🔒
Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency Scams to Watch out forpublished by [cryptosec.info]unfortunately I'm currently not allowed to post images, so I provided screenshot links instead. Will edit this post with the proper img tags once I get enough merits for "member" rank.Thanks for the merits ladies and gents!
Online Scams has been around since the world wide web started, and a few years ago it looks like scammers has found another industry to make money off– the cryptocurrency space. The cryptocurrency space is infested with scams due to it’s
pseudo anonymous nature, allowing scammers to get away with huge heists with little to no trace.
The best way to not get affected by these scams is simply to
educate yourself and
be extremely cautious in everything you click online. Here are some of the common scams that are being used in the cryptocurrency space.
Phishing sitesPhishing sites are scams sites that are
masquerading as certain legitimate websites like social media sites, online banking sites, exchange sites, wallet sites, etc. Most of these phishing sites even looks exactly like the website they’re pretending to be.
So how do they work? Phishing sites mostly appear on Google or other search engine’s ads. You do a Google search on “Binance“, and so if you don’t use an Google ad blocker, then Google the top result would be an advertisement.
It clearly says “
www.binance.com” on the advertised link, but when you actually click the link and look at your browser’s address bar, there’s a good chance that it’s going to say something like “
binanceus.com“,
binancesite.co“, something along those lines that isn’t the legitimate “
binance.com“.
Some scammers are even smart, as they use domains like “
biṇaṇce.com“.
You might haven’t noticed, but it’s actually an “
ṇ“, a latin character(an “n” with a dot below it). Always keep your eyes peeled. Take note that this doesn’t only occur on exchanges. These scams exist for
Facebook, Coinbase, MyEtherWallet, etc. Also, these scams doesn’t only exist on search engine ads.
They could also be spread in the form of emails; scammers may email you something along the lines of: “
Your account has been locked due to suspicious activity. Click on the link below to unlock your account“; and the link they’ve listed would actually be a phishing link.
Tips to not get phished:[1] always do a double or triple check on your browser’s address bar and confirm if you’re actually on the legitimate website
[2] install an ad blocker on your browser
[3] make sure the site you’re navigating to has a green “secure” tag on the address bar. Though a secure tag doesn’t automatically mean the website is legit.
Twitter Giveaway ScamsThis should be a very obvious scam, but we’d just included this anyway due to people still falling for this scam for some reason.
This type of scam is pretty straightforward. The scammer would make a fake a Twitter account masquerading as a famous cryptocurrency or any technological personality, then the scammer would then reply on the legitimate person’s tweet, saying something along the lines of:
“I am donating 250 ETH! First 250 transactions with 0.2 ETH sent to the address below will receive 1 ETH in the address the 0.2 ETH came from.”
Don’t be delusional. No one would give out good amounts of money to strangers online.
Investment scams/Ponzi schemesInvestment scams has existed pretty much since forever. They ask you to deposit a certain amount of money(or crypto, in this case), and
promise a amount in return every week, month, or year. Today, most of these scams mostly pretend to be “
trading bots“, “
cloud mining” sites, “
bitcoin investment” sites, etc.
Yes, some people do make money off these sites, by using the site’s
referral program. If you invite another person into the program and get the person to deposit money, you get a small percentage off the deposit. These scam sites mostly use referral programs to get people to spread these scams online for them; sometimes even to the point of YouTubers spreading them, causing a huge number of people to fall for these scams.
If you wanted to invest in the cryptocurrency market, buy the coins/tokens using reputable exchanges and hold them on your own secure wallet.
Some famous ponzi scams in the past:[1] BitConnect
[2] DavorCoin
[3] HashOcean
Pump and DumpsPump and Dumps are pretty easy to spot, as pump and dump group leaders usually advertise them as “
pump groups“, "
free trading signals" or something along those lines. The scheme is pretty straightforward: The leader asks his/her members to buy a certain coin/token that is quite low in marketcap to make the price far easier to manipulate, claiming that it will raise or “
pump” in price. Well the thing is, before the leader actually announces the coin/token, the leader already loaded up his/her bags with that certain coin/token, so he/she can sell them in a significantly higher price. Earning the leader significant amounts of profit.
How do you not fall into these schemes? Easy. Simply don’t join these groups.
Scam ICOsInitial Coin Offerings or ICOs is quite similar to crowdfunding whereas the company/team accepts BTC/ETH from the people in exchange for a certain amount of their coins/tokens, depending on how much you sent them.
ICOs aren’t really scams as some are definitely legitimate, but
a good percentage of ICOs are indeed scams. The thing is, some well-made ICO scams are quite hard to detect as a scammer could create a legitimate well-thought project and simply just not deliver and run away with the money. Though there are some scam ICO characteristics that could be enough proof for you to stay away from certain ICOs.
More will be added to the list in the future.
Disclaimer: CryptoSec.info is a website made to help beginners in the cryptocurrency-space by giving them sufficient knowledge on protecting their crypto investments, and learn about the risks they’re taking when using certain wallets and or services.
Related articles:
