You may have come across Xsearch’s ICO recently. With such a large percentage of the population using the internet for our daily tasks, many are concerned about how much personal data they are giving to advertisers and others online entities. Xsearch, a blockchain-based research system, promised to disrupt the online advertising industry via a decentralized network where sellers and users can interact directly. With Xsearch’s system, consumers are able to choose which pieces of information they reveal to advertisers when they search online. In return, consumers are rewarded with Xsearch Tokens when they view promotions from advertisers that are targeting their specific demographic.
If you research Xsearch, you’ll notice that the ICO has received promising reviews and analysis from numerous websites. WiserICO, FoxICO, ICO Bazaar, ICOholder and an additional three smaller rating sites gave Xsearch high scores. Below are just a few of these ratings.
You may think this is just another case of the crypto community supporting a promising new ICO. In fact, this is a complete and utter disgrace.
The Truth About Xsearch
The truth about Xsearch is that it is a scam ICO.
When we researched Xsearch, it became almost immediately clear that this ICO is fraudulent. Xsearch is scamming the crypto community by trying to get people to invest in their fake project. Our research team was in disbelief when they learned of how many websites gave this ICO a high score! How could this possibly happen when even the most cursory research reveals the truth about Xsearch!?
We discovered only one rating website which retracted their review and score of Xsearch. TrackICO posted a review and gave this scam ICO a high score only to later delete the page.
When researching an ICO, potential investors must look at the ICO’s team. With Xsearch, we didn’t have to look far to find that the team presented by the ICO did not seem to be actually connected to Xsearch. The images and profiles Xsearch listed for team members did not list Xsearch as a project they worked on.
One example of this is Valnea Skansi. Xsearch alleges that Valnea Skansi is the ICO’s business owner. Skansi has a different opinion. In the screenshot below you can see that she has made a proclamation on her LinkedIn page to clearly state that she does not have, and has never had, any affiliation to Xsearch.io. 
Lucas Schweiger, whom Xsearch claims to be the former co-founder of the company, has publicly stated that he has no connection to the ICO whatsoever. He took to Xsearch’s Telegram group to warn the public about this scam ICO, attesting to the fact that Xsearch illegitimately used his name and profile.
Following this announcement, Xsearch changed the members on their team. This change, however, did not reveal the true team behind the project. Their current team is no better. Not one of the team members listed by Xsearch shows any connection to the ICO on their LinkedIn profiles or anywhere else.
The below image from the Bitcointalk forum is posted by forum member Donacal. This person joins their voice to the chorus of others in fighting back against Xsearch wrongfully using their names and profiles to say that they are part of the ICO’s team. 
How many lies can one ICO tell?
If the fact that Xsearch lied about their team wasn’t enough to persuade you that this ICO is a scam, there are other red flags that are present. While the entire team is alleged to be located in both Croatia and Luxembourg, the ICO lists a Norwegian phone number.
Moreover, Xsearch is lying to the public regarding how many of their XSE tokens have been sold. On their website, Xsearch shows a graphic illustrating how much capital was raised through token sales. When we visited the site, we saw that the figure was at 5,423,000 XSE tokens. Our disbelief led us to look for the true figure via their address tracker. Here, we saw that only 0.3 ETH is shown. This equates to less than 400 XSE, if you are to make a generous conversion.
Beware of ICO and Rating Site Scams
With Xsearch’s ICO continuing for about another week, we are troubled to think of how many investors may have been swindled by both Xsearch’s scam and by the rating sites which wrongfully gave high scores to this ICO.
At Cointelligence, we saw this problem long ago and felt the lack of trust in the crypto community. We dedicated ourselves to restoring that trust through honest and accurate analysis and ratings of ICOs, as well as providing useful tools and guides to the entire community. We have publicly called for all rating websites to stop giving false ratings and thoroughly research ICOs before rating them. We’ve also called for an end of the practice of buying ratings.