How to smell fraud in projects and detect Ponzi schemes from far as a Newbie

[SmartCharpa]

If there is anything simple that I have learned in crypto, is nothing but to be less greedy, this is what some people lack being a crypto person and as long as there is money in a particular place, scams will never cease to exist that particular place, they will keep coming in different forms in different trends and no matter how expert you have been around here, you will come across them. However, it's not everyone that has this sense of smell to convert it easily as a red flag, these scams come and go in every trend but there is always a catch in the way they present them if you carefully take your time to observe, criminals always live evidence behind and that is what I'm going to share with you.

A scam is not limited in any form in crypto, they could be criminals that manipulate people into having their privacy and securities, scammers that generally steal a wallet or drain the wallet of people but the scams I want to share are limited to physical appearance, things you can look from far and detect that you are in the wrong place, some of this red flags are easily detectable but as I have said, greed is what makes many of us into places we are not to be which result to regret of being in crypto in the first place but I will share you some of the ones I have learned so far. Come with me as I share:

High APR and APY: These two are used as a form of reward for people that love staking their coins and tokens, and in return, they are given interest for a period of time, the two are different, APY stands for Annual percentage rate and APY stand for Annual percentage yield and the difference is that APR is compounded and APR are not compounded, so technically APR will be slightly higher but not much gap. The lesson is not about the difference but the percentage these projects gives which are ridiculous percentage as high as 100% to 1000% in other to make people stake their tokens to reduce inflation but they are scams mechanism.
When you lock your coins in any platform that promises high yield is always a trap for people to lock their coins and when the market is going down, you wouldn't be able to sell and whatever the APR they gave you wouldn't be able to compensate you for the loss, they are either scams to prevent you from selling or to take away your coins, no real projects offer high yield, you should be cautious of this when it exceeds 3-5%

Team: There is no good feeling like knowing the people around what you have in your portfolio, it may not be a guarantee of the success of what you buy to hold but knowing that people that are working behind what you invested in reduce the risk of scams and teams running and abandon what you have wasted money on. There are times projects go anonymous for projects like DEFI that are high risk as they always new and test, they do that for disclaimer purposes in case it failed which is the intention is clear. However, there are some projects that hide their identity by using fake ID are always scams because that's impersonation to give an impression of what they are not, this is one of the red flag people should detect during personal research, nobody will tell you this but you alone and the signs are there when they use fake ID from google and Stock images for impersonation.

Plagiarized and Lazy structure of the contents and website: A man that doesn't have time to think will lack tangible art to present and Ponzi schemes don't lack this from their master plan, they lack idea, they also lack reasonable solutions to problems, the only thing they know is to think out of the box to plagiarize another work and promise to do better in the original work so that people will think they are the real deal breaker, while in the process of doing this, they don't do it from scratch, they present the old idea and change the name and places that will looks similar to their scams. Oftentimes, you could see this from their websites, their documentation and whitepapers are copies of another idea and these are the signs to always check in any projects.

Under pressure to rush things: Real project will do their work at their own convenience without procrastination, they don't give into pressure, they take time to build and when they deliver or make announcements, they make sure they meet expectations and don't disappoint, they always work with the road map and keep people along the timeline with the mission they promise from the beginning but Ponzi and scams are easy to detect right from when they do crowdfunding and public sale, always in rush to make money so they can run away with people money without valuable result for the people, sometimes in public sale when they don't hit their scam target, they keep increasing the time over and over to continue their fraud until someone expose them of their scam.

Unregistered company and short time website duration: Another red flag to look out for is when a company that claims to have a project is not registered, a real company will be registered and fully recognized with a registration number to prove they are real and not fake individuals to avoid any doubt that will raise any form of suspicion. When they have their website registered in under a month and will expire in the following year is another thing to avoid, most of them do this to clean their tracks after scamming people with their Ponzi schemes.

Ponzi schemes and scams are everywhere and they will continue to exist but they can be avoided, you just need to be extra careful and sometimes look for the red flags, you will get one or two pieces of evidence to avoid them if you are not greedy, remember a safe investment is a safe mental health and safe future.

[hatshepsut93]

In crypto anything can be a scam, because crypto made scamming incredibly easy and safe for scammers. You create a coin, you sell it to people - you legally don't owe them anything, you're not obligated to make it profitable, to make it work. You're just selling a digital asset created out of thin air. Governments can go after ponzi schemes, because they break contracts by not delivering profits, they can't go after crypto because there's no explicit violation of trust. So it doesn't matter if a coin has transparent team, endorsed by experts and so on - they can take your money and legally not owe you anything for it, because you are not investing, you are speculating.

[OcTradism]

As newbies, no need to smell fraud in projects which are altcoins, shitcoins. Because if you only invest in Bitcoin, it's safe and you don't have to smell fraud in any project.

You only have such needs if you are greedy and want to invest in altcoins, shitcoins, chase for very high promising profit. If your intention is like this, you will fall into fraudulent projects sooner or later as you can not smell fraud projects correctly all the times.

In general, don't invest in altcoins and shitcoins, you will be safe.

[Gladitorcomeback]

Beside OP list the ponzi scheme has also eye catching reward for referel (10%-30%) which attract greedy people to invite family, relatives and friends. High apr is most common factor used by scam project. Not only crypto project but I saw many other invest based project giving daily 1-2% of capital investment. Regret to say that many newbies are not investigating any project and just look for reward and after some days nothing left with them.

In general, don't invest in altcoins and shitcoins, you will be safe.

Bitcoin investment is very safe so far from any altcoins. I am agree with you to some extent but there are still some good altcoins we cannot say that it is scam or ponzi like Ethereum, bnb and many others but newbies will not buy these coins too and will looking for memecoin or token with high volatility with thinking to rich them in some days.

[izanagi narukami]

I've been got scammed and yes these point that you mentioned become the sign of ponzi scheme.

But I still joined anyway, why?
In my case , my friend refer it. You trust them and its easier for you to join the ponzi scheme even You know its risk.

Why again?
There's human nature called greedy IMO

[philipma1957]

If there is anything simple that I have learned in crypto, is nothing but to be less greedy, this is what some people lack being a crypto person and as long as there is money in a particular place, scams will never cease to exist that particular place, they will keep coming in different forms in different trends and no matter how expert you have been around here, you will come across them. However, it's not everyone that has this sense of smell to convert it easily as a red flag, these scams come and go in every trend but there is always a catch in the way they present them if you carefully take your time to observe, criminals always live evidence behind and that is what I'm going to share with you.

A scam is not limited in any form in crypto, they could be criminals that manipulate people into having their privacy and securities, scammers that generally steal a wallet or drain the wallet of people but the scams I want to share are limited to physical appearance, things you can look from far and detect that you are in the wrong place, some of this red flags are easily detectable but as I have said, greed is what makes many of us into places we are not to be which result to regret of being in crypto in the first place but I will share you some of the ones I have learned so far. Come with me as I share:

High APR and APY: These two are used as a form of reward for people that love staking their coins and tokens, and in return, they are given interest for a period of time, the two are different, APY stands for Annual percentage rate and APY stand for Annual percentage yield and the difference is that APR is compounded and APR are not compounded, so technically APR will be slightly higher but not much gap. The lesson is not about the difference but the percentage these projects gives which are ridiculous percentage as high as 100% to 1000% in other to make people stake their tokens to reduce inflation but they are scams mechanism.
When you lock your coins in any platform that promises high yield is always a trap for people to lock their coins and when the market is going down, you wouldn't be able to sell and whatever the APR they gave you wouldn't be able to compensate you for the loss, they are either scams to prevent you from selling or to take away your coins, no real projects offer high yield, you should be cautious of this when it exceeds 3-5%

Team: There is no good feeling like knowing the people around what you have in your portfolio, it may not be a guarantee of the success of what you buy to hold but knowing that people that are working behind what you invested in reduce the risk of scams and teams running and abandon what you have wasted money on. There are times projects go anonymous for projects like DEFI that are high risk as they always new and test, they do that for disclaimer purposes in case it failed which is the intention is clear. However, there are some projects that hide their identity by using fake ID are always scams because that's impersonation to give an impression of what they are not, this is one of the red flag people should detect during personal research, nobody will tell you this but you alone and the signs are there when they use fake ID from google and Stock images for impersonation.

Plagiarized and Lazy structure of the contents and website: A man that doesn't have time to think will lack tangible art to present and Ponzi schemes don't lack this from their master plan, they lack idea, they also lack reasonable solutions to problems, the only thing they know is to think out of the box to plagiarize another work and promise to do better in the original work so that people will think they are the real deal breaker, while in the process of doing this, they don't do it from scratch, they present the old idea and change the name and places that will looks similar to their scams. Oftentimes, you could see this from their websites, their documentation and whitepapers are copies of another idea and these are the signs to always check in any projects.

Under pressure to rush things: Real project will do their work at their own convenience without procrastination, they don't give into pressure, they take time to build and when they deliver or make announcements, they make sure they meet expectations and don't disappoint, they always work with the road map and keep people along the timeline with the mission they promise from the beginning but Ponzi and scams are easy to detect right from when they do crowdfunding and public sale, always in rush to make money so they can run away with people money without valuable result for the people, sometimes in public sale when they don't hit their scam target, they keep increasing the time over and over to continue their fraud until someone expose them of their scam.

Unregistered company and short time website duration: Another red flag to look out for is when a company that claims to have a project is not registered, a real company will be registered and fully recognized with a registration number to prove they are real and not fake individuals to avoid any doubt that will raise any form of suspicion. When they have their website registered in under a month and will expire in the following year is another thing to avoid, most of them do this to clean their tracks after scamming people with their Ponzi schemes.

Ponzi schemes and scams are everywhere and they will continue to exist but they can be avoided, you just need to be extra careful and sometimes look for the red flags, you will get one or two pieces of evidence to avoid them if you are not greedy, remember a safe investment is a safe mental health and safe future.

This is a pretty good post.

High unrealistic interest = Ponzi = 90% true or even higher.

also all POS = piece of shit even if they are not a Ponzi they are not backed by energy.

Most exchanges that offer high yield staking = fail

There are under a dozen POW coins with good gear and solid network backing.

1)BTC buy and hodl or mine and hodl
2)LTC/Doge mine and hodl

basically that's all I do  1+2 and nothing else.

[Mayor of ogba]

If there is anything simple that I have learned in crypto, is nothing but to be less greedy, this is what some people lack being a crypto person and as long as there is money in a particular place, scams will never cease to exist that particular place, they will keep coming in different forms in different trends and no matter how expert you have been around here, you will come across them. However, it's not everyone that has this sense of smell to convert it easily as a red flag, these scams come and go in every trend but there is always a catch in the way they present them if you carefully take your time to observe, criminals always live evidence behind and that is what I'm going to share with you.

A scam is not limited in any form in crypto, they could be criminals that manipulate people into having their privacy and securities, scammers that generally steal a wallet or drain the wallet of people but the scams I want to share are limited to physical appearance, things you can look from far and detect that you are in the wrong place, some of this red flags are easily detectable but as I have said, greed is what makes many of us into places we are not to be which result to regret of being in crypto in the first place but I will share you some of the ones I have learned so far. Come with me as I share:

High APR and APY: These two are used as a form of reward for people that love staking their coins and tokens, and in return, they are given interest for some time, the two are different, APY stands for Annual percentage rate and APY stand for Annual percentage yield and the difference is that APR is compounded and APR are not compounded, so technically APR will be slightly higher but not much gap. The lesson is not about the difference but the percentage these projects gives which are ridiculous percentage as high as 100% to 1000% in other to make people stake their tokens to reduce inflation but they are scams mechanism.
When you lock your coins in any platform that promises high yield is always a trap for people to lock their coins and when the market is going down, you wouldn't be able to sell and whatever the APR they gave you wouldn't be able to compensate you for the loss, they are either scams to prevent you from selling or to take away your coins, no real projects offer high yield, you should be cautious of this when it exceeds 3-5%

Team: There is no good feeling like knowing the people around what you have in your portfolio, it may not be a guarantee of the success of what you buy to hold but knowing that people that are working behind what you invested in reduce the risk of scams and teams running and abandon what you have wasted money on. There are times projects go anonymous for projects like DEFI that are high risk as they always new and test, they do that for disclaimer purposes in case it failed which is the intention is clear. However, some projects hide their identity by using fake ID are always scams because that's impersonation to give an impression of what they are not, this is one of the red flag people should detect during personal research, nobody will tell you this but you alone and the signs are there when they use fake ID from google and Stock images for impersonation.

Plagiarized and Lazy structure of the contents and website: A man that doesn't have time to think will lack tangible art to present and Ponzi schemes don't lack this from their master plan, they lack idea, they also lack reasonable solutions to problems, the only thing they know is to think out of the box to plagiarize another work and promise to do better in the original work so that people will think they are the real deal breaker while doing this, they don't do it from scratch, they present the old idea and change the name and places that will look similar to their scams. Oftentimes, you could see this from their websites, their documentation and whitepapers are copies of another idea and these are the signs to always check in any projects.

Under pressure to rush things: Real project will do their work at their convenience without procrastination, they don't give in to pressure, they take time to build and when they deliver or make announcements, they make sure they meet expectations and don't disappoint, they always work with the road map and keep people along the timeline with the mission they promise from the beginning but Ponzi and scams are easy to detect right from when they do crowdfunding and public sale, always in rush to make money so they can run away with people money without valuable result for the people, sometimes in public sale when they don't hit their scam target, they keep increasing the time over and over to continue their fraud until someone expose them of their scam.

Unregistered company and short time website duration: Another red flag to look out for is when a company that claims to have a project is not registered, a real company will be registered and fully recognized with a registration number to prove they are real and not fake individuals to avoid any doubt that will raise any form of suspicion. When they have their website registered in under a month and will expire in the following year is another thing to avoid, most of them do this to clean their tracks after scamming people with their Ponzi schemes.

Ponzi schemes and scams are everywhere and they will continue to exist but they can be avoided, you just need to be extra careful and sometimes look for the red flags, you will get one or two pieces of evidence to avoid them if you are not greedy, remember a safe investment is a safe mental health and safe future.

Another way of detecting a Ponzi or scam project is when there is a giveaway of 30% off if buy their token. They are only giving the 30% to attract investors to sell their Ponzi or scam tokens and run away with people's money. This is why it is good for newbies to only invest in Bitcoin to avoid falling for these Ponzi or scam projects.

[cryptoaddictchie]

Sometime we already know its a ponzi but still we are going for it. Why? In crypto being risky is a very common ground especially for shit worth looking projects. All the info you said is correct and thats what everyone should be focusing. But if the project has certain traction, some people even intelligent one forgot the purpose of the project and as long as they see money printing about this one they join it. Regardless if theres a cross check on the points you provided.

[lovesmayfamilis]

OP, there is a very good tactic for newbies who have no idea how to spot a scam from a real project. Just don't trust the default. Only Bitcoin is trustworthy. If there is even an ounce of doubt, a person is not mistaken. How can you determine the identity of a person who posts their information as a team member, when today there are thousands of ways to create fake photos that are not detectable by search engines? The site design itself and the technical document can also be created on AI tools with some changes, and it is also difficult to prove whether they were created by people or robots.
Therefore, if a person does not want to take risks, can control his greed, and knows how to wait, you need to trust Bitcoin. Everything else is at your own risk.

