Bitcoin Forum

https://blog.malwarebytes.com/crypto/2022/05/airdrop-phishing-what-is-it-and-how-is-my-cryptocurrency-at-risk/

The newbies can gain from this article, not lengthy or boring but consist of ways scammers are using airdrop to scam people that are into cryptocurrencies and web3.

Airdrop may still be profitable but many or most are useless.

There are airdrop scam in a way you will be asked to pay money, you do not have to think about it two times that it is a scam, yes it is a scam. Airdrop means free money, if not free, it is scam and should be avoided.

Another one will only lead to your wallet to be compromised through phishing link. Better to avoid airdrops.

Some airdrop will only collect your data, use it to send emails like phishing link or a page that will demand for your seed phrase.

Airdrops should be completely avoided by every newbie. The smell of free money is too difficult to ignore but it is a key emotion to control in order to be a successful bitcoin investor in future.

Some airdrop sites are made to scam people by asking their private keys and it is surprising to see how many people actually fall for this simple yet full-proof scam, not knowing that giving the private keys means handing over their coins right away.

Therefore any newbie who reads this, should put this in their heads, airdrop = immediate ignore and avoid. Anyone bugging you to participate in some airdrop, ignore them - remember that friends only exist in the real world, here everyone is trying to eat away your money for their own gain.

     Airdrops nowadays aren't really that worth the effort and risk. I suggest that newbies stay clear from all this crap. While there are legit airdrops out there most gives only a few $ or only gives prizes to those top inviters/referrers which is pretty unfair for those that are non influencers or does not own a community that would use his/her invites/referrals. So listen here newbies, YOU are basically doing CHEAP if not FREE LABOR for these people doing airdrops. Save yourself from the worries, risks and hassle. Don't join airdrops. Do something more productive with your time.

There are also airdrops that requires login in some application. These applications requires to sign a message that could enable scammers to empty wallet.
Its a well know phishing Attack
Please find some useful suggestioni here
https://blog.coinbase.com/security-psa-airdrop-phishing-campaign-38b880c0298a

Well that depends what kind of airdrop are you talking about. About half year ago i got a lot of money from IMX and GODS airdrops. Best airdrops however are for already owning something, they are not click and claim for everyone.

Also coinbase gave some for free at least while ago.

But sure, there's so much phishing going on that newbies should just stay away if they don't know what they are doing.

The allure of the potential of free money is simply too strong for most newbies to resist, many of those newbies come to this market precisely because the amount of money they have is limited and they have heard of the stories of people making a fortune with a small amount of capital, so when something like an airdrop appears they think that is the way some other people built their fortune and they want to follow the same path, not knowing that they will get scammed in the process.

Remember also dusting attack that can happen once we received the fake airdrop from somewhere but the amounts were showing huge amounts of money sitting in our wallet.
This type of scam airdrop was the most working airdrop to fool the receivers to swap the scam token and their wallets got drained by the hackers.
These days airdrops have small percentage to be legit airdrops. In so many cases people were also saying about they have become the victims from the dusting attack

This is also my advise, I hope newbies listen to it before they will fall into scammers tactics. Airdrop has become more than paying fee now, it has gone to the extent even wallet can be compromised, especially altcoin wallets, but even bitcoin if the victim enter his seed phrase or private key into scam site.

I do not know about cryptocurrencies as early, the time I know about cryptocurrencies, airdrop did not bring good return, absolutely waste of time until it wanted to become even worse when I was demanded to pay a fee to be able to receive an airdrop, though I knew from the spot that it was a scam.

Yeah, I think this is more prevalent after it's boom in late 2017 and early 2018. But after that majority of airdrops are either no value at all, worthless tokens or scammers find a way to the project itself, collects data from unsuspecting victims and then sell it underground. Or simply ask to pay for ETH before they send you the airdrop, lol. That alone smells scam already and bounty hunters should avoid that at all cost.

It is undeniable that airdrops have become part of a project to boost the popularity of the cryptocurrency they will be launching. but here you have to be smart to choose which airdrop is good which one is a scam because many airdrops are also legit, more are also scams.
if you want to play airdrop, I suggest storing it in a different softwallet from the wallet where you store your main assets. or use a new wallet when joining the airdrop.

Well, nowadays, all methods can be used as tools to do scams, especially for the airdrops out there. The most obvious scam in the airdrop world is an airdrop that asks for a deposit before you can withdraw the money you have. it's the most ridiculous thing. things like this, made for those who are new or greedy. things like this most often happen on telegram. many people usually invite you to join one of the airdrop groups, and try airdrops there. usually they will also provide a phishing link for it.
however, don't just take part in an airdrop unless you've done some research on it. there may be some airdrops worth, and the way to find them is to do some research, not to see how easy it is to make money. other than that, it is very true that airdrops can be obtained for free, or with a little work that is not so difficult and short.

Airdrop is very attractive to people for a long time now and it is proven a good marketing strategy to publicize your project. Though some scammers are using this type of strategy to their selfish advantage. I've got some friends being victimized by this airdrop phishing. Most likely the way hackers can sweep your wallet is by asking you to accept a sign message which has malicious code inside. I always recommends them to use a alternative wallet address dedicated to airdrop for them to be safe at least not sweeping their whole portfolio.

It is really, we can find out many useless airdrops currently, moreover those that suddenly send their fake tokens into our wallets. And their main reasons for sending are probably just to taking profits and money from us. Yes, they are actually scammers under the name of airdrop teams.

