Common crypto scam in Nigeria

[Amphenomenon]

 
The rise of cryptocurrency in Nigeria is growing rapidly ( this might be the only positive growth we currently have i guess), almost all (if not all) of the youth has heard about Bitcoin and crypto currency and we can see it from the fact that we are currently the number 1 of Africa of Bitcoin and crypto hubs .
Though this is a great news but it as also attract crypto scammers to Nigeria. Since 2019  till now there has been scam upon scam on cryptocurrency in Nigeria and this are usually ponzi schemes and we ought to be cautious. Here are some common cryptocurrency scam in Nigeria

1 Cloud mining : this might be the most common in Nigeria, altcoins like Trx and USDT are the most common. Firstly, you are required to buy a mining rigged which do come with different prices and the higher prices the bigger your rewards and your withdrawal may be daily or locked till some certain day before you can withdraw your money but it's not usually so in the end you either lost all your money or get some of it  before it's crashed though some earn before it's crashed but do lost  or sometimes all do lost (that's why it is a ponzi schemes).
We can see this in what happens to those who invested in Ctsi mine, they claimed that they have been existing for years, claiming to have a coin which was only available on their platforms and which members buy a mining rigged to mine but in the end it was all scam.


2  Arbitrage scam : Arbitraging is an act of buying a coin from one exchange and selling to another exchange at an higher fee. There are lots of unknown centralise exchanges and also because of the naira devaluation scammers has exploited this also by creating an exchange where the dollar to Naira rate are cheaper than the prices for those big exchanges, so people are attracted to them because from the fact that they can buy from them and sell to those big exchanges and earn quite alot from it. This Arbitrage scammers may allow the you to withdraw early or give you a fixed date for withdrawal before it eventually crashes

3 Smart contracts scam :  This is a pyramid scheme and the legendary example of this kind was the Forsage in 2020,  some may not see it as pyramid scheme but it is, one reason to know is this you only earn through referral. Though this is quite not too common but it's still available, there was one trending last year which was Metaforce.

4 Airdrop scam :
This scam is the most annoying, Telegram as become a hub for it and Discord soon ( if not already) become a hub for this scam, though there are some legit airdrops but as time goes by the chance of getting one becomes slimmer. This group promise members that they would earn a reward (either a coin, token or NFTs) after completing some tasks but in the end they actually never pays them or even if they pay sometimes the coins are actually scam I.e they can't swap the coin by which they steal the gas fee (this is actually a type of Honeypot scam ).

5 Social media exchange :
This scam is contending to become the most common of all crypto scam in Nigeria, though it is the most common ways for bitcoin scam in Nigeria. Online vendors are common and they can be found in any social media, claiming to be offering good rate just to lure victims to them and then they get away with the money or coin.

Ways to prevent yourself from such scam

1 Don't invest your coins on ponzi / pyramid schemes, they are quite easy to know and one of the basic way is platform that offer you more money for referal than doing any basic tasks

2 If you want to buy/sell your bitcoin and altcoins use a good p2p exchange that you understand or buy from a vendor you know sincerely or you can simply trade it on this Forum ( I guess cryptoprenuerboss do this, so you don't have to go far to find a trusted member here).

3 you can stake your coins on exchanges that do allow staking, some good decentralise exchanges do support some staking of some coins.

4 Be cautious of where you get financial / investment advice from

5 If it's too good to be true then it's a scam don't be lead by greed

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[Charles-Tim]

2  Arbitrage

Arbitraging is not a scam. But what you described is a scam, which is not arbitrage. What you described above are fake exchanges.

3 Smart contracts scam

You can read more about smart contract scam: https://cryptoadventure.com/community/articles/an-overview-of-smart-contracts-scams/

Airdrops can be included as one, but not all airdrops because some airdrop scammers may not go up to creating anything like smart contract.

5 Social media exchange

People may not understand this until you explain about it. Example is the Elon Musk Saturday Night Life in which there was a break and an ads appeared that people should pay doge to an address and receive double (any Nigerian one did not come my mind right now). Or phishing by impersonation which we know is common among Nigerian scammers. Dating scam is also very common. Phishing messages on Whatsapp etc. There are many of them and Nigerian scammers are common with this. I think this scam is also all over the world, although I noticed it among Nigerians more because we are in Nigeria.

