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

[teosanru]

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?

Definitely yes, I have had many communications with different people who are not involved in cryptocurrency. Most of them generally give this excuse only that these things are used for scams and fraud. I think even the media portrays it in such a way. The recent twitter hack scam was portrayed more as a bitcoin scam by many media channels and folks have the habit of judging a news merely by reading the headlines. But this problem unfortunately has no solution at all.

[xen1oph]

People are involved in fraud in a wide variety of industries. There are swindlers in the trade who can sell junk instead of a good car; there are scammers who rent us apartments that they don't even own, and so on. At the same time, that trade, that rent, that other industries continue to exist without harm to the image.

Therefore, I believe that scammers will not be able to tarnish the image of cryptocurrencies sufficiently.

[KnightElite]

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.

The problem is only few people who can considered as financial literate because a majority of the people are just believing on opinions and gossips. If a person doesn't studied financial literacy, most likely to happen is he/she going to believe easily if someone tell him that bitcoin is scam. Scammers have a factor why a lot of people see it as scam because they keep victimizing normal people for their own sake. Through financial literacy, people can understand what is bitcoin and people can find out that it is not a scam.

[witcher_sense]

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.

Naturally, people are not going to say bad words about fiat, because they are being paid with government money for their time and effort. They don't care if this money came from drug dealers, because they still can buy something in grocery store. No company like Chainalysis can come to analyze blockchain and say banknotes are now dirty and therefore non-fungible, government promised them no matter what happened to banknotes, they can hand over them with no worries. They will not be calling it a scam until government itself a scam. With bitcoin the situation is different, bitcoin doesn't give promises, it simply works in a way it was designed. If one disagrees with the design of bitcoin, one stays out of the system and may call it a scam. But when people start being paid for their time and effort with bitcoin, it will no longer be considered a scam.

[izzel]

Yes, because people oftenly believe in what other people says even if they haven't try it that's why they become afraid in investing and using crypo assets because they all think that it is a fraud. And some people lack knowledge about what crypto world is. As long as users are highly intellect they wont be easily scam by scammers. That's why we need to educate them to become wise in choosing or investing in crypto currency or assets.

[TitanGEL]

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.

Naturally, people are not going to say bad words about fiat, because they are being paid with government money for their time and effort. They don't care if this money came from drug dealers, because they still can buy something in grocery store. No company like Chainalysis can come to analyze blockchain and say banknotes are now dirty and therefore non-fungible, government promised them no matter what happened to banknotes, they can hand over them with no worries. They will not be calling it a scam until government itself a scam. With bitcoin the situation is different, bitcoin doesn't give promises, it simply works in a way it was designed. If one disagrees with the design of bitcoin, one stays out of the system and may call it a scam. But when people start being paid for their time and effort with bitcoin, it will no longer be considered a scam.

It is because fiat is centralized where the government have control on it and it is the reason why people doesn't have any worries. The thing is people do not know what is a decentralized currency looks like and it is the reason why they think it is not a legit. The generations of millennials have also a nature where if they are not familiar to something, they will called it as a scam. Exerting effort in terms of studying can help us to determine if a certain investment is legit or if it is scam.

[witcher_sense]

It is because fiat is centralized where the government have control on it and it is the reason why people doesn't have any worries. The thing is people do not know what is a decentralized currency looks like and it is the reason why they think it is not a legit. The generations of millennials have also a nature where if they are not familiar to something, they will called it as a scam. Exerting effort in terms of studying can help us to determine if a certain investment is legit or if it is scam.

Before I knew about bitcoin, I had been using decentralized protocols, systems, software for years without knowing all of those were actually decentralized. It wasn't important for me to know that, as a user all I wanted was a working piece of software with which I could do what I wanted. When I realized that both software I used and bitcoin were decentralized, I wasn't shocked by that fact, I wasn't thinking that everything I used before was scam. Despite lack of knowledge of decentralized systems, I managed to understand that decentralized nature of these systems was for reason and I started to learn about that field more and more. The more I learned the less it seemed that decentralized systems a scam. So, I agree with you that self-education can help to sort out things. It will help to distinguish decentralized systems per se from people abusing such systems to scam other people.

[Abiky]

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.

It's so sad to hear news like these. It gives Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies a negative perception among people in the mainstream world. That's what you get with something that's a "double-edged sword". Bitcoin can be used for both good and bad things just like it's the case with the Internet nowadays. If a lot of bad things are made with Bitcoin, people will be quite skeptical in using it within their daily lives. It's up to us to spread the word about Bitcoin's legitimate use cases as much as possible. We already have governments trying to regulate the crypto industry. Since everything revolves around centralized infrastructure (centralized exchanges and wallet providers), it's possible to catch malicious actors easily. With heavy-handed regulation, I think the number of scams in the crypto space will be reduced to a point where they'll do little to no harm over Bitcoin's reputation in the mainstream world.

