Cryptocurrency Scammers Are Making Fortunes By Ripping Off 'Greedy' Investors

[royalcrypt]

LONDON — Investors have lost $670 million of cryptocurrencies in hacks and scams over the last three months, according to data shared with Business Insider.

Crypto Aware, which gives investment advice for crypto, compiled data on all the major hacks and scams in the space between June 2011 and March 2018.

The data shows that over $1.7 billion-worth of cryptocurrency was stolen over the period, with $670 million lost in the first three months of 2018 alone. It means that 40% of all cryptocurrency theft by value has occurred in just the last three months.

Notable losses since the start of the year include the $400 million hack of Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Coincheck in January and a $170 million hack of cryptocurrency exchange BitGrail in February.

Anna Wu, the founder of Crypto Aware, told Business Insider: "Cryptocurrency is receiving more and more validation as a means of value transfer, with top coins reaching historically high prices toward the end of last year. This attracted a lot of new, unseasoned investors who are not well versed in terms of online security and who are identified as easy targets by scammers."

The total size of the cryptocurrency market rose from around $27 billion in April 2017 to close to $270 billion as of Tuesday. The market exploded thanks to the rise of bitcoin against the dollar and the new trend of "initial coin offerings" (ICOs), where startups issue their own digital coins to fund their businesses. Startups raised $5.6 billion through ICOs in 2017.

Wu said: "Cryptocurrency frauds, scams, and hacks tend to rise every time there is considerable upward momentum in pricing for cryptocurrency market, so be extra cautious when the market is bullish."

Crypto Aware's figures highlight the risks associated with the volatile and unregulated market. Many investors store their crypto centrally on exchanges and these large holdings make them an attractive target for hackers.

Scammers have also fraudulently raised millions from unknowing investors, such as Chinese Ponzi scheme "Asian-European Currency" which was shut down by police in early 2017.

Wu told BI that investors shouldn't invest more than they can afford to lose and should inspect URLs closely.

"Phishing scams are by far the most popular type of scams and you can easily avoid them by checking the website address against the officially published URLs character by character," she said.

Wu added: "If it seems too good to be true - it is. Investment scams often try to entice gullible investors with unrealistic returns. Don't be greedy."

https://onecryptocoinnews.blogspot.in/2018/04/cryptocurrency-scammers-are-making.html

Original source: https://read.bi/2GGx1LH

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[BrentMack]

Greed is what is often targeted by the scammers. Take bitconnect for example, it was an obvious ponzi scheme but people still fell for it because they believed that they would make millions in such a little time. If you don't want to get scammed, don't be greedy.

[stompix]

LONDON — Investors have lost $670 million of cryptocurrencies in hacks and scams over the last three months, according to data shared with Business Insider.

Only 670$ millions this year?
I thought that only the damage from Bitconnect and the top ICOs that went missing would topple that.

And there are the news from Vietnam with two huge scams, Philippine with a few tens of millions...

I guess we're pretty lucky greedy people are not that wealthy or we could count money lost in the scams in tens of billions.

The downside is that now scammers have enough money to star far more elaborate ICOs that would attract more people.
With a few millions you could buy enough advertising to fool an entire country.

[Btcwashu]

LONDON — Investors have lost $670 million of cryptocurrencies in hacks and scams over the last three months, according to data shared with Business Insider.

Only 670$ millions this year?
I thought that only the damage from Bitconnect and the top ICOs that went missing would topple that.

And there are the news from Vietnam with two huge scams, Philippine with a few tens of millions...

I guess we're pretty lucky greedy people are not that wealthy or we could count money lost in the scams in tens of billions.

The downside is that now scammers have enough money to star far more elaborate ICOs that would attract more people.
With a few millions you could buy enough advertising to fool an entire country.

Greedy investors are the favorite of the scammers. Because that kind of investors are need an easy money in a short period of time. They fell that it was a risk but they really did not mind it. They only received or being feed of the wrong information coming from the scammers and that's why they are easy to get scammed.

[merchantofzeny]

Well if it was a hacking incident, I wouldn't call the investors greedy. After all if they have their money in a legit project or exchange and that got hacked, you can't say that they were asking for it. Think of depositors in a bank that went under.

The scams though, they are partly at fault. This for example is a typical get-rich-quickly scheme that should have raised red flags for any sane person.

http://cnnphilippines.com/news/2018/04/10/bitcoin-scam-pnp.html

My country is no stranger to huge Ponzis exploding every 5 years or so you kinda wonder why they never learn.

The downside is that now scammers have enough money to star far more elaborate ICOs that would attract more people.
With a few millions you could buy enough advertising to fool an entire country.

Yes, get gullible people as your front, get celeb endorsers and then disappear without a trace.

[Slugmonkey]

This is really bad for the aim bitcoin has for itself of being universally accepted. And undermines other cryptos reputation as well. This is the reason there is so much need for regulation in this space. The reason bitcoin is not at say 30k is because people get scammed and lose their faith in cryptos. Bitcoin has yet to survive many decades of crisis to be extremely trusted like say gold or notes but this inside hollow maneuvers are just a hindrance.

[Kingofbitcoin12345]

If we look at that figures that is even small than the reality of fiat investment scammed and corruption happening in our world every year.. What I mean is our greediness as a people who thirst money is beyond what currency we have either bitcoin,, fiat or even metals like gold and silvers.. Can we stop it?? Yes by living in the forest with no electricity,, no internet and isolated..

