Crypto Scams now the second largest in the world

[GreatArkansas]

(.....)

Many of these new projects are created to deceive investors, rug pull is a common practice among new project. If nothing is done, the scam rate will keep increasing.

Scams exist because people exist. You can not have a world devoid of scammers and not everything is in your hands to control. How and where people put their money, is not your concern, unless it is a family member. So you have to discuss with them and explain the nuances of crypto.

I remember before I watched a NetFlix documentary how scams or fraud before in the early days like how people scam other people before it's like somehow how scams are originated.
In short, scams will stay. It's like at different times, some scams are improving or using differents ways, just like now when cryptocurrency started, there are already a lot of ways how to scam people and one of the best examples is this creating a project then rug it.

Most of the victims here are newbies, and those newbies starting to get some lessons. But it's worst lesson for me, you lost a money for a lesson, not a win.

[Jating]

To be honest almost 99.9% of projects are Rug Pull. They come to the markets to pull money. None of them intend to keep a role in the cryptocurrency ecosystem. And we can't prevent them sadly in a decentralized world. This is something that becomes like gambling because investors sometimes could gain some profits as well. That's the reason how scammers attract investors. If you investigate deeply, you will find a single owner running multiple Rug Pull projects. Because they know very well how to pull money from investors' pockets. That's the reason I always prefer to avoid investing in a brand new project.

That's true, a large amount of projects have a sole purpose of scamming people. Unfortunately, some of such shitcoins are being shown even on CoinmarketCap, as the biggest gainers (often over 200% increase in their value), 99.9% of which are pure scams, coins with zero liquidity that can't even be sold.

Maybe not scamming per se, but just having projects with no purpose at all and be used by some individuals to enrich themselves. Like you have said, there are projects who will suddenly increased even in the 1000% in a single day and obviously this is a trap for non-experience investors and this is where the trap is. And before they realized what had happened, the price goes down hard and they are trap inside.

[GeorgeJohn]

This is the reason why you need to avoid shitcoins and pick only Bitcoin if you want to start to invest on crypto space. After 13 years created, Bitcoin never ever scam anyone until now. If there's an article discuss about Bitcoin scams, pretty sure it's either exchange, investment company, recoverable funds etc are the scammer, not Bitcoin.

Don't say what you don't know, you can figured out point of what you experienced, while we are seeing altcoins as the means of scamming people is because of the Minor projects of altcoins that's not really assured, ethereum have you seen it scam people, is not an altcoins, somebody can be scammed in different means, because i have been one of the victim bitcoin scammed before, through Bitcoin investment platforms, so after sometimes the platform made away with my Bitcoin, so it depends, those alternative coin's you are emphasising on majority don't have base, so you can't use it to justify all the altcoins, scam is a scam, but we should try to avoid been victim simple.

[Iwasscammed]

Is there a way to recover bitcoin scam from a scammer? If yes. HOW? Is Bitcoin.org, the official website  has a special collective fund to reimbursed those who has been scammed with BTC?

[goldkingcoiner]

Well due to the anonymous and decentralised nature of cryptocurrency, it is quite understandable why crypto scams would be so popular with the degenerates of our society. But it really is quite easy to avoid crypto scams. I think if you fall for a new coin without having researched its team, the whereabouts of the company, its reputation etc. then thats mainly your fault. Anyone that gullible would get scammed, obviously.

Any newcomer to crypto should really do their research. All the data and information can be found on this very forum. All it requires is time and patience.

[Ultegra134]

Is there a way to recover bitcoin scam from a scammer? If yes. HOW? Is Bitcoin.org, the official website  has a special collective fund to reimbursed those who has been scammed with BTC?

Practically, there's no possible way to recover your lost Bitcoin funds, it's anonymous and decentralised. Why should you be reimbursed your lost funds? If you got scammed, it's purely your fault. Since the dawn of cryptocurrencies, people have warned against phising websites, scams, fake projects and so on, providing solid advice in order to avoid them. It's not a banking service, don't expect it to act like one.

[qwertyup23]

This is the reason why you need to avoid shitcoins and pick only Bitcoin if you want to start to invest on crypto space. After 13 years created, Bitcoin never ever scam anyone until now. If there's an article discuss about Bitcoin scams, pretty sure it's either exchange, investment company, recoverable funds etc are the scammer, not Bitcoin.

I think it is more of the shitcoins and memecoins who are involved in the scamming process- like developers would create such coins and the "pump-and-dump" scheme where they would pull out their investments and sell majority of the coins.

Unfortunately, anything that exists online would be a candidate for scams. Since cryptocurrencies wholly exist in the internet and creating a coin is something that can be done by everyone, it is a target for newbies who are JUST starting their experience and journey in the crypto world.

But like what OP mentioned, BTC in itself is NOT a scam- but most scams derive their existence primarily on BTC itself which is very unfortunate.

