Bitcoin Forum

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Now imagine if that account is OR was hacked, think about how much the scammer will be able to make in a few minutes before Twitter flags the account as being hacked and return it to the rightful owner, it has happened before, it will definitely happen again sometime in the future, and YES, people will still fall victim, people will still send their funds because they erroneously think the crypto network is a get rich quick scheme, and that their funds can somehow be multiplied.
If it was an actual scammer hiding behind a laptop to scam them, will they hate the anonymous scammer, prolly yes, but their hate will yield nothing, their money is gone, in this case they were refunded in full the money they ordinarily would/should/already have lost, thus anyone hating is absolutely kidding me; people should read, live and learn.

This is by far the most important advice, and could prevent 99% of scams that people fall for.
People are mostly influenced by personalities and take what presumed important people say serious; this is one reason scammers try to impersonate such personalities (by creating a fake profile or hacking their actual accounts) inorder to scam gullible people.

If one just simply exercised restrain and did a bit of research, then they would be able to identify scam techniques, or at least seem a second opinion and get some advice, rather than relying on greed.

It's quite worrisome how much uneducated money is left in the market.
No matter if it's useless NFT pictures, useless Meme-Coins, risky and flawed Defi platforms or just a shitcoin scam, where no real product was planned to be launched - people are still throwing money at it - ok, NFTs have lost volume massively.
Unbelievable how easy it is for scammers to collect 300k USD...
Recently, someone shilled Terra Luna again on our local (German) board, so I'm not surprised at all.  :D
Sometimes, education needs time - and money.  :D

Maybe a sign that the market will drop again? I don't know.

You are wrong on this.
Education always needs time.

Money, I don't know. But time for sure. And bitcoin educated me lowering my intere-oral choices, thus empowering me the luxury of being patient enough to study a lot before investing, and then actually saving money, that otherwise would have been lost in trading, or some other exotic project.

But I guess this uneducated money is a fundamental part of the price discovery of bitcoin: it's a Far West we are living in; the sheriff hasn't arrived in the city yet, but in the end, it's San Francisco we are going to build.

I general, you are right.  :D
My intention was to emphasize learning to avoid such obvious scams because common sense should already teach us to stay away from it - even after losing money once (because someone shilled Terra Luna in our board a few days ago). I was embarassed.  :-X

So, for some people with a lack of education it's costing money. (because it's taking time to do research). And for some, it's costing money twice. :P
Should be more accurate.  :)

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Sending money to an obvious scam (i.e. to good to be true) = money will be lost

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That's true, only few will survive: scary bear markets, terrifying FUD, shitcoins, scams and hacks, and, of course a temptation to sell early and take profits.  ;)

People are way too lazy to research on anything. Once one or two people testify that a system worked for them, they will troop in believing it will work for them too. People are also too easy to fall for people that are influential and that is why the politicians play with the common people.
People who does not understand how money is made keeps losing the money because it was given them or they inherited it. If you own money and understand the principle of money, you will know that bring one and take two without inputting any other thing is a scam.

People has been the yield long ago and they Will continue to be the yield even in different ponzi schemes.

Almost every people who are into crypto don't understand anything about cryptocurrency protocols, cryptography, economics, finance. They get so easily fooled by promises of high profits, because they are just retail investors, for many crypto is their first experience with investment. And sadly they don't listen to warnings like this, we are at the point where everyone thinks that 99% of crypto is scams, but that they shitcoin that they bought is one of the few ones. Only when people will realize that every coin except Bitcoin is a scam will the market stop being a circus that it is now.

It needs both for most people.

There are very few people who can learn from valuable educational resources, apply what they learn and be disciplined enough to not break what they should practice from their lessons.

Most of people in the market are losers and they need time to experience the market, digest their loses and adjust themselves with time.

Sum up, most of market participants need both: education and time. Even so, only a few of them can change from losers to winners.

Thats plenty of degen peeps out there who even risking a lot of money for the sake of an investment. Im afraid fatman shouldnt do an experiment like this. Cause stuff like this could be a game changer for scammer and hackers as they could do it on high profile account and probably used those social profile for scamming. I think it happened a lot already but its a shamed how people can easily go all in. Anyway, degen term is really a hateful stuff on crypto but cant blame them cause some of them get rich due to those shitty projects.

Its always better to invest on those good one rather risk it on a gamble with a possible scam.

I agree but this is easier said than done.
Research requires time and some knowledge. An absolute beginner who doesn't understand the market, the technology and the ways they scam people is not going to be able to make a conclusion based on what they research.

Take bitcoin for example, searching could bring up a lot of FUD about how bitcoin is "wasting energy", is "fraud", used by "criminals", ... and majority of them are coming from people that a newbie could trust like CEO of a big bank like JPMorgan who was spreading FUD back in 2017 when price was barely $1000.

And that's just FUD which is easier to figure out, the technical lies are harder to detect. For example take shitcoins that tell people that they are solving a "problem" that doesn't exist in reality just because they copied bitcoin's source code and changed a thing or two! They sell their shitcoin to newbies with the promise of huge returns. How is a newbie supposed to know this is all fake if they don't understand the code and how it is a exact copy of bitcoin?

That's the best advice any user can give not only here in the forum but on other social media platforms as well.
Problem is people doesn't want to give a portion of time to do some research and they are thinking about the profits that they can get than doing some research first regarding investment schemes/projects or whatever it is.

It's kind of sad to see people getting scammed TBH but like I always say, I believe that people will not learn unless they will experience it. If you got scammed once, you will know what to do in your next investments. Being scammed twice and there's a problem to you already. Doing research isn't hard because we already have "Uncle Google" that will give us all the information that we need. We also have Youtube videos that might help us in our investment journey. I just don't know why people are forgetting about doing research first.