It is our individuality that decide our fate,, do what is right and be secured..

[godzillarekt007]

Are we really surprised by this? I just learned about the biggest scam in crypto history today and it was off the amount you mention by itself. Clearly it was a ponzi scheme because they offered guaranteed returns but honestly I don't feel bad for those who get fleeced. When a project asks you for money or guarantees you income some red flags should go off. If not, hopefully you can learn after getting scammed once.

https://decentralpost.com/2018/04/12/biggest-ico-exit-scam-to-date-in-vietnam-660-million-raised-and-disappeared/

[stompix]

Are we really surprised by this? I just learned about the biggest scam in crypto history today and it was off the amount you mention by itself. Clearly it was a ponzi scheme because they offered guaranteed returns but honestly I don't feel bad for those who get fleeced. When a project asks you for money or guarantees you income some red flags should go off. If not, hopefully you can learn after getting scammed once.

https://decentralpost.com/2018/04/12/biggest-ico-exit-scam-to-date-in-vietnam-660-million-raised-and-disappeared/

Oh, wait a minute!!!

They did manage to raise 660 millions?
In one newspaper I read that the 660 millions was their target not how much they managed to get!!

All that I can say it's ...WOW!!!

I've checked the forum and it does seem they have run a couple of bounty + signature campaigns.
180 pages of promoting a scam

How did they take the money, via ETH only?
32 000 people investing in Vietnam alone seems to much, did they accept any other kind of payments?

If we look at that figures that is even small than the reality of fiat investment scammed and corruption happening in our world every year.. What I mean is our greediness as a people who thirst money is beyond what currency we have,, either bitcoin,, fiat or even metals like gold and silvers.. Can we stop it?? Yes by living in the forest with no electricity,, no internet and isolated..

It is our individuality that decide our fate,, do what is right and be secured..

Compare those numbers to the numbers of people that use fiat to have a true sight of the deal.
The largest ponzi scheme ever was at around 65 billions, if we compare with Bitconnect is 30:1 and with this Vietnamese scam 100:1.
But cryptos never come close to the derivatives market for example, and their 1.2 quadriloin.

[Notcalculator]

This is why crypto related ads are getting banned left and right. It's just easier to ban them all. Also You really cant blame those "greedy" investors. Investors have to be opportunistic and because the technology is new, they probably dont fully understand it.

If we look at that figures that is even small than the reality of fiat investment scammed and corruption happening in our world every year.. What I mean is our greediness as a people who thirst money is beyond what currency we have either bitcoin,, fiat or even metals like gold and silvers.. Can we stop it?? Yes by living in the forest with no electricity,, no internet and isolated..

It is our individuality that decide our fate,, do what is right and be secured..

This is true too. You cant blame fiat the same way you cant blame cryptos for scams.

[dothebeats]

Most of the time, those who got burned are those ones who are too lazy to do proper research in investing whereas those who did their homeworks don't tend to get victimized by these amateur schemes. The stats are just a fine example on how gullible people can be if they were presented with sparkling words that promises fortunes they never had before in an instant. Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency don't offer that; those who managed to get rich due to their investments on cryptocurrency was around when no one else was paying attention. They think they can replicate the success these pioneers made by joining into a new ICO/investment scheme and thinking they have outsmarted others, but little do they know that they're just being lured into the hands of scammers who've been doing this for so long.

[harizen]

Im really pissed off to this opportunistic scammers but in the first place why people easily believes in those easy money earning techniques. They are easily blinded by the promises so in general, the victims here are also liable why they are being scammed.

Recently here in our country, there are lots of people got fooled by crypto investment scheme (the scammers are now in jail). I look at the proposed terms and plans and all I can say is !@#$%. Double the money within a short time frame, wtf! Majority of those people who invest doesn't even know what bitcoin is so how the hell they just throw away their money easily in these kind of scheme. Because of that incident, another misleading title of headline about crypto was being shown by the media resulting in increase of negative views about bitcoin especially for those newcomers who are lazy to do research.

It is our individuality that decide our fate,, do what is right and be secured..

Sometimes what they think is "right" is actually a foolish thing to do in reality. Some people really have to experienced worst before changing their mindset.

[European Central Bank]

where does the 'greedy' part come in when you're the innocent victim of an exchange's security incompetence?

as for the victims of ponzis, i don't have any sympathy. there've been so many and the red flags are so damn red then it's pure mindless greed that drives people into ignoring any good sense.

[bettercrypto]

Greed is what is often targeted by the scammers. Take bitconnect for example, it was an obvious ponzi scheme but people still fell for it because they believed that they would make millions in such a little time. If you don't want to get scammed, don't be greedy.

I think it is not only the greediness of the people that pushed them to invest in scam, sometimes we can consider the needs, faith, trust and ignorance.
1. Needs- we invest for our future needs, we secure ourselves in terms of disaster and emergency.
2. Faith- we have faith in product or investment.  We are easily attach to the benefits that will bring to us by HYIP.
3. Trust- we always give our trust if we find something better with investment. Legal papers can easily blind other perspectives of the people.
4. Ignorance - if you are not ignorant, you will never lend your hand in scam.

There are always factor behind our failure but we need to rise up again for our future. Greed is always seen by the potential scammer to the investor. If you are greed, you will not let your dreams fly high.

