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

[DabsPoorVersion]

I think the rumors of bitcoin scams only make bitcoin bigger than ever and more people will know bitcoin. I firmly believe that people who own a lot of bitcoins and buy bitcoins are tech savvy and understand what bitcoin does. Bitcoin is not just a cryptocurrency, it is an asset for you to store your assets against inflation. It's a quality investment, when you look at the bitcoin chart you'll see what I say makes perfect sense.

Yes, when there is a rumor about bitcoin being a scam, more people will get to know more about it.

The curiosity of each individual when they hear anything about bitcoin, especially if it is negative, their curiosity will bring them to gathering answers to all the questions created inside their mind. The more their curiosity gets deeper, the more they will dig information about bitcoin.

[affandi]

Why should Bitcoin be to blame? before this news was published, there was a lot of bad information about bitcoin which was said to be used for various crimes such as buying and selling drugs, terrorism, and others. but in fact, until recently bitcoin was fine. it looks like the media might be the main factor causing the damage to bitcoin's reputation in the eyes of the public.

[iTradeChips]

Based on my own experience, the answer is a resounding YES. I have many high school friends and college classmates that I have talked to, on reunions and through online. When we start talking about investments and stocks, I try to insert crypto currencies and Bitcoin and I am surprised that they immediately say the words "That is a scam" or "No way I will invest in a pyramid scam" and similar talk without me explaining what is Bitcoin and how it works. They immediately conclude that Bitcoin itself is a scam. So I usually do some explaining about the nature of some of the scams and tell them Bitcoin is not a scam.

[taufik123]

The last scam on twitter that requested for bitcoin, increase the search for bitcoin on search engine. Criminal are only exploiting the anonymity and security behind the coin, however, the anonymity has other advantages. For any bitcoin stolen into a known address it will require more expertise to protect being monitored and converted into fiat, so it is more difficult to keep stolen bitcoin that keeping. I just hope countries dont adopt Russia restriction on bitcoin transaction but it will great process to control hackers

The main actor of the twitter hack who requested a number of bitcoins using accounts with blue ticks has also been caught because of the transaction history used by hackers using bitcoin. The transaction provides investigators with information to easily catch the hackers. With the twitter hack involving bitcoin, of course the public will know about bitcoin and what its advantages and disadvantages are. This will be increasingly recognized by the public.

[RokokGudangGaram]

I think that it adds up to the misconceptions about it but it also cause people to be curious about hot issues and so it is a way of somehow driving their attentions here. I just hope that at the end of the day, they would see the essence of Bitcoin.

[AjithBtc]

Negative information related to anything will widespread in a much shorter time period compared to the good about the same. This is how there is a bad image for bitcoin getting portrayed as the transaction token for darkweb needs.

More number of scammers have begun to use the term bitcoin to scam people. Somewhere one might have heard of its growth, but they never analyse it before making an investment. This scam approaches when identified spoil the good with bitcoin.

[gabbie2010]

I think fraud really affects the reputation of bitcoin, if there is more fraud or negative news about bitcoin then it will affect the price of bitcoin and other crypto currencies, but after that there will be positive news about bitcoin and at that time the price of bitcoin starts to rise, everything is like is set up so that the investors can make a profit.

Fraudsters had indeed given bitcoin and other cryptos a bad reputation and they are banking on its decentralized feature to perpetuate this dastardly act its becoming hard convincing newbies nowadays to investing in bitcoin due to scams, couple with the fact that the moribund and bankrupted MMM ponzi scheme also uses bitcoin to collect funds from investors before disappearing into thin air, we have many task ahead by trying to encourage and convince would-be investors to having a positive mindset toward investing in bitcoin when they news scaring them about those twitter hacks, hyips etc.

[peter0425]

Scammers stealing money by misusing technology in every financial sector. So why media focus the only crypto. I think it's not harming its reputation its promoting it. By these activities, crypto has been introduced to many people who don't know about crypto before. Those who have open-minded and willing to take risks will join these sectors. So my thinking is positive here.

You just need to find good with every bad media presentations.

Your point is valid since every currency can be used by scammers and hackers to transact with their
looted  money, the media are just pointing this to degrade bitcoin, but it helps since there are people
who read or heard the news will be attracted and start looking for this investment currency.

[bonjouros]

Scams can surely affect the bitcoin reputation especially if bitcoin has been use for their scams attempt. Most of the people who have no further knowledge with regards to bitcoin and other currencies
will think that bitcoin is scam and we can easily lost a potential investors of bitcoin if this will continue.

So not only the reputation are at stakes if the scams will continue to ruin the good image of bitcoin and other currencies.

[Abiky]

The truth about bitcoin is that it`s anonymity feature did not use for good but it use as a factor to scam people while hiding the real identity online. This is the most reasonable fact that happens in bitcoin. It is used by scammers as a payment or promises to the people. In fact, during the 2017 bull run period bitcoin was exposed to the mass due to its volatility, it was also the time where many scammers had been conveyed people to send some money to their account and it will double in a month when it was converted in BTC.

Many people also thought that bitcoin is the scam, without finding enough facts and research about it.

One thing for sure is that scammers will have a hard time concealing their identities on the Bitcoin blockchain due to its pseudonymous nature. Authorities can easily catch malicious actors by following the trail of coins on the Blockchain. I'm starting to wonder why most scammers don't use privacy coins instead of Bitcoin for their nefarious actions? As long as scams continue to take the crypto world by storm, people will think twice before doing any investment on Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency on the market. Only true believers of Bitcoin (like myself) will stay in it no matter what happens in the mainstream world.

While mainstream media has given Bitcoin some bad reputation, people can become enlightened if they do their own research. With knowledge, people will be able to separate Bitcoin from scams in cyberspace. It's up to us to spread the word about Bitcoin, counteracting any negative reputations provided by mainstream media and naysayers (like Warren Buffet). As popularity and development grows for Bitcoin, more people will join the crypto train. Considering that the pioneer cryptocurrency has been in cyberspace for 11 years now, scams may have little to no effect over its prominence worldwide. Just my thoughts

[DdmrDdmr]

Not just scams, but misuse of cryptocurrency for terrorism related fundraising campaigns. Today, the US Department of Justice released a notice titled "Global Disruption of Three Terror Finance Cyber-Enabled Campaigns - Largest Ever Seizure of Terrorist Organizations’ Cryptocurrency Accounts".
see https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/global-disruption-three-terror-finance-cyber-enabled-campaigns

Without going into the details, some of which remain unclear to me after reading the release (i.e. How the U.S. authorities seized the crypto content of over 300 cryptocurrency accounts -> residing on Exchanges I presume), the above does harm the reputation, and what’s worse, sets a spotlight on cryptocurrencies for authorities to look at in the wrong shade of desired light.

[ufaiz50]

....

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?

of course scam can damage the image of bitcoin or the name of bitcoin indirectly, surely there are some people who are think negative to bitcoin and do not believe in bitcoin because of the scams case. in any business there must be cases of fraud because users or humans have an opportunity to be deceived, I think to eliminate scams by often educating the users and being more vigilant.

[Zemomtum]

People do engage in money laundering and it has not brought down the reputation of the fiat currency. There are a lot of scams as relates to digital currency and not Bitcoin alone but we can see that the space is waxing stronger

[finaleshot2016]

Absolutely yes! In my experience of sharing my knowledge about cryptocurrency, it's very difficult to share those if the listeners don't want to believe me because of those bad impressions of bitcoin. There's a lot of Ponzi and scam platform that uses bitcoin to their platform just to scam people and it's not good for bitcoin.

I'm lucky enough that I learned a lot here in the forum and I didn't grow up of having a bad impression towards bitcoin because of misuse of it such as payment for illegal transactions of drugs, guns and many more. Also, people who are techy enough are having seminars around every university so they can explain how does cryptocurrency works.