[Fiatless]

These are all important ways of checking scam projects but there are still some of them that look so real and clean. In recent times we have seen many crypto firms rug pull making their clients lose their money. One attribute they have is overhyping. Some of them engage in expensive advertisements to attract victims. They go to the extent of getting endorsements from celebrities and hiring reputable advertisement managers.

Sometime we already know its a ponzi but still we are going for it. Why? In crypto being risky is a very common ground especially for shit worth looking projects. All the info you said is correct and thats what everyone should be focusing. But if the project has certain traction, some people even intelligent one forgot the purpose of the project and as long as they see money printing about this one they join it. Regardless if theres a cross check on the points you provided.

Some people believe that if they invest in a scam project when the company is still new they might escape being scammed. It is assumed the Ponzi scheme will honor the contract with the first set of customers to attract more people. But this is not always the case because many people have lost money with this perspective.

[Doan9269]

Under pressure to rush things:

That's true, most of the scam projects tends to make offers in haste to people who will jump into their investment without making a proper research also, they will be so quick and fast about it in convincing you to rush in your decision knowing that we are desperate in making an investment that is profitable, it they take it slow or give you enough breathing space, you might have been hint about them to be a scam and have a change of mind.

Unregistered company and short time website duration:

When looking out on this, we need to be very careful because some scam projects will also take the commitment to register their website to convince you the more, most of the passed experience on scam aren't only from the unregistered platforms alone, what they tend to steal from their illicit means from investors is far better than the cost they will render in getting their registration approval.

[Abu-Naim]

Ponzi schemes and scams are everywhere and they will continue to exist but they can be avoided, you just need to be extra careful and sometimes look for the red flags, you will get one or two pieces of evidence to avoid them if you are not greedy, remember a safe investment is a safe mental health and safe future.

The scammers are always developing their scamming process to an advanced level in order to convince newbies and the public to fall into their trap. That is why they go around and copy some Ponzi schemes that succeeded and change some things that will make them look real and encourage people to join and invest with them.

OP You have arranged vital information that will be helpful to prevent falling victim to Ponzi schemes. Even though we cannot be 100% safe if we continue to believe in altcoin, and sometimes greed is what is pushing us to get scammed, I believe with these signs and red flags you listed, if they are properly taken into consideration, the scam will be minimal.

[nakamura12]

The scammers are always developing their scamming process to an advanced level in order to convince newbies and the public to fall into their trap. That is why they go around and copy some Ponzi schemes that succeeded and change some things that will make them look real and encourage people to join and invest with them.

That's correct and some scam websites even looke like made by professional and having legit team when the truth is that the team doesn't exist or copied from other legit crypto projects or also from scam projects. If th scammers won't make it like what yiu have explained and what I explained then they won't be able to scam so much money or doesn't able to scam at all. Yiu can say that they are desperate to have some money either through scamming or not.

[ImThour]

High APR and APY is surely something which makes it a complete scam and fraud, I have seen that's the only thing which attracts users to buy shitcoin and then stake it for like months.
And within days, the developers are on the run with their money and the funds are still locked in a stake. This is a common trap and the most used way to scam people with tokens in Crypto.

[qwertyup23]

High APR and APY is surely something which makes it a complete scam and fraud, I have seen that's the only thing which attracts users to buy shitcoin and then stake it for like months.
And within days, the developers are on the run with their money and the funds are still locked in a stake. This is a common trap and the most used way to scam people with tokens in Crypto.

I agree with your statement.

As someone who used to report ponzi-schemes and scams across this forum, majority of these threads are poorly made and their website lacks all the necessary information that can make it genuine. In addition, high interest rates in a ridiculously short amount of time can spark the curiosity of others but this is 101% a scam.