[aso118]

where does the 'greedy' part come in when you're the innocent victim of an exchange's security incompetence?

as for the victims of ponzis, i don't have any sympathy. there've been so many and the red flags are so damn red then it's pure mindless greed that drives people into ignoring any good sense.

True. It is unfair for people to combine the losses from cryptocurrency frauds, scams, and hacks. People who invest in ponzi schemes and fraudulent ICOs have only themselves to blame. People who fall prey to phishing scheme can be blamed for being naive and not technically sophisticated, but not greed. When exchanges go bust, people can only be blamed for being lazy (and not transferring bitcoins to their own wallets).

[npredtorch]

There's an addition to that sum for an almost $19M.
Anyone have heard of the now popular NewG scam in the Philippines?

It's quite pathetic to think that most of the victims are people who doesn't even have a clue on cryptocurrency.
Yeah, most of them have zero knowledge on crypto. If you'll ask them, all they can say is "bitcoin, a money on the internet".  They've got sweet-talked like hell with endless promises.

[Slow death]

Greed is what is often targeted by the scammers. Take bitconnect for example, it was an obvious ponzi scheme but people still fell for it because they believed that they would make millions in such a little time. If you don't want to get scammed, don't be greedy.

Who does not want to have easy profits? imagine that someone tells you that you will have a profit of 300% per month, wow people are already falling in this blow and do not even investigate who the people behind this project and how it is possible that these people behind this project can offer 300 % of profit per month. just think why the hell would that person need other people's money, but few people think about it.

That's why you're correct. Greed  makes people not see the obvious

Notable losses since the start of the year include the $400 million hack of Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Coincheck in January and a $170 million hack of cryptocurrency exchange BitGrail in February.

this is the exchange's fault

[Baofeng]

That's pure greed here. Scammers are taking advantage of this and those unsuspecting victims really thinks that they can get easy money that's why scammers are really targeting them. I'm sure that no amount of advise if people are swayed by this 'sweet talkers" saying this and that, blah blah blah. As if people are hypnotized with $$$$ in their eyes. lol.

Just in the Philippines alone, millions worth of money has been taken away by the scammers but if you look at those suspects, no can't imagine how they pull it off. They easily convince them to put millions into it without really understand what crypto is and what risk it has.

[0t3p0t]

There's an addition to that sum for an almost $19M.
Anyone have heard of the now popular NewG scam in the Philippines?

It's quite pathetic to think that most of the victims are people who doesn't even have a clue on cryptocurrency.
Yeah, most of them have zero knowledge on crypto. If you'll ask them, all they can say is "bitcoin, a money on the internet".  They've got sweet-talked like hell with endless promises.

Yeah I agree. No doubt they got fooled by these kind of scammers. These innocent people should learn, make their own due diligence or even asks to those who have knowledge already about cryptocurrency investments or educate themselves on how to play the market for them to understand how cryptocurrency works. That is why I myself teaches everyone here in my local community about crypto but seems only few are interested. Convincing these people is really hard but I will try my very best to educate them so that they will be aware of possible scam if ever there will be something this kind of modus operandi.

[Pattberry]

The market is not regulated and so expect more con artist to come over and take advantage of the situation, it is not a big secret to identify legitimate project from a scam one, the only thing you need to do before investment is to learn about the project and how competent the team is and are they transparent and clarify your doubts, if so you could avoid them.

[Tankdestroyer]

It's quite pathetic to think that most of the victims are people who doesn't even have a clue on cryptocurrency.
Yeah, most of them have zero knowledge on crypto. If you'll ask them, all they can say is "bitcoin, a money on the internet".  They've got sweet-talked like hell with endless promises.

What's the funniest thing of all in that incident is that a single entity decided to invest 10 million Philippine peso where in fact they could easily buy a whole btc using that sum? Another funny thing there is how the ones who referred users there are being threatened by their downlines. They should have had done their research before investing, and bought Bitcoin themselves.

[richminded]

There's an addition to that sum for an almost $19M.
Anyone have heard of the now popular NewG scam in the Philippines?

It's quite pathetic to think that most of the victims are people who doesn't even have a clue on cryptocurrency.
Yeah, most of them have zero knowledge on crypto. If you'll ask them, all they can say is "bitcoin, a money on the internet".  They've got sweet-talked like hell with endless promises.

This is where greed comes from, don’t invest if you know nothing because in the end of the day your money will lose. The problem with people is that, they are not making effort to fully understand cryptocurrency all they want is to earn money without doing anything which is really impossible.

[patz22]

There's an addition to that sum for an almost $19M.
Anyone have heard of the now popular NewG scam in the Philippines?

It's quite pathetic to think that most of the victims are people who doesn't even have a clue on cryptocurrency.
Yeah, most of them have zero knowledge on crypto. If you'll ask them, all they can say is "bitcoin, a money on the internet".  They've got sweet-talked like hell with endless promises.

It was around 900 million Php. In our country, there is still a lot of greedy investors who want a lot of profit in short time. In my insight, one of the reason why that investment company went down because of the market crash. Last year, all coins are pumping so there's a chance that they're using it for trading (this is just my speculation about it  ). Sad to say but this scam could be the reason why crypto will not be accepted here in the Philippines.

[npredtorch]

It's quite pathetic to think that most of the victims are people who doesn't even have a clue on cryptocurrency.
Yeah, most of them have zero knowledge on crypto. If you'll ask them, all they can say is "bitcoin, a money on the internet".  They've got sweet-talked like hell with endless promises.