So obviously, scams really hurt the reputation of Bitcoin and it also hurts the reputation of those organization who believe and uses cryptocurrency.

[Ayiranorea]

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?

Yup, isn't it already tainted? Try asking local guys around your neighborhood about Btc, I'm sure some of them knew btc because of the scam issues they are involved. Silk road incident is a big issue back then and the effect is this, bitcoin being known as a currency only used in illegal activities. Kind of sucks that uninformed people now stick to this idea. Scam and illegal activities is just a small percentage of what Btc can really offer. And they are missing it.

Not only with bitcoin or some other altcoins, it is common to see more and more scams. Right now each and everything is happening through the internet, in specific bitcoin and other crypto related activities won't happen without internet connectivity. This itself turned to be a easy way for scammers to cheat people.

Rather than positive incidents, negative incidents will spread much faster. In such a way is the scams associated with cryptocurrencies. It'll easily reach the people and affects the reputation of cryptocurrency.

[Fredomago]

People do engage in money laundering and it has not brought down the reputation of the fiat currency. There are a lot of scams as relates to digital currency and not Bitcoin alone but we can see that the space is waxing stronger

Life as we know it. When mainstream media's start to criticize something and bring bad impressions to something it will create such
images  people immediately reacts and believe in it. this news about scam businesses is not new they've been exposed from any form
of currency it happened only that mainstream media wants to disgrace bitcoin to move away people's interest.

[carriebee]

....

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?

of course scam can damage the image of bitcoin or the name of bitcoin indirectly, surely there are some people who are think negative to bitcoin and do not believe in bitcoin because of the scams case. in any business there must be cases of fraud because users or humans have an opportunity to be deceived, I think to eliminate scams by often educating the users and being more vigilant.

When some people here in my country already heard about scam in cryptocurrency they were afraid to learn what truly it's all about. Somehow for those people lack of knowledge about bitcoin discourage to join because of the scam reputation. So this really means it does affect only those people who have close minds to educate in crypto.

[Zionatin]

I'm sure scams hurt everything no matter what niche, world, or category they are in. Scammers can even give peoples race or culture a bad name. So I would not be surprised if scams gave bitcoin a bad name as well.

Of course, even though we can say that it will contribute to the popularity of bitcoin and cryptocurrency in general, scams still have bearing to Bitcoin's reputation in the mainstream world.

That's why it is our task. Us who can understand which one is a scam and which is not to educate people, especially the newcomers about this.

And I found some websites that can help on determining which websites are scam and which are not. Which bitcoin wallets are used for scam and which are not.

Here's the link:

https://scam-alert.io/

and here's another one:

https://www.bitcoinabuse.com/terms

Keep safe everyone!

Nice sites thanks. Honestly though most of these people are total and complete idiots and they are surprised when they are scammmed. Look at these idiots for example https://scam-alert.io/scam/19Zd4ptQeNzQk7aoSiHMKHKpcfADoQGKsq

People actually invest 8k usd in this site.
The sextorition one where they claim they have pictures of you and show you one of your passwords. If you fall for that then what can I say? I even emailed the scammer back and asked them to send me some extra copies for my friends xP The email bounced.

[suvo05]

Still some people think that bitcoin is dark web money. The scam is every where, whether you are dealing with BTC or fiat. But the mainstream media only focused about the scam related to BTC, rather than talking about the good uses of the BTC. So obviously it has some bad reputation in the mainstream world due to those scams. But people are getting educated about BTC now, they can now understand that it's not BTC's problem it's our fault.

[fullhdpixel]

It depends on the people and the understanding they have about Bitcoin; if it’s just some people that has less or zero knowledge of what Bitcoin is, once they are told that Bitcoin is a scam, they will go ahead and believe that.

But, if it’s people that already understands that Bitcoin is just a payment method, they wouldn’t believe that, because they already know that Bitcoin is just a payment method and people are the ones that are using it the wrong way. Even the US dollar is being used for scam, every fiat in the world is used for scam, but we don’t say that fiat is a scam just because of some kids that are scammers, we still make use of it.