Nonetheless, people often associate scams with Bitcoin due to lack of knowledge. Once they know how everything works, they'll be able to distance scams from Bitcoin itself. Let's hope that in the future, Bitcoin's reputation will be much more positive than what it is right now. Just my opinion

[The cure]

In every business there's always scammers who are on the lookout and waiting for the opportunity to attack, specially if the business is popular it will increasingly attract fraudsters. Same with crytpo world it's because cryptocurrency is gradually being received and used by people all over the world that's why scammers want to make it an instrument to deceive people. At first the people they fooled will talk negatively about bitcoin specially when there's a huge amount involved, but if they look closely at how they were fooled maybe they will know that bitcoin is not a scam but the people who use it's name, and many will still prove that bitcoin is real and not scam.

[bitbunnny]

A great deal of mainstream world still have prejudice to Bitcoin and such scam accusations just confirm their lack of confidence. Of course,. scams are not connected only to Bitcoin and cryptocurrency but many simply forget about that. Therefore scams contribute to bad reputation of Bitcoin who think negative about it anyway and that is why education and raising awareness are very important.

[mardaed]

In every business there's always scammers who are on the lookout and waiting for the opportunity to attack, specially if the business is popular it will increasingly attract fraudsters. Same with crytpo world it's because cryptocurrency is gradually being received and used by people all over the world that's why scammers want to make it an instrument to deceive people. At first the people they fooled will talk negatively about bitcoin specially when there's a huge amount involved, but if they look closely at how they were fooled maybe they will know that bitcoin is not a scam but the people who use it's name, and many will still prove that bitcoin is real and not scam.

That is true. It is what people do not realized immediately, that Bitcoin is just being dragged into these illicit acts and just involved because it was used as an instrument and commodity to the intention that was done to them.

[imstillthebest]

scam and hack are different , what happen to twitter was hack but if the media reported differently or they report that it was a scam , its thier fault and should not be trusted but there are news that are legit and trusted  .

people know that , they need to verify it atleast if what they heard is true or not but scam and hack does affect btc depending on the people that believes on it .

[nonconformist]

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!

[GDragon]

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.

Totally agree with you, negative incidents will always prevail than the good ones. I just think its a natural human instinct to just remember the bad ones than the good ones, I'm guilty of it too, if a person do a bad thing to me, all I would remember is the bad things and not the good things he did to me. This is what happening in the industry of crypto and blockchain, some are informed that there are scams in btc but they forgot to think beyond it, they will just see btc as a scam, unfair cause btc is not a scam, but it suffers because of those few people doing it.

[BChydro]

Naturally, people are not going to say bad words about fiat, because they are being paid with government money for their time and effort. They don't care if this money came from drug dealers, because they still can buy something in grocery store.

There is no money trail with fiat currency, you can mark the currency with serial numbers but you cannot identify everything.

No company like Chainalysis can come to analyze blockchain and say banknotes are now dirty and therefore non-fungible, government promised them no matter what happened to banknotes, they can hand over them with no worries.

Suppose the authorities confiscate bank notes from dirty business including drugs and other illegal trades they becomes legal and so is the case with bitcoin, we have heard many stories where the authorities confiscated bitcoin that is used for illegal activities and what they did is auction those coins after that and thereby those bitcoins become legal.

[peterpanda]

People have negative intention on scam. still many people are not familiar with crypto market. If they know scam on bitcoin, they won't join with it.

[CarnagexD]

People have negative intention on scam.

That's why it's called SCAM 

still many people are not familiar with crypto market.

Yes because the market is still young, 10 years, a decade, we just see it as a huge market because it grows rapidly because of bitcoin. I think crypto users are less than a million in the whole world, but once the crypto explodes in the mainstream expect tons of inquiries about crypto.

If they know scam on bitcoin, they won't join with it.

I'm getting the point. It really depends on the person who sees it, if he is cognitive enough then he will search through it and find why people are using bitcoin for scam, and that's because of its futuristic feature. A 5 minute read about bitcoin will give them idea why they should jump on it.

[friends1980]

Let's say that at least there is a certain existing "impression" by people who don't know better, that trading BTC makes you vulnerable to scams. I'm quite sure that this is only temporary, since BTC has no monopoly on scams, on the contrary...

But indeed, I'm quite sure that this negative reputation does in any case not accelerate the integration of BTC in everyday life. So I wouldn't state that scams are really harmful, but they probably slow down BTC's acceptance in the "mainstream world", as you called it.

[Sebas.tian]

Mass people know little or nothing about crypto. All they know bad things happen around crypto. They know that only drug dealers, porn industrialists, arm dealers use bitcoins. So if mass people hear anything new bad event around crypto, crypto will suffer alot

I wouldn't see that as a bad reputation to Bitcoin if it been used for dealing with the bad individuals or group of individuals. Nothing that's happening with Bitcoin that had not happened with fiats, terrorist do make use of the fiats alongside the drug dealers, so, these has been in existence before the advent of cryptocurrency. Fiats are used for Ransom and Bitcoin also does, nothing differentiate Fiats from Bitcoin when talking about their negative point.

[arditiyan]

for people who are new to crypto scams on behalf of crypto are a nightmare for them, and they will not continue to crypto. but for old players they already know and understand that it is a fraud, so they can be more vigilant. the need for education for people who are new to crypto so that they are not easily afraid of the issue of bitcoin's bad reputation due to fraud in cryptocurrency