What's the funniest thing of all in that incident is that a single entity decided to invest 10 million Philippine peso where in fact they could easily buy a whole btc using that sum? Another funny thing there is how the ones who referred users there are being threatened by their downlines. They should have had done their research before investing, and bought Bitcoin themselves.

Yeah I heard that too. They(victims) had been notified that if they divest their money, they can no longer go back and re-join the program.
It's like fooling them and saying "okay it's your choice, you can't join anymore after this. It's the end for you and you can't receive future payments" WTH.

So far this is the simplest scam I've ever known using cryptocurrency. There's no website or any platform and payments are made manually. Moreover, it only spread with word of mouth and the use of SNS.

[TheClownSong]

Better carefull with our private key and keep that safe. Beside that, always aware link sent on our email or suspicious link on website because that can stole our crytpo on our wallet.

[HabBear]

What's worse?

(1) Being ripped off by another person and having a hunch it might happen, because the deal is too good to be true but your own greed can't keep you away from indulging?

OR

(2) Being ripped off by the fractional lending banking system and not even knowing it while it's happening?

I'd say it's the latter.

People have been getting scammed by other people for as long as there have been people. Scamming is human nature. Falling for scams is human nature. Bitcoin certainly isn't driving some nefarious activity, at least not more so than our national banking systems.

[semobo]

If someone want to scam people,he will initiate their greedy from their mind by showing high returns so we need to be careful on what we are investing.Nowadays the cryotocurrency field is filled with lot of scammers because it is an anonymous market so this may decrease the growth rate of cryotocurrency adoption so people need to stay away from scammers mainly from scam ICOs.

[syaripudin]

Greed may be one of the causes of harm that can be felt by some people who get fraud committed by greedy people. and this will definitely have an impact on reducing the level of confidence in crypto. and of course this will be very harmful to anyone who really wants to increase the existence of crypto seriously without any engineering done just to get a big profit.

[BillCoin]

LONDON — Investors have lost $670 million of cryptocurrencies in hacks and scams over the last three months, according to data shared with Business Insider.

Only 670$ millions this year?
I thought that only the damage from Bitconnect and the top ICOs that went missing would topple that.

And there are the news from Vietnam with two huge scams, Philippine with a few tens of millions...

I guess we're pretty lucky greedy people are not that wealthy or we could count money lost in the scams in tens of billions.

The downside is that now scammers have enough money to star far more elaborate ICOs that would attract more people.
With a few millions you could buy enough advertising to fool an entire country.

Probably outdated, bitcnnected itself had about 3 Billion dollars market cap at the time it fell down, I know that market cap doesn't mean net worth, but I believe that the net worth was about 1B$ at that time.

I believe that this amount doesn't include ICOs that never came out with a product, even after the deadlines, and it doesn't indicate coins that went down to almost zero after the ICO because the development team left the project after they received the money, which is totally equal to " scam ".

[krauzzer02]

There's an addition to that sum for an almost $19M.
Anyone have heard of the now popular NewG scam in the Philippines?

It's quite pathetic to think that most of the victims are people who doesn't even have a clue on cryptocurrency.
Yeah, most of them have zero knowledge on crypto. If you'll ask them, all they can say is "bitcoin, a money on the internet".  They've got sweet-talked like hell with endless promises.

On the good part those freaking scammers end their fortune days as they are rubbing the railings of the jail, those two criminal couples deserve to bring all the money back from the investors as the authorities find out that the wallet used to store the scammed money was all gone now hoping that all the scammers out there will get what they deserve for fooling and stealing other people's money cause not all of the investors on this schemes got their rightful justice, there is a saying that people perish because they lack knowledge.

[Proton2233]

Scammers always use human weaknesses for their scams. Greed is one of the greatest weaknesses. She often turns her mind off. Even if a person is smart. But I don't feel sorry for these people. They chose their own path. All who do not want to work but want to have a lot of money waiting for such a final. They are always the main contenders to become the victim of scams.

[Simon Eaton]

I'm any emerging market that has yet to be regulated I think it's inevitable these scams pop up I think it's about the transition into a mature market that needs to be the focus. By doing that better regulation will enter and there will be some sort of oversight of the market keeping scammers in check. But yes it does all boil down to greed. There is no other reason to take that risk

[alyssa85]

Greed is what is often targeted by the scammers. Take bitconnect for example, it was an obvious ponzi scheme but people still fell for it because they believed that they would make millions in such a little time. If you don't want to get scammed, don't be greedy.

I think everyone believes they'll get out in time, when dealing with obvious scams like bitconnect. They don't realise just how quickly these scams can collapse under their own weight.

[daarul50]

Such fraud does not only happen in digital currency (cryptocurrency) like bitcoin but also occurs in fiat currency. It is wise to use money in investing and always be careful to ensure that where we invest is really safe and reliable especially crypto very vulnerable to a hacking. Scammers and hackers are common enemies for both crypto investors and fiat currency investors

[Kemarit]

Scammers always use human weaknesses for their scams. Greed is one of the greatest weaknesses. She often turns her mind off. Even if a person is smart. But I don't feel sorry for these people. They chose their own path. All who do not want to work but want to have a lot of money waiting for such a final. They are always the main contenders to become the victim of scams.