Beware, however, that there are certain threads that promote various projects that may look genuine on its face but a scam on its heart.

For example, some threads that I previously reported show a seemingly complete list of a full team with matching pictures and linkedin profiles. Unfortunately, what they have posted are fake pictures that are AI- generated. Though this may look obvious to me, to some who have yet to encounter this kind scheme may surely be tricked.

[robelneo]

Ponzi schemes and scams are everywhere and they will continue to exist but they can be avoided, you just need to be extra careful and sometimes look for the red flags, you will get one or two pieces of evidence to avoid them if you are not greedy, remember a safe investment is a safe mental health and safe future.

Ponzi schemes and scams can easily be detected by using common sense when they guarantee profit without a sustainable source of income when profit is too good to be true, try investing in top companies by buying shares and ask can they guarantee you 10% profit every week I don't think they can, and on scam, if they trying to prove that they are not scammers chances are they are, and when they tell you that you are going to make this figure, actually its the other way around, the scammers are the one going to make profit at your expenses.

All you have to do is to simplify things, moderate your greed and use your common sense and you are safe and good to go.

[Queentoshi]

Ponzi schemes and scams are everywhere, and they will continue to exist but they can be avoided, you just need to be extra careful and sometimes look for the red flags, you will get one or two pieces of evidence to avoid them if you are not greedy, remember a safe investment is a safe mental health and safe future.

Strangely people will see all the red flags an indication of a Ponzi scheme but will still choose to try it out. Greed is very uncontrollable to some people and there is also the believe that if you are one of the early investors in a Ponzi scheme, you will be a part of the first benefactors before the Ponzi fails. Ponzi schemes will always repackage themselves and always come back with enticing offers that will lure the greedy.
Ponzi will always have victims, It will always have people who will fall for it.

[sokani]

Thank you op for this great insight on how to spot a fake project, I must confess that you're spot on. I've also come across the two staking parameters you made mentioned of, but your explanation was really glaring. Now back to the to the topic, crypto journey is a learning curve and I've been a victim of some of these fake projects in the past but I believe mistakes come with learning and I've learnt the hard way.

You did a good pointing out these flags but scammers are also very smart. Everyday they are coming up with new deceptive ploy to defraud unsuspecting individuals of their funds and newbies should always be on the lookout for these red flags.

[Renampun]

never believe words like this "our project has high ROI and minimal risk" or "our project is the next bitcoin bla bla bla, invest your money immediately, don't miss it"

scammers in crypto take advantage of the psychology of newbies who are hungry for profits from crypto while knowledge and experience have not yet supported these newbies to invest, so what is the first step that novices should take to avoid scam projects, of course many ask more first to the seniors and ask them to share the experiences they have had while being investors in a cryptocurrency project.

often asking seniors about things unknown - avoiding the trap of high ROI - the legality of the project and also the professionalism of the team behind the project are steps that must be taken by beginners before making investment decisions in crypto projects.

[erep]

Strangely people will see all the red flags an indication of a Ponzi scheme but will still choose to try it out. Greed is very uncontrollable to some people and there is also the believe that if you are one of the early investors in a Ponzi scheme, you will be a part of the first benefactors before the Ponzi fails. Ponzi schemes will always repackage themselves and always come back with enticing offers that will lure the greedy.
Ponzi will always have victims, It will always have people who will fall for it.

There are two possible causes for them to become victims of the Ponzi project, first they do not have the expertise to review the potential of the project and they are greedy to buy Ponzi project tokens because the project's popularity is increasing like other altcoin meme trends, they think they will get high profits when the team releases information about it. listing top exchange tokens, but if the predictions are not as expected then they incur high losses without price recovery because other investors have anticipated losses as well. Avoid greed in investing in any coin/token and prioritize investing in top coins and if investing in a new project then make sure you have analyzed it first so you invest in the right project.