Investors here in crypto world are indeed gullible and can easily tricked by influencers. Lucky for me that I didn't get scammed in my crypto journey, but I feel unfortunate to those who are.

Money makes a man blind. This seems to be a perfect example of that. Most of us don't really know how crypto work. But we want to earn millions of dollars from crypto. Well your choice of words to express the right sentiments is apt..first learn than earn.

I like how he experimented on this because having that kind of following could easily print money. I remember listening to a podcast in which he said that he needed money to pay for taxes with his business that he hadn't paid yet or else he would get jailed, so he bet on his friend that he could get money for a couple of hours only, with just an email blast. Then he did, and already the money started pouring in.

It's that kind of influence that someone has and could be taken advantage of. Imagine that power with someone sinister. That's really going to be sad and devastating to the community, especially to everyone who has been a victim.

I love FatManTerra... Started following him on Twitter during the whole UST debacle. He provides some very elegant explanations of complex subjects that are also entertaining AF.

Looks like this topic recently got moved from Bitcoin Discussion. Perhaps its because LUNA is an altcoin, but a lot of "CeFi" lending programs (many of them posing as DeFi) also accept BTC deposits and promise fixed returns. Some of them are now bankrupt, and all of them had problems of some sort:

- Celsius
- Voyager
- Nexo
- Hodlnaut
- Vauld
- SALT
- Poolin

Steering clear of such platforms is not just a matter of education; its also a matter of reeling in one's greed.

Sadly the Bitcoin (and other crypto) taken from customers in such instances is being funneled into the hands of the very wealthy, rendering the system not much different from fiat... kind of destroys its purpose, but you can't stop folks from following their instincts. The result is damage to the reputation of cryptocurrency.

Greed, which makes the PT Barnum quote so true- "There's a sucker born every minute ".  This saying has transcended time as is so relevant in the crypto realm and shows no sign of slowing down or going away.

So true!

@Ratimov: while this is a wonderful topic and a nice experiment that could act as a wakeup call (no matter the issues already expressed), far too many people are too greedy (or needy!) to get smart or to think a little, at very least. So no matter how many wakeup calls people try to make, they will not listen.. until it's too late. So while it's a nice thing (hence the merit), it's, unfortunately, pretty much futile.

And that is because people want to grab fast what they do not own thinking those who are dangling it before them are fools. You are right and that is how greed works on people. The grabber ends up being the grabbed. But people do not want to learn from the mistakes of others until they themselves become victims.

Understandably, it is not always easy to detect such situations. But I would separate technical situations from common scams, such as the give 1BTC to get 2BTC back. If anyone did even a simple Google search on that common scam, they would get lots of reports on how it's a hoax.

In more technical situations, it is best to take a skeptical approach, instead of looking for what's fake, rather start with disbelief, and look for things to prove you otherwise.
If you instinctively distrust what you read or see and understand that almost everyone is trying to scam you, then it would take an extra effort to convince you otherwise.

A lot of people find it difficult to make proper research before carrying out an investment, especially when there is an enticing profit involved in it. Most people who do proper research before investing in anything are mostly people who have been victims of scams or people who do not get attracted to the motivational speeches of the scammers who will sugarcoat their words in other to convince their victims to invest. Anyone who follows op's advice will always escape from scammers unless the person is greedy or selfish.

These too good to be true offers should already give the hint to everyone that there's no easy money even in cryptocurrency, the same goes in the real world and finances.

Greediness is the one leading these people to fall onto those traps but the lesson that it will give them will make them realize what the reality is all about and it will sink hardly to them.

And you know what's with these people? They'll only talk when they're done investing into those scams and will ask the community or anyone that had given them advise about DYOR and everything to avoid if they can still recover their money. No offense to them but that's what exactly is happening.

I think some people do their research about these kinds of things but still go ahead to invest or try it out because somewhere in their heads they believe they can't be scammed.
 It's a worthy cause FatManTerra is doing because at least he could be beacon to those who are unwary and even tho some of these offers seem too good to be true, at least there has to be some sort of vigilance from users too.

Well articulated here. When is read DYOR, it is often said as if it is easy to research. And when this is said to newbies, it gets me more confused because a newbie who has no experience about Bitcoin or cryptocurrency at large will really have nothing to research.
Even an experienced person could go into research and at the end of it becomes more confused about the decision to take. I feel that more should be told people rather than doing their own research.

To Newbies: something like Learn before you Earn(invest) should always be told them.
To Experienced users: Take responsibility in whatever be the outcome of your decision. Invest what you are able to lose etc

I also turned out to be following the person you mean, sir. From the impact of crypto, it might be something that is familiar to people who follow the sour and sweet development of crypto like you. Crypto, especially in this sub board, there are many beginners and active activists. It helps for your concern. Indeed, crypto is so different from saving banking services or financial institutions. at least for long-term transactions it is enough to make me comfortable in cryptocurncy

Sadly, most so-called crypto influencers are the real scammer in the market, and the reason why we still people falling for their hype message which is purposely meant to scam naive is that people don't focus most of their investment on BTC. Besides, if we look deep into the service rendered by most crypto influencers it's not different from the scam crypto trading signal, and what they do is just redefine their method. 

This is why I don't believe in people sending me messages about a platform where I can earn money by investing or other offers. People may invest after doing some research but can't still get a strong evidence that it is a scam or they won't get scan and yet still invest is because some are taking the rest that it may not be a scam at all and earning from it would be good although because of that some will invest all the money (investment funds only) they can afford to lose if the investment turns out to be a scam in the end.