Its really one of our worst enemies, when greed sets in, we forgot everything and our judgement are clouded specially if you hear like 10%-30% returns in short amount of time. I guess 90% of us here have been scammed one time or another. But its how we get up and tell ourselves that we will not be scammed again. Its really a painful and expensive lesson, but I guess we need to go that path to at least open our eyes that we shouldn't be greedy because it will really bring problems for us in the future, specially in this industry. Yes, they might have chosen their part, but at least they should learn from their mistakes and hope that they wouldn't easily believed those sweet talkers whose goal is to take the money of unsuspecting victims.

[stompix]

LONDON — Investors have lost $670 million of cryptocurrencies in hacks and scams over the last three months, according to data shared with Business Insider.

Only 670$ millions this year?
I thought that only the damage from Bitconnect and the top ICOs that went missing would topple that.

And there are the news from Vietnam with two huge scams, Philippine with a few tens of millions...

I guess we're pretty lucky greedy people are not that wealthy or we could count money lost in the scams in tens of billions.

The downside is that now scammers have enough money to star far more elaborate ICOs that would attract more people.
With a few millions you could buy enough advertising to fool an entire country.

Probably outdated, bitcnnected itself had about 3 Billion dollars market cap at the time it fell down, I know that market cap doesn't mean net worth, but I believe that the net worth was about 1B$ at that time.

I believe that this amount doesn't include ICOs that never came out with a product, even after the deadlines, and it doesn't indicate coins that went down to almost zero after the ICO because the development team left the project after they received the money, which is totally equal to " scam ".

My bet on the actual money invested in ICO vs market cap ratio is about 1:10 at most. Don't ask for how I've come on that number, it's just ..my hunch.

I am sure the ones that read the article  didn't even bother to investigate small ICO that never got off like the hundred we have around here on Bitcointalk and went after the big whales only.
Just the last week we had quite the storm about BitBlissCoin, that managed to get only a few thousands dollars before they were exposed.

Of course it was a total scam, and the numbers of victims around here is getting low, just as the sums but there are still people who think that the best investing strategy is to throw a constant sum of money, let's say 100$ to each ICO they stumble upon.
So if they get scammed in 20 but one if them gets them a 50:1 return they are happy.I'm still puzzled about this and I can;t believe how many are still doing it.

It would be fun to try and find out how much money have been raised in ICOs alone on bitcointalk but that is a Sisyphean task.
I would bet on a few tens of millions but...god knows.

[gantez]

Greed is what is often targeted by the scammers. Take bitconnect for example, it was an obvious ponzi scheme but people still fell for it because they believed that they would make millions in such a little time. If you don't want to get scammed, don't be greedy.

Quite understanding about bitconnect being a ponzi which was glaring and staring in the face but what of some ico coins with promises to be listed in the big and popular exchanges who never fulfils that, are the investors also greedy? I don't agree that it is greed that makes investors to be scammed in some cases.

[horrifiedx1]

Greed is what is often targeted by the scammers. Take bitconnect for example, it was an obvious ponzi scheme but people still fell for it because they believed that they would make millions in such a little time. If you don't want to get scammed, don't be greedy.

Quite understanding about bitconnect being a ponzi which was glaring and staring in the face but what of some ico coins with promises to be listed in the big and popular exchanges who never fulfils that, are the investors also greedy? I don't agree that it is greed that makes investors to be scammed in some cases.

right. i think we should analyze correctly if it will be an event in ico. first thing to note is the project team. because with a good team will try to develop that project and maintain investor trusted

[Sitipxz]

LONDON — Investors have lost $670 million of cryptocurrencies in hacks and scams over the last three months, according to data shared with Business Insider.

Crypto Aware, which gives investment advice for crypto, compiled data on all the major hacks and scams in the space between June 2011 and March 2018.

The data shows that over $1.7 billion-worth of cryptocurrency was stolen over the period, with $670 million lost in the first three months of 2018 alone. It means that 40% of all cryptocurrency theft by value has occurred in just the last three months.

Notable losses since the start of the year include the $400 million hack of Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Coincheck in January and a $170 million hack of cryptocurrency exchange BitGrail in February.

Anna Wu, the founder of Crypto Aware, told Business Insider: "Cryptocurrency is receiving more and more validation as a means of value transfer, with top coins reaching historically high prices toward the end of last year. This attracted a lot of new, unseasoned investors who are not well versed in terms of online security and who are identified as easy targets by scammers."

The total size of the cryptocurrency market rose from around $27 billion in April 2017 to close to $270 billion as of Tuesday. The market exploded thanks to the rise of bitcoin against the dollar and the new trend of "initial coin offerings" (ICOs), where startups issue their own digital coins to fund their businesses. Startups raised $5.6 billion through ICOs in 2017.

Wu said: "Cryptocurrency frauds, scams, and hacks tend to rise every time there is considerable upward momentum in pricing for cryptocurrency market, so be extra cautious when the market is bullish."

Crypto Aware's figures highlight the risks associated with the volatile and unregulated market. Many investors store their crypto centrally on exchanges and these large holdings make them an attractive target for hackers.

Scammers have also fraudulently raised millions from unknowing investors, such as Chinese Ponzi scheme "Asian-European Currency" which was shut down by police in early 2017.

Wu told BI that investors shouldn't invest more than they can afford to lose and should inspect URLs closely.

"Phishing scams are by far the most popular type of scams and you can easily avoid them by checking the website address against the officially published URLs character by character," she said.

