You probably heard of Monero Gold scam. I'd like to explain how it happened and how to do that kind of research yourself.

Monero Gold Info

Announcement on bitcointalk.org
Contract on etherscan.io
Overflown transaction on etherscan.io

Ethereum basic token code example

First of all, let's look at the most basic Ethereum token contract source code. Here it is. Let's look at the snippet that's at the beginning:

Here is the link to Monero Gold source code.

But everything seems to be right! It's the same as Ethereum's official example! You probably know the answer already - this example is wrong!

Source code of legitimate tokens

Let's compare Monero Gold's source with top 3 ETH tokens right now - VIU, INS Promo and EOS. Every token uses some sort of overflow protection library, such as SafeMath!

Conclusion

Except for the fact that Monero Gold looked super scammy on bitcointalk.org it was also badly coded, which needed just a bit of research to check. Ethereum devs should  also either change the example code or fix overflows. I can't believe this needs to be said, but before you invest your money, do your research using commonly available tools, just as I did.

Disclaimer

 The above references an opinion and is for information purposes only.  It is not intended to be investment advice.  Seek a duly licensed professional for investment advice.