So this is my first article and this one will be shorter than your shitcoin trading attention span.
You may have felt victim of a altcoin that is just trash. (Example Bryce Weiner coins). Recognizing Bitcoin based altcoins with incompetent/unskilled developers is fairly easy. You don't have to be a genius or be a (good) programmer to spot true trash within 1 minute.
Now I am going to take real altcoins as example and expose the "secrets" (Always wanted to say this, just like on TV) of lazy developers who just want to make quick money fast with almost no effort.
Now here we go. Now all you need first is to see the bitcointalk Ann/Thread.
This picture shows the coin ann. Now lets scroll down and see if we can find the Github link.
Now after some searching you can usually find the link
Small coincidence, the dev linked his github to a file, just go to https://github.com/bitcoinplusorg/xbcwalletsource
Now here you see the github page of it. Go in the src folder
Now you are in the source folder. Search for main.cpp
And after you clicked on it, you might see this
I marked the copy right for you. Right now it's the year 2017 and you are planning to buy a coin with a Bitcoin source code in it from 2012. A 5 year difference. Now this is an older coin as example but development on that coin core code is stopped.
But this trick can be used on new coins that get released. With new coins this is even more dangerous. Why did the dev forked Bitcoin source code 2012 and not 2016 or 2017 ?
Simple... 2012 source code is easier to read, way smaller and most importantly .... more tutorials on google on how to make an altcoin. These tutorials are often based on Bitcoin source code 2012 or Litecoin source code 2012.
If a new coin gets released with such on old code base, it usually has nothing to go for. Usually those coins have a life span of 1 week - 6 months.
If there's a problem and the dev was not skilled enough to understand bitcoin source code 2014 or higher the project is doomed. There are a lot of optimizations since Bitcoin 2012 till Bitcoin 2016. Btw POS coins can be an exception since POS coins are coins in their own category.
Good POS coins are Navcoin, Blackcoin & Rads
But really 9/10 when you see a POW released that switches to POS is usually a miners coin fest. Quickly mine till there's no reward and switch to POS. Usually these coins won't reach Bittrex or Poloniex Unless they come up with something.
Like the exception POS coins I named, those are often good coins with constant development. But really when you see a coin with less than 30 github commits, stop lying to yourself.... The dev isn't gonna do much. Btw I am aware this altcoin called "Bitcoin Plus" pumped crazy on Poloniex but it will die for sure without development.
So a good rule for your fundamental analysis --> Watch their Github repository.
Now off course there are exceptions, so don't get mad if I insulted one of your bags that have these red flags.
What do I know right ? :P
Btw if your dev isn't planning to adopt Segwit for his Bitcoin based altcoin you should ask yourself if he's really a dev. It won't survive.