Wu added: "If it seems too good to be true - it is. Investment scams often try to entice gullible investors with unrealistic returns. Don't be greedy."

https://onecryptocoinnews.blogspot.in/2018/04/cryptocurrency-scammers-are-making.html

Original source: https://[Suspicious link removed]/2GGx1LH

[Bastok]

Greed is what is often targeted by the scammers. Take bitconnect for example, it was an obvious ponzi scheme but people still fell for it because they believed that they would make millions in such a little time. If you don't want to get scammed, don't be greedy.

Those who are victim of  scammers are also contributer of their loss. They allowed themself to manipulate by scammers. Being greedy will only lead problem in our lives. And it is very impossible to be a millionnare in just a week , month or year. It takes 5 to 10 years or more with hard work.

[Kakmakr]

The thing is that a lot of people are attracted to Crypto currencies, because it is known for the incredible volatility in the price. If you invested in January of 2017 and you sold in December 2017, you would have made +/- 800% profit in less than 1 year. So the type of investor that are being attracted to Bitcoin is those investors that are used to the high volatility and the big gains.

This is where it gets tricky, because they had a taste of high returns and then it fuels the greed and this blinds them from the high returns that are promised by these scams.

[LodisMcguire]

That's why we need to regulate ICO and not just ban it.Regulation will filter the project to be suitable to release in the internet,so that scam project will be reduced.For investor,it's better to know what you're doing and research thoroughly before you invest in some project.

[Mpamaegbu]

First off OP, hacks aren't the same as scams. Investors are usually not to blame in the former. By the way what is your defining term for greed as in "greedy" investors. Will you consider someone who loses a few dollar here and there in crypto investments via unsuspecting scammy ICOs as greedy? I guess not?

I look at the proposed terms and plans and all I can say is !@#$%. Double the money within a short time frame, wtf!

I bet such Bitcoin doubling promising schemes were prevalent during the awakening months of bitcoin. I am not sure anyone falls for that anymore.

[Kiweikoo]

If someone want to scam people,he will initiate their greedy from their mind by showing high returns so we need to be careful on what we are investing.Nowadays the cryotocurrency field is filled with lot of scammers because it is an anonymous market so this may decrease the growth rate of cryotocurrency adoption so people need to stay away from scammers mainly from scam ICOs.

This is a fact that everyone in this world wants to become rich and desires are the weakest point of any human. This is where scammers strike. Now the next part is, every one also likes to get big profits with as little work as possible.

Scammers give an opportunity to earn large amounts of money with very less efforts. Ultimately, it turns out to be a trap. The safest is to go with trustworthy coins and ICOs.

[Commie]

People start hearing of profits in crypto, then go and invest their money with little to none understanding of what they are investing in. Then blame crypto as whole for their own bad decisions.

[AVAMONEY]

Greed is what is often targeted by the scammers. Take bitconnect for example, it was an obvious ponzi scheme but people still fell for it because they believed that they would make millions in such a little time. If you don't want to get scammed, don't be greedy.

That's one good example, many warning about it that Bitconnect will going to scam in the end, but greedy making people blind about it realize and they fall much into scamming product. We can't blame about how crypto works, but greedy will forget about do not invest on what you can't afford to lose.

[cryptoflintcode]

Firstly, I think scammers are damaging cryptocurrency.. because their actions will bring stiff regulations and we can't really predict what that will do to cryptocurrency..

And for the greedy investors, they don't do due diligence for projects they want to invest in and tend to ignore warning signals and red flags that clearly seem as scam in their bid to 'lambo' very fast..

[Biscutard]

People start hearing of profits in crypto, then go and invest their money with little to none understanding of what they are investing in. Then blame crypto as whole for their own bad decisions.

This is the main reason why most of them just got scammed because they tend to invest without doing some research or having a knowledge on what they are dealing with. It is really important to know every details when we are talking about of money and not just by mainly investing because you like it or because you heard they profit from it but the real thing is that they were just joining some ponzi. So it is better to really do some research when there is money's being involved.

[audaciousbeing]

Greed is what is often targeted by the scammers. Take bitconnect for example, it was an obvious ponzi scheme but people still fell for it because they believed that they would make millions in such a little time. If you don't want to get scammed, don't be greedy.

Greed is a key thing and this case is one that you even see Legendary members blinded by greed defending why its the best thing and get scammed what you then see, is them creating a thread as a newbie because they are ashamed of their decisions. For this category of people, they don't deserve my pity as they brought whatever happen upon themselves just for some dollars.

Firstly, I think scammers are damaging cryptocurrency.. because their actions will bring stiff regulations and we can't really predict what that will do to cryptocurrency..

And for the greedy investors, they don't do due diligence for projects they want to invest in and tend to ignore warning signals and red flags that clearly seem as scam in their bid to 'lambo' very fast..

While huge scamming is being facilitated by greed several others are victims ignorantly and that is casing more harm than we can imagine to the entire crypto space to the extent that when people liken bitcoin to scam, they would be right. Not knowing people are only hiding under that to facilitate their nefarious activities. I would blame those who create the platforms to scam because even people who are greedy won't fall victim when there is no platform to try their lucks.

[munareal]

Scammers and hackers are giving crypto currencies a bad name as crypto is associated to criminals .Regulations is a welcome policy as it will check mate scammers.We also as investor have to do our part which is due diligent. The internet is not a way of getting rich quick

[gabmen]

People start hearing of profits in crypto, then go and invest their money with little to none understanding of what they are investing in. Then blame crypto as whole for their own bad decisions.

