A crypto research checklist
A checklist for researching a crypto asset before you trade it, including tokenised assets that borrow the name of a stock. It is a list of questions to answer, not a rating system, and answering them does not make anything a good investment.
Start with what the thing actually is
- What does it claim to do, in one sentence you could repeat to someone else?
- Who issued it, and are they identifiable?
- Is there a real product, or a description of a future one?
- What is the contract address, and did you get it from the project's own channel rather than a search result or a message? Fake tokens copying a known name and ticker are common.
Supply and who holds it
- Total supply, circulating supply, and whether more can be created.
- Who can create more, and what would stop them?
- How concentrated is ownership? A small number of wallets holding a large share means a small number of decisions can move the price.
- Are there locked allocations for the team or early backers, and when do they unlock?
Liquidity and exit
Getting in is rarely the problem.
- Where does it trade, and how much genuine volume is there?
- How much would your intended size move the price?
- Could you exit the whole position during a fast market, or only part of it?
- Does liquidity depend on a single pool or a single venue?
Technical and custody risk
- Has the contract been audited, by whom, and did the issues get fixed? An audit is a review, not a guarantee.
- Can anyone pause transfers, freeze balances or mint more? Admin keys are not automatically bad, but you should know they exist.
- If it bridges between chains, what secures the bridge? Bridges have been a repeated point of failure.
- If you self-custody, what happens if you lose the key? If a platform custodies, what happens if the platform fails?
Tokenised versions of familiar assets
A token can carry the name and ticker of a well-known company or fund without giving you what holding that company's shares would. Before treating one as equivalent, answer:
- What does the token legally entitle you to? A claim on an issuer, a derivative exposure, or something else?
- What backs it, who holds that backing, and who verifies it?
- Can you redeem it for the underlying asset — and if so, who from, on what terms?
- Do you get shareholder rights, votes or dividends? Frequently not.
- What happens if the issuer fails? Where do you stand as a creditor?
- Which regulator, if any, oversees this, and in which country?
- What happens out of market hours, when the token trades but the underlying does not?
RATTLE is independent and has no affiliation with any token issuer or chain. It does not verify contracts, connect to a wallet, issue a token or execute orders. For an example of how one company describes its own stock-token and chain plans, see Robinhood's announcement — an issuer describing its own product, which is worth reading as exactly that.
A familiar ticker is not a familiar instrument. The most expensive assumption in this area is that something named after an asset behaves like that asset. Establish what you own before you compare charts.
Signals that deserve more scepticism
- Promised or implied returns, in any form.
- Pressure to act quickly, or a countdown.
- Anonymous teams combined with large pre-allocations.
- Documentation that describes ambition but never mechanism.
- An unusually large share of supply in a handful of wallets.
- Contract addresses shared by strangers, including in replies and DMs.
None of these is proof of anything by itself. Several together is a reason to slow down.
Write the answers down
The point of a checklist is a record. Writing your answers before trading means that when the position goes against you, you can check whether your reasoning was wrong or simply early — a distinction that is almost impossible to reconstruct honestly afterwards.
Record your research alongside the tradeNext
Paper trading covers practising without risking money, and how to keep a trading journal covers recording the reasoning so you can check it later.