1 Don't invest your coins on ponzi / pyramid schemes, they are quite easy to know and one of the basic way is platform that offer you more money for referal than doing any basic tasks

Best use that people should make research before investing and they should avoid hyip schemes, I means investment of too good to be true promised which is your number 5.

3 you can stake your coins on exchanges that do allow staking, some good decentralise exchanges do support some staking of some coins.

Not you keys not your coins. It is better to stake directly on noncustodial wallets or by providing liquidity on decentralized exchanges. I do not know much about altcoins, I may not be exactly correct about providing liquidity on decentralized exchanges. DYOR. People should know that DeFi and DAO are vulnerable to exploits. There is nothing better than holding on noncustodial wallet. Offline wallets are the safest and most secure.

[Odohu]

Thanks for sharing this; it will really help a lot of people. One popular scam you omitted and which I have fallen victim of before is done in Telegram. There you have a group of Nigerians create a Telegram group and start adding people at random. You will see them trading among themselves in BTC, PayPal, PerfectMoney, GiftCard others via the admins at a rate agreed by the buyer and seller which is supposedly better than what you will get in other places.. You will rarely know that they are working together until you try to trade there... they will scam you and block you from the group immediately. As a victim, I just used it as one of the price to pay to learn.

There are others such as 86FB, 86W and others that used sport betting as their format. They even promised a risk free venture to get the attention of a lot of people including me. Although these have crashed but they really obtained people a lot before they did.

With my experience in those scams, I usually advice people to be careful with anything that offers too much profits over little effort.

[CryptoHeadlineNews]

Ways to prevent yourself from such scam

1 Don't invest your coins on ponzi / pyramid schemes, they are quite easy to know and one of the basic way is platform that offer you more money for referal than doing any basic tasks

2 If you want to buy/sell your bitcoin and altcoins use a good p2p exchange that you understand or buy from a vendor you know sincerely or you can simply trade it on this Forum ( I guess cryptoprenuerboss do this, so you don't have to go far to find a trusted member here).

3 you can stake your coins on exchanges that do allow staking, some good decentralise exchanges do support some staking of some coins.

4 Be cautious of where you get financial / investment advice from

5 If it's too good to be true then it's a scam don't be lead by greed

While other ways to avoid online crypto scams also include;
6. Avoid clicking any link sent to you on social media, as they are likely to be lured to hacking.

7. Always ensure to enable your 2-factor authentication on any exchange or online platforms you happen to have your funds stored in (i.e Exchange or casino)

8. Always try to make your own research "DYOR" about any platforms been introduced to you, before investing so that you don't fall victim to scam.

[gotzekrul]

Ways to prevent yourself from such scam

1 Don't invest your coins on ponzi / pyramid schemes, they are quite easy to know and one of the basic way is platform that offer you more money for referal than doing any basic tasks

2 If you want to buy/sell your bitcoin and altcoins use a good p2p exchange that you understand or buy from a vendor you know sincerely or you can simply trade it on this Forum ( I guess cryptoprenuerboss do this, so you don't have to go far to find a trusted member here).

3 you can stake your coins on exchanges that do allow staking, some good decentralise exchanges do support some staking of some coins.

4 Be cautious of where you get financial / investment advice from

5 If it's too good to be true then it's a scam don't be lead by greed

While other ways to avoid online crypto scams also include;
6. Avoid clicking any link sent to you on social media, as they are likely to be lured to hacking.

7. Always ensure to enable your 2-factor authentication on any exchange or online platforms you happen to have your funds stored in (i.e Exchange or casino)

8. Always try to make your own research "DYOR" about any platforms been introduced to you, before investing so that you don't fall victim to scam.

You can as well add avoid clicking/downloading images, pdf files, and even .exe files you're not sure if you're on laptop

[Gozie51]

5 If it's too good to be true then it's a scam don't be lead by greed

This should be a blanket statement that it is a scam but that it could be a scam or that there are possibilities of it being a scam project. So such kind of project should raise our suspicion of something likely to go wrong in the future and the reason we should think that way is to guide ourselves on how we are going to invest or rely on it. Therefore, if we meet such project that we suspect for one reason or the other, we should watch closely on how it is going.