This is the main reason why most of them just got scammed because they tend to invest without doing some research or having a knowledge on what they are dealing with. It is really important to know every details when we are talking about of money and not just by mainly investing because you like it or because you heard they profit from it but the real thing is that they were just joining some ponzi. So it is better to really do some research when there is money's being involved.

Well it's really tempting though when you hesr about how your money can grow several percentages up in just a few days. That most of the time takes logic away from investors since all they want is easy money. Making yourself aware would lessen the chances of succumbing to these kind of people

[Commie]

People start hearing of profits in crypto, then go and invest their money with little to none understanding of what they are investing in. Then blame crypto as whole for their own bad decisions.

This is the main reason why most of them just got scammed because they tend to invest without doing some research or having a knowledge on what they are dealing with. It is really important to know every details when we are talking about of money and not just by mainly investing because you like it or because you heard they profit from it but the real thing is that they were just joining some ponzi. So it is better to really do some research when there is money's being involved.

If everyone done that before investing into anything, ponzi schemes would be extinct long time ago. But human is a funny animal, his greed doesn't have limits so there will always be stable supply of fools waiting to be scammed.

[burner2014]

People start hearing of profits in crypto, then go and invest their money with little to none understanding of what they are investing in. Then blame crypto as whole for their own bad decisions.

This is the main reason why most of them just got scammed because they tend to invest without doing some research or having a knowledge on what they are dealing with. It is really important to know every details when we are talking about of money and not just by mainly investing because you like it or because you heard they profit from it but the real thing is that they were just joining some ponzi. So it is better to really do some research when there is money's being involved.

If everyone done that before investing into anything, ponzi schemes would be extinct long time ago. But human is a funny animal, his greed doesn't have limits so there will always be stable supply of fools waiting to be scammed.

Let us just understand those people and they should treat things as a learning in their life, so far, I was victim too but not too high, I just invest a couple of dollar to make sure if it will work or not before investing at high price, and so far I was scammed but it is okay because I learned to be careful well.

[GoldenLad]

A lot people are very greedy, and it's just in some human nature to be greedy. It's just so unfortunate that this their greedy act is giving cryptocurrency a bad name. Many people who did not invest in cryptocurrency are spreading FUD to beginners whom just startedout in cryptocurrency and telling them  that hackers can easily steal your coin if they invest.

[BartS]

LONDON — Investors have lost $670 million of cryptocurrencies in hacks and scams over the last three months, according to data shared with Business Insider.

Crypto Aware, which gives investment advice for crypto, compiled data on all the major hacks and scams in the space between June 2011 and March 2018.

The data shows that over $1.7 billion-worth of cryptocurrency was stolen over the period, with $670 million lost in the first three months of 2018 alone. It means that 40% of all cryptocurrency theft by value has occurred in just the last three months.

Notable losses since the start of the year include the $400 million hack of Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Coincheck in January and a $170 million hack of cryptocurrency exchange BitGrail in February.

Anna Wu, the founder of Crypto Aware, told Business Insider: "Cryptocurrency is receiving more and more validation as a means of value transfer, with top coins reaching historically high prices toward the end of last year. This attracted a lot of new, unseasoned investors who are not well versed in terms of online security and who are identified as easy targets by scammers."

The total size of the cryptocurrency market rose from around $27 billion in April 2017 to close to $270 billion as of Tuesday. The market exploded thanks to the rise of bitcoin against the dollar and the new trend of "initial coin offerings" (ICOs), where startups issue their own digital coins to fund their businesses. Startups raised $5.6 billion through ICOs in 2017.

Wu said: "Cryptocurrency frauds, scams, and hacks tend to rise every time there is considerable upward momentum in pricing for cryptocurrency market, so be extra cautious when the market is bullish."

Crypto Aware's figures highlight the risks associated with the volatile and unregulated market. Many investors store their crypto centrally on exchanges and these large holdings make them an attractive target for hackers.

Scammers have also fraudulently raised millions from unknowing investors, such as Chinese Ponzi scheme "Asian-European Currency" which was shut down by police in early 2017.

Wu told BI that investors shouldn't invest more than they can afford to lose and should inspect URLs closely.

"Phishing scams are by far the most popular type of scams and you can easily avoid them by checking the website address against the officially published URLs character by character," she said.

Wu added: "If it seems too good to be true - it is. Investment scams often try to entice gullible investors with unrealistic returns. Don't be greedy."

https://onecryptocoinnews.blogspot.in/2018/04/cryptocurrency-scammers-are-making.html

Original source: https://read.bi/2GGx1LH

If things are this bad right now then it is very easy to imagine that things are going to get a lot worse when a lot more people begin to invest in cryptocurrencies since those people have no sense of how to store their coins, right now the people that are investing in cryptocurrencies, people like us, have some knowledge about how to avoid scammers and hackers, but the people that are going to make cryptocurrencies widely adopted around the world can barely install an app and login into their Facebook accounts, so things could get very ugly very soon.

[Commie]

People start hearing of profits in crypto, then go and invest their money with little to none understanding of what they are investing in. Then blame crypto as whole for their own bad decisions.

