The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has set up a page for a fake initial coin offering as a way of educating potential investors of ICO risks.

Dubbed “Howeycoin,” the mock ICO website touts a too-good-to-be-true investment opportunity that mimics actual initial coin offerings as a way to “educate investors about what to look for before they invest in a scam.”

“Fraudsters can quickly build an attractive website and load it up with convoluted jargon to lure investors into phony deals,” Owen Donley, the SEC’s chief counsel, said in a statement. “But fraudulent sites also often have red flags that can be dead giveaways if you know what to look for.”

The name of the site is what the SEC describes as “a bit of an easter-egg.” It’s referring to the Howey Test, the 1946 U.S. Supreme Court decision that found that a transaction is an investment contract, or security, if “a person invests his money in a common enterprise and is led to expect profits solely from the efforts of the promoter or a third party.”

Not all ICOs are scams, of course, and the SEC noted that it supports new technologies. But the rise of coin offerings “has provided fertile ground for bad actors to take advantage of investors,” so the exercise was to educate people in identifying a fraud.

The page is still live and can be viewed here. Although it’s meant as an educational tool, the real challenge is trying to ascertain how it’s fake compared with other ICOs, since there’s very little difference in the pitch from countless others — legit or otherwise.

Image: SEC