Do scams harm Bitcoin's reputation in the mainstream world?

[20kevin20]

From my own viewpoint, scam is cur across every currency. Both fiat and digital currency. However, it becomes a problem when the chance of getting or recovering back your money is very slim. Then people become fearful when it is not likely going to be so. Consistent use of digital currencies who has been a subject of discussion by novice as a scam will further harm the reputation of the coin while it might promote further usage as currency for getting away with scam by the scammers. Such can be noticed by increasing scam giveaway on youtube that use the same old trick and even site script

Most (if not all) scams are actually successful due to the BTC owner's fault. It doesn't really make sense to blame a decentralized system for not protecting you from a deal that seemed too good to be true and an obvious scam in the first place. It's also much harder to get away with a BTC scam than it is to get away with a cash theft. There's a very significant difference between the amount of illicit activity of the two, and Bitcoin is in advantage.  All scams really prove is there's always going to be people that don't play by the rules, in any medium.

[bitbunnny]

I don't think so although by some people who think from the begininig that Bitcoin is scam and something that can't be trusted, such scams only make bad impression even worse
However, we need to have in mind that fiat money is also very often connected with scams, all types of it, and the fact why scamers use Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies is the fact that they are still harder to trace. However, that doesn't mean that Bitcoin is a tool for scam itself.

[kryptqnick]

There has been a lot of scams within the crypto space over the course of its lifetime. Most recently, a Twitter hack that took the accounts of prominent figures within the mainstream world, has been all over the news. Mainstream media has been making people believe that Bitcoin is "bad" by tying it to the Twitter hack. While malicious actors demanded to be paid in Bitcoin, it doesn't mean that the cryptocurrency itself is a scam. Unfortunately, many people in the mainstream world have commented about Bitcoin negatively because of the recent hack. Despite these unfortunate series of events, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are experiencing huge gains on the market.

Do you think that scams harm Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies' reputation in the mainstream world? What will it take for people to distance scams from Bitcoin itself? Thoughts?

I believe that they do. They would not have harmed Bitcoin's reputation if people did their research, but that's not usually the case. People who are deep into cryptos know well that the community doesn't tolerate scam and is happy when scammers are caught. However, when it comes to people who just hear about cryptos from time to time, they are likely not to differentiate between things. Bitcoin-crypto-blockchain-ICO are sort of one world of vague and shady stuff to them, not to mention that sometimes scam is indeed related to Bitcoin (usually stealing Bitcoin). So if you don't really care to read more, it sounds like something to avoid because it's used by criminals and it's something that gets stolen often.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

One thing that I think of these days is that people are sort of used to cyber crime happening, because many have seen their own information fall into the wrong hands when corporations like Target and Sony(?) got hacked, and I'm sure there have been quite a number of other cases that I either can't recall or don't know about.  And all of that involved either information or money, so I don't think a lot of folks nowadays necessarily think of bitcoin as a scam or as an insecure payment method or anything like that.  They're more likely to associate it with other crimes like drugs and whatnot.

Yes, but mostly because people don't understand Bitcoin. To some it's an internet magic money and they already know that internet is full of scams.

That's true to some extent, but I don't know if the general public is even aware of the vast majority of crypto scams that are going on.  Members of bitcointalk are used to seeing them all over the place, but that's because we're reading about them here or on a crypto news site.  I don't think the mainstream media reports on crypto scams all that much, though someone please correct me if I'm mistaken.  In any case, I don't think there's much of a reputational damage issue we need to worry about when the scams keep happening--and we all know they will.

[buwaytress]

A bit of old hat to talk about reputation from scams, but just to put this here that Western Union scams are the most common of all money type and yet, does WU care? Absolutely not.

Still one of the most popular means to send money. It is being chipped away at slowly but at the end of the day, people will stop listening to the noise and start relying on word of mouth and personal experience. WU doesn't cheat its customers (even if their fees are exorbitant) and Bitcoin itself doesn't make you shit yr pants if you use it as intended.