[SirLancelot]

I don't get it how crypto scams are second largest and at the same time account for 2%. From the article, I don't understand how exactly it's calculated. Is it because of the median sum of lost money? Is it by the large number of such scams? I think this requires more data to be analyzed, and I heavily suspect that the metric by which crypto scams are second largest (and, by the way, the article's name calls them 'second deadliest' for some reason, which IMO could only be justified if it accounts for people literally being killed for their money) is actually quite misleading and overall irrelevant, whereas the point about 2% should receive more attention.

He just said it that the amount involved is high but indeed that 2 percent is too small. Lots of countries are now legalizing crypto so the number of scams are also higher now. The title second largest scam is more appropriate to hear than the second deadliest and why is it deadliest? I mean why will someone got killed if they only transact online?

But, being online is also the reason why the number of crypto crimes are rising because they can easily get away with it and add in that cryptos are not totally regulated because of their anonymity/decentralized nature. 1200 usd is the amount that they mentioned but a crypto rug pull can be more than that. The average was supposed to be millions if not billions.

[Ale88]

Reason why government regulation is very important, imagine how the number has grown from 7th position to 2nd position within a short period, the whole cryptocurrency existence is just a decade plus and already the rate of scam is at the 2nd position, what will happen in few years ahead? if not for anything, regulations can reduce the number of scams and rug pull a lot. Scammers are taking advantage of the decentralize space to carry out their terrible act.  Many of these new projects are created to deceive investors, rug pull is a common practice among new project. If nothing is done, the scam rate will keep increasing.

It depends on the way that the government(s) will decide to proceed: if the regulation is too strict that's not gonna be good for this world, so be careful wishing more regulations. At the same time people need to wake up, the majority of the new "investors" think they can become rich in a few weeks/months investing few hundreds bucks and expecting a 100x, that's the reason they usually choose the worst coins in the market. That's just a natural selection.

[crwth]

The average scammed amount is $1200? That's so much. Imagine every person involved in crypto be scammed with something like this, it's really saddening on the part that all they need is education and research on the specific project that they are going to invest in. I'm not that surprised that it came to be the second because the way it's being done is easy compared to other types of scams.

What is the number #1 though?

The sad part of this is the people that are not involved in crypto would start associating Crypto as a scam tool since it's now the second.

[Bitstar_coin]

Reason why government regulation is very important, imagine how the number has grown from 7th position to 2nd position within a short period, the whole cryptocurrency existence is just a decade plus and already the rate of scam is at the 2nd position, what will happen in few years ahead? if not for anything, regulations can reduce the number of scams and rug pull a lot. Scammers are taking advantage of the decentralize space to carry out their terrible act.  

Regulation will put a check on such projects true, but frauds will always exist outside the market and these underground dealings will become more common. It does what is says though, as long as people are careful to avoid the shady one. But it will take time and while it happens, we can work in educating newbies and reminding them the values of being humble and content while keeping ambitions of getting rich over time. Teach them how scams work and how they fool newbies.

Many of these new projects are created to deceive investors, rug pull is a common practice among new project. If nothing is done, the scam rate will keep increasing.

Scams exist because people exist. You can not have a world devoid of scammers and not everything is in your hands to control. How and where people put their money, is not your concern, unless it is a family member. So you have to discuss with them and explain the nuances of crypto.

Very Insightful, i think the urge to make millions within a short period is making some people to fall blindly into scam even if they can see it clearly. As long as people exist scams and fraudulent activities will always be around, it is left for people to decide if they will rather go the fast and risky way or the slow and steady way. Government involvement will put a lot of shady activities in check and minimize the number of unnecessary useless projects coming everyday without any real purpose in this space.

[AlexGC]

It would be awesome if someone knows a scam that it gets reported to https://glasschain.org/
Now we cannot 100% guarantee we will be able to pick it up but we do most of the cases and start an investigation. what helps are

- names of businesses
- websites
- bitcoin addresses (if available)

Contact via chat there or report directly

[LogitechMouse]

This is what can happen if the crypto market is unregulated. Scams are very common and there is nothing that investors can do about it whenever they are scammed but to just move on, find another project and invest again.

This is also why I'm only investing and holding the top coins especially Bitcoin. I don't want to invest into new projects because there is a high chance that it will be either a scam or a rug pull project like what is happening right now in NFT game industry. What's kinda disappointing at least for me is that, there are still investors (mostly newbies) that are falling into some common ways of scamming like phishing or Bitcoin doubling etc. and what's even worse is there are some investors who got scammed twice already. I mean getting scammed once is enough but to get scammed once again, it seems like you didn't learn from your first mistake if that happens.

Either way, I just hope that we are intelligent enough to distinguish which projects are scams and which are not. Which are legit and which are fake . For safer route, just invest into the top coins in terms of market cap.

[slaman29]

The average scammed amount is $1200? That's so much. Imagine every person involved in crypto be scammed with something like this, it's really saddening on the part that all they need is education and research on the specific project that they are going to invest in. I'm not that surprised that it came to be the second because the way it's being done is easy compared to other types of scams.

What is the number #1 though?

The sad part of this is the people that are not involved in crypto would start associating Crypto as a scam tool since it's now the second.

The last time I lost such a big sum in a related manner was about 2 years ago but it wasn't a scam, it was an account compromised at a big site on this forum. It was abou $2000 then but BTC was nowhere near today's price so it's about 4 times more the value of when I lost it. Makes me sick to still think about it.

But to lose that amount in a scam? I would feel every day just so guilty. I mean we've all lost money in ICOs and shit, tokens didn't do well, I've even been directly scammed in this forum but for that amount of money, I would never put it in someone's hand online.

And yes, what's #1?

[Natalim]

This simply tells that lots of people are still uneducated about crypto.

They seem to think that crypto is like a Ponzi scheme that's why they easily gets a victim of scam, that's just one part of the big scams in crypto, there are also those phishing, and those that directly scam people and they can do that because they are anonymous which is what crypto is for.

[AicecreaME]

This is the reason why you need to avoid shitcoins and pick only Bitcoin if you want to start to invest on crypto space. After 13 years created, Bitcoin never ever scam anyone until now. If there's an article discuss about Bitcoin scams, pretty sure it's either exchange, investment company, recoverable funds etc are the scammer, not Bitcoin.

You can utilize shitcoins to your advantage if you only know how to manage risks that come along with it. It could be beneficial to some, but to those who don't really have the patience and knowledge might just end up losing. It would be much better if you'll invest in coins that are considered to have a great potential despite the volatility. Surely, this isn't only revolving around bitcoin. There are many other coins that are showing a lot of potential if you'll just dig deep about their backgrounds and projects.

There are many crypto scams now because of ignorance and lack of knowledge of people. Most people easily fall victim into the scams and schemes because they don't have that skills and knowledge to detect whether what is scam and what isn't, which is their responsibility. I guess this matter still boils down to being responsible enough of every action we take and being wary to every possible tactics other people may do.

[TribalBob]

fraud is difficult to control in this crypto, every day there will be new projects, and new coins, and we as investors must be really careful and have a target for selling the coins we enter, even though the chances of being cheated are 80% but at least we have tried to avoid rugpulls

[TheUltraElite]

Very Insightful, i think the urge to make millions within a short period is making some people to fall blindly into scam even if they can see it clearly. As long as people exist scams and fraudulent activities will always be around, it is left for people to decide if they will rather go the fast and risky way or the slow and steady way. Government involvement will put a lot of shady activities in check and minimize the number of unnecessary useless projects coming everyday without any real purpose in this space.

Government involvement can make a good or bad impact depending on how they approach the ecosystem, so we should keep that side for now. But it will reduce the number of scams getting in without any screen.

The same urge exists in every human being. But some people use this to fuel an ambition to work hard and make money while some want to be lazy, not work and attempt to make money without doing anything. This second mentality is being popular these days more than the first one due to some people writing books about the same, which is a different type of manipulation, topic for another discussion.

But the point remains same, because the first group will earn their money while the second group will easily lose money while trying to make money.

fraud is difficult to control in this crypto, every day there will be new projects, and new coins, and we as investors must be really careful and have a target for selling the coins we enter, even though the chances of being cheated are 80% but at least we have tried to avoid rugpulls

Fraud is difficult to control irrespective of what is being the mode of payment. To be able to fool a person is an art and there are large number of gullible people in this world. What we have to do is to keep our close ones safe from it and teach them about scams.

[Fivestar4everMVP]

To be sincere, I wouldn't be surprised if by next year 2023, it now reads that crypto scams are then the largest in the world.
Since the space isn't regulated and anyone, anywhere can wake up and launch a project, even with their identity hidden, and people still go ahead to invest in such projects, it is likely that the scams in crypto will continue to increase, it is up to us as investors to be really careful and vigilant, if one doesnt have the ability to differenciate a scam from original project, then it's better to avoid newly launched projects and only invest in projects that are already established.
Well, I pray God will continue to lead us, that even as the scam activities in this space continues to increase, we or any one we know will never fall a victim.

[Quidat]

fraud is difficult to control in this crypto, every day there will be new projects, and new coins, and we as investors must be really careful and have a target for selling the coins we enter, even though the chances of being cheated are 80% but at least we have tried to avoid rugpulls

When you are dealing with this market specially on active manner then you would really be facing up lots of scenarios and situations which would really be involving lots of scams around.
You wouldn't notice it initially until they do become a scam but once you do able to gain up some experience then you would really able to spot if a project is a potential scam or legit
ones even though it wont really be a guarantee because scammers are really good on disguising themselves and making themselves legit as they could.