Btw, phishing is not only from the airdrop. We can also get the phishing sites or links from certain platforms, from email, ad also from the forums. That is why when we got any links and also other ifnrmation thata re needed to click, we must be extra careful because we don;t know if that is phisihng  or not. I will better not open or click the links if the senders are not celar from popular parties.

Those that are into airdrops, there are still a few of them that gets victimize by these scammers that asks for money. It's because of the projection value that they're giving to these victims.
That's like hypnotizing them and making them send the asked amount to their addresses. Newbies shouldn't be compliant to these scams and just as said, airdrops are for free.

I agree that it is not permitted to drop money in the airdrop concept is the most important point that must be recorded. But I will not forbid beginners to play at Airdrop. Because they might be able to learn a lot about crypto in it. As long as they realize that Airdrop does not guarantee that it will pay 100%, not a little Airdrop that can be obtained but does not become an advantage. My advice is not to expect big from airdrop revenue.

Airdrop used to be one of the ways to advertise the developer's products to the community very successfully, but now everything is gone. Nothing tastes good from a free meal, most of the airdrops nowadays are just trying to scam newbies to collect information, private keys.
I cannot say all airdrops are scams but most of them are useless so stay away and don't waste time on them, there are many ways to make money in market.

     I agree. I have also joined airdrops that are intended for users of a crypto that have been having big transactions like a compensation for all the fees you've paid and for the long time support. There are others as well like what you have mentioned that gives a good amount of aidrops when you are a holder of a specific token/asset. Such a bummer though that I missed those airdrops that you mentioned which were IMX, GODS and the one on coinbase. I guess we cannot just ignore the potential of aidrops then but instead just be more cautious and picky.

Maybe it's very attractive before, if my memory serves me right, the onion airdrop is one of the biggest and successful airdrops in late 2017. The value is around $100 per airdrop if I'm not mistaken.


It's no longer serves it's purpose in my opinion. Because even the best projects have lost this marketing strategy because of the criminals using it to deceived a lot of investors. Newbies should stop looking for airdrops as they might be the next victim as they might get phished and then all their hard earn crypto swept by this criminals.

Airdrops serve as an important marketing tool for crypto projects that involve sending free cryptocurrency or NFT tokens to raise investor awareness. But due to the huge risk of losing all the tokens in my wallet, I bypass all kinds of Airdrops. The number of phishing attempts will continue to rise as more newcomers enter the crypto industry with no knowledge of crypto security. I hope the article from malwarebytes will be read by many members of the crypto community.

The issue is that the number of scams when it comes to airdrops is so big that it is simply not worth your time to try to get airdrops when there are so many other ways to get cryptocurrencies with a lesser risk of losing whatever assets that you are already holding in your wallet, I know this is not what newbies would like to believe as many come to this market with a limited amount of money and they want to believe it is still possible to make money with airdrops, but this is something that has become progressively harder since the 2017 bull run.

Well, most cases you listed are well-documents and have been known among airdrop bounty hunters. Never pay anything just to receive the airdrop, never sign in something dubious just for airdrop, and never click any link in email if you don't know who's the sender. Follow those rules of thumb and you will be safe.

Scammers have been using email a lot to send phishing links to all email inboxes and masquerading as official project accounts, so you need to provide an alternative email to sign up for bounty and airdrop programs to prevent the main email from sending phishing messages.

It is possible to get money from a very small number of airdrop at this time so it should be forgotten for anyone airdrops process. Many newbies have lost their money in the trap of fake airdrops. Some risk-free airdrop can be found at cmc but there you can get a little bit of funds. Moreover, we have gone beyond the time when the role of airdrop was more.

I would add that in general any scheme where you are asked to deposit any amount to get something is already a guaranteed SCAM. Such schemes existed even before the advent of cryptocurrencies and Airdrop. Also, any Airdrop that asks for your personal data should also be ignored. I've seen cases where a full KYC was asked for airdrop in exchange for tokens worth a total of $20. And the worst part is that there were users who sent their credentials in exchange getting nothing. Where there is a smell of free tokens, people often lose their minds and do extremely stupid things.

Yes, I am no stranger to phishing airdrops, one of which is requiring participants instead of giving access to your wallet key to claim the coins. . but I think that not all people will do that. if you encounter such a thing it is better to ignore it and do not need to respond to matters relating to suspicious activity.

Although airdrops are not as lucrative as they used to be, they are a good earning method for beginners. That is for those who try to make money without capital. While doing this, they need to take a lot of security measures. Detailed information is given in the article you shared. In fact, the authors indicate what they should pay attention to in their content. People who spend a lot of time here do not come to phishing easily.

How do you counter it then? 


Do you ignore coins you never heard of in your wallet that is an airdrop?

I don't think it's too much of a problem to join an airdrop as long as we don't put capital into it because usually most airdrops that ask for initial capital from us are almost all scams and you should always use a new wallet when you want to participate in it to avoid the risk of loss, I personally sometimes sometimes also take airdrops when I have free time and so far I haven't found any risk of loss with my assets.

Airdrops don't create a large amount of financial income. Also, airdrops often require a lot of personal information. Anyone with little knowledge of internet scams should be very careful. There are many scam experts now and I never participate in airdrop campaigns because of this.

And that is the problem with airdrops, in the past the only thing that you needed to do to get an airdrop was to give your address and you will get your coins, however with the excuse of following regulations the ones behind the airdrops began to ask for the personal information of the people that wanted to get the airdrop, and in some cases they asked for money or even for people to do some work, and when that happened airdrops lost their essence, so it does not surprise me that they are nowhere near as popular as they were in the past.