I'd be really pleased if these scams purged Bitcoin weak hands too but I'm afraid they're already all gone.

[peterpanda]

In my opinion, scam is very harmful for bitcoin's reputation. Some country is not accepting bitcoin as legal currency for this kind of activities.

[gentlemand]

I think it makes people, who otherwise wouldn't be, wary and they may approach it with increased caution. I'd say this is no bad thing. There's plenty of ways to screw up.

On the other hand it also subconsciously tells people it's worth something and therefore worth investigating. No one screws another person for a non existent pay day.

[LUCKMCFLY]

There has been a lot of scams within the crypto space over the course of its lifetime. Most recently, a Twitter hack that took the accounts of prominent figures within the mainstream world, has been all over the news. Mainstream media has been making people believe that Bitcoin is "bad" by tying it to the Twitter hack. While malicious actors demanded to be paid in Bitcoin, it doesn't mean that the cryptocurrency itself is a scam. Unfortunately, many people in the mainstream world have commented about Bitcoin negatively because of the recent hack. Despite these unfortunate series of events, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are experiencing huge gains on the market.

Do you think that scams harm Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies' reputation in the mainstream world? What will it take for people to distance scams from Bitcoin itself? Thoughts?

I do not think it damages the reputation of Bitcoin, on the contrary, the importance and how valuable it is was demonstrated, many Strong Hands took advantage of that small fundamental to buy cheap Bitcoin for those weak hands that if they sold out of fear, in fact, some time later we saw that the price of Bitcoin went up.

For those who do not know about Bitcoin and have not entered the market and do not know its market, it is obvious that it causes fear, but they fear what they do not know, the same news and the same events that will stand out throughout time will produce more interest in those who distrusted, everything is a matter of patience.

[MCobian]

Of course the recent scams have hurt Bitcoin. Especially regarding the twitter hack problem making the mainstream world
negative view of Bitcoin, this makes Bitcoin's reputation look bad. Therefore, a lot of education and outreach is needed
regarding Bitcoin to the mainstream world, so that people mind is far open and can know the positive side of Bitcoin,
so hopefully it can avoid the scams that happen a lot.

[FlightyPouch]

In my opinion, scam is very harmful for bitcoin's reputation. Some country is not accepting bitcoin as legal currency for this kind of activities.

Well, this depends actually. In our province, people are saying that it is a scam since they watched news about it while us that actually knows it, it doesn't have an effect. Also, these people don't use them or won't have an interest on using it so it doesn't matter. Other countries have their own reason and it is not the fact that it is related to scam or illegal activities but because they think it might overthrow their fiats or other financial systems.

[Zionatin]

I think scams ruin all reputations but I think people are silly and many think that bitcoin is a scam just because scams are run using bitcoin as payment. Otherwise, we can say any form of payment is a scam.
I think because bitcoin is new and many don't understand the technology and also down to plain ignorance so they assume if it has anything to do with bitcoin it must be a scam.

I would be much more worried about how scams affect the price of crypto and how it affects the economy. That money should be going to good projects and people yet it is wasted due to thieves taking advantage of people.

[Ridwan Fauzi]

Nope for me who has been using bitcoin for several years. I mean, I have an imagine if there is a hacker or samething else that end up in fraud and the other negatives who ask some people to send money fiat in form of USD, EURO and all the currency requested / used by a criminal, would we consider that's bad reputation for all those currencies? I guess no, because many people will consider as a money we don't need reputation in it. As long as bitcoin has been using by someone and he already know its characteristic then he won't leave to didn't use it again.

[Quidat]

There has been a lot of scams within the crypto space over the course of its lifetime. Most recently, a Twitter hack that took the accounts of prominent figures within the mainstream world, has been all over the news. Mainstream media has been making people believe that Bitcoin is "bad" by tying it to the Twitter hack. While malicious actors demanded to be paid in Bitcoin, it doesn't mean that the cryptocurrency itself is a scam. Unfortunately, many people in the mainstream world have commented about Bitcoin negatively because of the recent hack. Despite these unfortunate series of events, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are experiencing huge gains on the market.

