interesting).

You can obtain all this information through special tools and services. For example, analyzing TON projects on Telegram for audience growth, Engagement Rate, and mentions is available through the aforementioned service telemert.me. An excellent tool for checking Twitter crypto projects is twitterscore.io, which will show the Twitter account rating and provide information about its popular subscribers: KOLs, influencers, etc., thereby helping to identify fraudulent projects.

Whitepaper, Technical Documents, and Audits

For a more in-depth analysis, we also recommend familiarizing yourself with the project’s Whitepaper (usually found on its website), as its presence is a sign of high project standards. Such a Whitepaper typically includes a description of the project, its business model, tokenomics, legal and regulatory aspects, as well as a roadmap with the project’s plans for the next few years.

Technical documentation is also an essential point, although its thorough reading is accessible to few due to the need for specialized technical knowledge. You can find such documentation either on GitHub or on the same tonviewer, where this information is stored under the Code section. There (or on the TON Society forum), you can discuss technical features with developers (as well as ask questions if you are not particularly knowledgeable in the field) or even participate in Bug Bounty programs.

If the project is large and takes its security seriously, it usually undergoes an audit to confirm its security. For example, one of the popular auditors is skynet.certik, which includes information about all crypto projects that have undergone an audit:

Thus, it can be seen that projects with a AAA rating (such as the largest service for liquid staking on TON — Tonstakers) have a high level of reliability and, therefore, generally do not require additional analysis and checks for the user.

Fundamental Analysis

It is essential to mention separately the tools for fundamental analysis, which focus not so much on checking the project itself but on the asset’s value in the market. This process takes much more time and resources for verification since it involves studying the business model, tokenomics, marketing strategy, and other information.

Fundamental analysis generally includes all previously mentioned criteria but is considered holistically, taking into account market analysis and the value of projects from similar sectors (DeFi, NFT, Exchange, Pool, etc.).

The Project’s Website = The Project’s Face

An especially vigilant user will also check the project’s website, where they can find data such as the number of unique users over a specific period, the geolocation of these users, average time spent on the site, user sources, and more. You can obtain this information using the similarweb tool.

Furthermore, you can check the website’s domain, its creation date, and the entity behind its registration. Special services (such as LINK) can not only perform these checks but also verify SSL certification and the presence of suspicious links on the site.

Conclusion

DYOR is the key to successful and, above all, secure investments. While it may be laborious to study the listed range of data, it is necessary for anyone who has decided to invest in any asset, whether it’s NFTs or tokens. Therefore, economists emphasize:

It is important not only to increase profits but also to preserve your deposit from losses.

Stay sharp, invest wisely!