Presale Fraud: Investing Before Anything Exists

Token presales occupy an interesting position in Felix Bick’s How Not to Get Scammed by AI Trading Apps — a legitimate fundraising mechanism that’s also become a highly effective vehicle for fraud, and Chapter 36 explains why.

Bick acknowledges the legitimate use case first: early-stage sales of a cryptocurrency before public exchange listing, often at a discounted price, are a legitimate fundraising mechanism used by real projects. But he immediately notes the structural vulnerability this creates: investors are asked to commit funds before any product exists and before the token has any public market price to validate against.

The chapter details common fraudulent presale patterns: promising unrealistic listing-price multiples such as “guaranteed 50x at launch,” lacking any real product beyond a website and whitepaper, and disappearing entirely once presale funds are collected — sometimes never launching a token at all, or launching one that immediately becomes worthless through the liquidity removal mechanisms discussed earlier in the book.

Bick’s due diligence framework for presales mirrors and reinforces guidance from earlier chapters: a publicly identified, traceable team; a working product or credible technical roadmap; independent smart contract audits; and locked liquidity commitments, ideally verified by a reputable third party rather than simply claimed in marketing materials.

This chapter is a good example of how the book builds cumulative understanding — by the time readers reach this chapter, they already have the tools (checking team transparency, liquidity locks, audits) needed to evaluate a presale opportunity critically, since Bick has established these concepts earlier and now applies them to a new context.

For anyone considering participating in a token presale, this chapter of How Not to Get Scammed by AI Trading Apps provides Felix Bick’s essential pre-investment framework for a category where the usual due diligence tools, like checking an existing product, simply aren’t available yet.