Do you think that scams harm Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies' reputation in the mainstream world? What will it take for people to distance scams from Bitcoin itself? Thoughts?

I do not think it damages the reputation of Bitcoin, on the contrary, the importance and how valuable it is was demonstrated, many Strong Hands took advantage of that small fundamental to buy cheap Bitcoin for those weak hands that if they sold out of fear, in fact, some time later we saw that the price of Bitcoin went up.

For those who do not know about Bitcoin and have not entered the market and do not know its market, it is obvious that it causes fear, but they fear what they do not know, the same news and the same events that will stand out throughout time will produce more interest in those who distrusted, everything is a matter of patience.

Full adoption will really be that fast due to these kind of thinking of most people on where they do hesitate and still fear out on going to this market due to media and other sources that do shows
off the negative side of Bitcoin but if they are really that curious then they will surely able to realize and learn something that it isnt really that bad actually or even useful in most cases.
Negative things are common because you cant please everyone on where theres always criticism which is mostly can be heard of to those people whom do love fiat.
If you've been here on this market for years then these kind of stuffs wont really affect you that much.

[pixie85]

They should not but they do, at least in the general sense. It's not because of Bitcoin but the way it's portrayed in the media.

Notice that when they say that some terrorist used Bitcoin as ransom it's said in a particular way that's supposed to make Bitcoin look bad. They used this unregulated good for nothing but illegal activity currency.

When the same thing happens with the Dollar they focus on the culprit not the money he used.

[Harlot]

I thi k we can all agree that it's not the scams that damage the reputation of Bitcoin but how the media relays the news to the public. We all have seen it even the newbies have seen misleading news, clickbaity headlines, as well as wrong information being relayed by these media outlets. It's how they make Bitcoin look bad in fron of the public that damages our reputation and the not illicit activities that revolves around it.

[Wawa2013]

Regarding the problem of scams, it has seriously damaged Bitcoin's reputation, many countries have banned Bitcoin because many
have sprung up incident scams. But this happens a lot, not only are scammers everywhere, but many newbie are not careful when
investing in the crypto world. And finally because they want to make money instantly following various Ponzi schemes,after being
tricked into blaming that Bitcoin scams. Things like that make Bitcoin's reputation even worse in the mainstream world.

[MainIbem]

Do you think that scams harm Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies' reputation in the mainstream world?

The answer is yes. People hold the thought that you invest in bitcoin or cryptocurrency with money you can afford to loses. This means that the general perception of the average investor in bitcoin or cryptocurrency is at risk. There is always this fear. Certainly, such fear has an effect on the reputation of bitcoin.

[evoweb]

This is riddiculous

[Janation]

It is.

For us it might be nothing since we know what Bitcoin really is and scams will not destroy the reputation of it no matter what. It is not the same though with other people that have their eyes opened with Bitcoin being a scam or used to scam other people. Without someone telling what Bitcoin really is, it will not stop.

[Kelvinid]

Do you think that scams harm Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies' reputation in the mainstream world?

The answer is yes. People hold the thought that you invest in bitcoin or cryptocurrency with money you can afford to loses. This means that the general perception of the average investor in bitcoin or cryptocurrency is at risk. There is always this fear. Certainly, such fear has an effect on the reputation of bitcoin.

That is a mind manipulating scheme. People never appreciate it but badly it thinks as a scam and could make them suffer losses. If we either live that mindset, no way we can see the true benefits of bitcoin. We can't avoid that fear and escaped from being doubtful (even me before) but if we are open to hear good news about crypto, about bitcoin, it is likely we can found out that bitcoin is not a scam, only those people who would like to scam.

I'd just to find out that most news are so unfair, they only saw the negative and published it but never got into the scenario that they praise Bitcoin because it is very helpful to the people especially in today's situation.