GitHub puts ICOs under the microscope

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Anyone will tell you that writing computer code is a tedious, cross-eyed-inducing task. It’s important that the code be succinct and clean by the time the final product is ready, which, when dealing with tens of thousands of lines of code, can be a daunting process. However, code that is created properly results in a quality product that projects user confidence and ensures that the application works as planned. GitHub, a web-based hosting service for version control using git, hasn’t been too concerned with coding quality, but the days of lax coding could soon be a thing of the past.

There are more than 20 million users and over 57 million repositories on GitHub. Anyone can upload their code and it has become a popular destination for initial coin offering (ICO) and altcoin projects.  The portal serves as a central location where coding projects can be reviewed, bugs can be tracked and team members from anywhere around the world can provide their input. The majority of the uploaded projects, including those for cryptocurrencies, are open source, which means that the public also has access to the projects.

The public access is one potential drawback to GitHub. An individual could potentially take another’s code, modify it and then publish it as his or her own. That public access is the tricky part. An unscrupulous individual can take the code, tweak it and try to pass it off as his or her own. Several tools now include coverage of projects on GitHub to weed out the imposters and the projects that show signs of manipulation, news.bitcoin.com first reported.

Cryptomiso is one of these tools. It recently added GitHub to the sites it monitors and allows for GitHub data to by filtered based on several criteria. Onchainfx is similar to Cryptomiso, but goes beyond filtering. It also includes a ranking system that is based on project commits, stars, number of viewers watching the project and the number of lines added or removed. Both tools are valuable methods of analyzing ICO and crypto code, but have one drawback. Neither allows results to be ranked by quality, only frequency.

Probably one of the most useful “tools” is actually a human. Andre Cronje, a popular cryptocurrency blogger, has begun to invest a lot of time and energy researching new projects that are uploaded to GitHub. Once his research is complete, he publishes his findings on his Twitter feed, @AndreCronjeTech. His in-depth analysis paints a brighter picture of which projects are worthy, and which ones don’t deserve a second glance.

With so many new projects coming on line these days, it’s increasingly difficult to discern the good ones from the bad. These tools offer a more solid means to evaluate a cryptocurrency’s proficiency and to gauge its authenticity. As with any investment—from buying a smart TV to buying cryptocurrency—it’s always important to perform the necessary due diligence and background checks to ensure the validity of the superficial information.