This is the main reason why most of them just got scammed because they tend to invest without doing some research or having a knowledge on what they are dealing with. It is really important to know every details when we are talking about of money and not just by mainly investing because you like it or because you heard they profit from it but the real thing is that they were just joining some ponzi. So it is better to really do some research when there is money's being involved.

If everyone done that before investing into anything, ponzi schemes would be extinct long time ago. But human is a funny animal, his greed doesn't have limits so there will always be stable supply of fools waiting to be scammed.

Let us just understand those people and they should treat things as a learning in their life, so far, I was victim too but not too high, I just invest a couple of dollar to make sure if it will work or not before investing at high price, and so far I was scammed but it is okay because I learned to be careful well.

I believe we have all been there at some point. However, there are those who learn and those who don't

[felicity06]

But for me still it is not a good habit...  To engage in scamming...  If you analyze the meaning of invest it is much good to heard that someone invest using his/ her own money rather than scamming someone to earn money... It is unfair even those investors are trully greedy when its about profit.... We cant judge them easily at least they are working fair beyondd their motives...  Rather than those who scam... 

[SkiOlya]

Wherever there is money, there are necessarily fraudulent schemes. Unfortunately, bitcoin could not avoid this either. It turned out on the contrary, with the crypto currency even more cases of deceptions. This is because users do not know everything about bitcoin and the attackers use it. Therefore, all owners of bitcoins need to study all known fraud options so as not to get caught!

[Semaj123]

A lot people are very greedy, and it's just in some human nature to be greedy. It's just so unfortunate that this their greedy act is giving cryptocurrency a bad name. Many people who did not invest in cryptocurrency are spreading FUD to beginners whom just startedout in cryptocurrency and telling them  that hackers can easily steal your coin if they invest.

Definitely, because people are tempted with money and probably will do something that could lead to some criminal activities. They havs been fooled because they lack some knowledge about how crypto really works. They always wanted to have an easy money and probably they didn't even know the risk behind those opportunities. This is why we should carefully think first before getting involved in an investment so that we can avoid some scammers.

[lienfaye]

where does the 'greedy' part come in when you're the innocent victim of an exchange's security incompetence?

Indeed its a different thing.
Majority of people victimized by scammers are newbies because they want an easy money and thinking its a good opportunity to grab the chance and earn huge amount in an instant. Lack of knowledge and being greedy are the reason why they end up losing instead of earning. However its a good lesson and experience that you can apply the next time you decided to invest again.

[MakeMoneyBtc]

For hackers this area of cryptocurrencies is very profitable because they can steal a lot of bitcoins or other coins without getting caught because cryptocurrencies are impossible to track after they are stolen.
The important thing is what they are going to do further with those bitcoins because they can either run away with them and live a very good life or return some of them to the investors or even donate them to a charity or something.

[BartS]

Wherever there is money, there are necessarily fraudulent schemes. Unfortunately, bitcoin could not avoid this either. It turned out on the contrary, with the crypto currency even more cases of deceptions. This is because users do not know everything about bitcoin and the attackers use it. Therefore, all owners of bitcoins need to study all known fraud options so as not to get caught!

And the problem with cryptocurrencies is that scams are even more dangerous and the reason for that is when you use fiat like credit or debit cards you have the possibility of getting back your money thanks to the banks blocking the transaction or reverting the funds to you, but in cryptocurrencies this is impossible once a transaction has been confirmed enough times it is impossible to reverse it and due to the anonymity provided by cryptocurrencies it may be impossible to catch the culprit in order to try to get that money back.

[johnnythunder]

Wherever there is money, there are necessarily fraudulent schemes. Unfortunately, bitcoin could not avoid this either. It turned out on the contrary, with the crypto currency even more cases of deceptions. This is because users do not know everything about bitcoin and the attackers use it. People don't only commit fraud with bitcoin but even making use of fiat currency.

[squatz1]

While this is something which is horrible to see, I do think that these hacks and scams are highlighted a lot more by the media (and normal people) because they're happening in crypto. I think that if this was to happen to someone with their normal FIAT, they wouldn't be hitting the news-- because it happens so much no one would even bat an eye or care about the problem.

It really does give us a bad name like this, hoping for this to end.

[loggin]

Greed is what is often targeted by the scammers. Take bitconnect for example, it was an obvious ponzi scheme but people still fell for it because they believed that they would make millions in such a little time. If you don't want to get scammed, don't be greedy.

It is not always the greed, some get trapped because of their innocence as well.

I have seen posts here saying that one need not learn about bitcoins or any other alt coin as long as one is making money with investment. Such kind of approach may give returns one or two times but will lead to complete failure in long run. You need to research before investing your hard earned money in any project.

[BartS]

While this is something which is horrible to see, I do think that these hacks and scams are highlighted a lot more by the media (and normal people) because they're happening in crypto. I think that if this was to happen to someone with their normal FIAT, they wouldn't be hitting the news-- because it happens so much no one would even bat an eye or care about the problem.

It really does give us a bad name like this, hoping for this to end.

In a way you are right all of these incidents are highlighted by the media because they know this will bring viewers and clicks to their websites, however we cannot deny the truth that the existence of digital money has made for hackers and for thieves in general their lives a lot more easier, now they can steal fortunes from the comforts of their own homes and the risk of getting detected are very low, credit card fraud is rampant right now and I am not very sure that this is going to go down if bitcoin is accepted worldwide in fact I think the problem will go up because now the security will depend on your average person.