What are the scams in memecoins/altcoins and how do we prevent them?

[legiteum]

Hello folks.

There are many threads here and elsewhere about the dangers of memecoin/altcoin investing.

This is a thread to gather all of the known scams in one place, and also talk about how these scams can be prevented.

As I have said elsewhere in these forums, I foresee the memecoin market growing to trillions of USD in aggregate market cap. But we're only going to get there if we can change the public perception of memecoins (alternate cryptos and digital currencies), and provide a safe, fair marketplace for memecoin trading that any average consumer in a hurry can buy into without fear.

Perhaps a way to start thinking about this thread is:

If you had a friend who said they wanted to speculate with newer, lesser-known digital currencies what would you tell them to watch out for?



Edit:

This is not a thread to talk about investment strategies or ways to pick the "right" coin that will go up in price. That's a different discussion.

[KillerEyez]

If you had a friend who said they wanted to speculate with newer, lesser-known digital currencies what would you tell them to watch out for?

If a friend were interested in exploring newer, lesser-known digital currencies, I'd suggest emphasizing the importance of thorough research. Encourage them to look into the project’s foundation, such as the technology behind it, the team's background, and the community's engagement and support.

It’s also helpful to explore a variety of options. For example, while many meme coins are speculative, some like Meme Games, Pepe Unchained, Crypto All Stars, and Shiba Shootout are gaining attention for their unique approaches and growing communities. Observing how these projects evolve can offer valuable insights.

Being cautious, and researching well is the key to surviving in this meme coin market!! Thanks for starting this conversation!

[legiteum]

If you had a friend who said they wanted to speculate with newer, lesser-known digital currencies what would you tell them to watch out for?

If a friend were interested in exploring newer, lesser-known digital currencies, I'd suggest emphasizing the importance of thorough research. Encourage them to look into the project’s foundation, such as the technology behind it, the team's background, and the community's engagement and support.

It’s also helpful to explore a variety of options. For example, while many meme coins are speculative, some like Meme Games, Pepe Unchained, Crypto All Stars, and Shiba Shootout are gaining attention for their unique approaches and growing communities. Observing how these projects evolve can offer valuable insights.

Being cautious, and researching well is the key to surviving in this meme coin market!! Thanks for starting this conversation!

This is a good start, but let's try to write down exactly what they should look for when they do this research. In other words, "watch out for projects that do XYZ because THIS bad thing can happen to you".

[Orpichukwu]

List of crypto token scam 2021

The list is not up-to-date, but it's not something to overlook, especially that Squidgame token scam, in which investors really fell victim to the scam without realising what they were getting themselves into. 
 
Scammers are informed of using a trending headlong to make a scam scheme when the people least expect it, and those who are blinded by greed always fall victim to such scams without even realising that it's a scam.

[KillerEyez]

This is a good start, but let's try to write down exactly what they should look for when they do this research. In other words, "watch out for projects that do XYZ because THIS bad thing can happen to you".

Okay here goes:

For beginners and fellow crypto enthusiasts...

Investing in altcoins and meme coins isn't a stroll in the park or a simpler and easier version of Bitcoin... it has its own research, its own standards and key aspects.

Firstly its the hype - Now for example when Pepe Unchained was introduced it was already popular and was enjoying good leverage because of its Pepe the Frog meme so a coin with such an active community tends to be buzzing on online platforms such as Twitter, Discord... etc and can easily give you an insight on its proposed success.

Secondly is the purpose or rather what it focuses on - like if you are into gaming then look for coins that serve the purpose such as Meme Games (as the name suggests) will be an exciting one for you whereas if you are only looking for some fun and entertainment then there are other coins to research...(heck there are even coins that bring pet lovers and dog lovers together like Playdoge  ) point being that unique and interesting features of a coin add value to its status.

Next is the Team chk - a team's prior experience and past projects can also provide some reliability that hopefully they won't be a scam. 

Hope its clear so far.... 

Lastly its the risk factor - only invest the amount that you can afford to lose... YES!! making profits is never guaranteed... and no matter how good a coin may sound or how well you may have researched... there might be a downturn.

Another point i can add is the trend or rather the timing- Heard of presales??? well, presales are a good time to buy but again don't go overboard. Right now i know of a coin  - Mega Dice Token that is in its presale phase... getting into it can be advantageous.

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Better?

[legiteum]

Next is the Team chk - a team's prior experience and past projects can also provide some reliability that hopefully they won't be a scam. 

I updated the OP to clarify that I'm looking to get a list of common scams and fraud, etc. What makes a "scam" a... scam? What do they do?

And then we can propose methods to prevent that...

List of crypto token scam 2021

The list is not up-to-date, but it's not something to overlook, especially that Squidgame token scam, in which investors really fell victim to the scam without realising what they were getting themselves into.
 
Scammers are informed of using a trending headlong to make a scam scheme when the people least expect it, and those who are blinded by greed always fall victim to such scams without even realising that it's a scam.

This is a good link. Thanks for providing that. I'll read that article in a few an summarize the scams that were used.

[Plaguedeath]

Can you define what's actually "scam"? I define scam is a project that become dead or abandoned by the developer. But, some people define "scam" is when they bought at the peak and the token never pump.

I don't think loss = scam, it means they put high expectation.

AFAIK there are no ways to prevent from scam, but you can reduce to suffer big loss by buying many altcoins.

[legiteum]

Can you define what's actually "scam"? I define scam is a project that become dead or abandoned by the developer. But, some people define "scam" is when they bought at the peak and the token never pump.

I think you are identifying two scams, which I'll start writing down here (I'll gather all of these and put in the OP when we're done):

1. Rug Pull. This is when a memecoin/altcoin project presents itself as a viable project, gains a lot of interest, sells a lot of units of currency, and then closes the project, leaving the purchased coins worthless.

2. Pump and Dump. This is when a project "pumps" their currency by gaining a lot of publicity, offering only a small amount of the coin's units (or potential units)--say 10% of the total--in the market to make it artificially scarce, thus driving up the purchase price, and then selling the remaining 90% of the units all at once before the market can react, thereby ruining the investments of the ones who originally purchased the first 10%.

[Beparanf]

This is a thread to gather all of the known scams in one place, and also talk about how these scams can be prevented.

This is a hard task to do because the number of scam project is too big compared to legit project right now on altcoins specifically meme coins. The thread will be flood by scam project if we will compile them all while we can just avoid investing on relatively new altcoin or meme coins to limit our risk exposure to scam projects.

The only advice I can give to a friend if they will invest on altcoins is to avoid meme coins in general and buy only an altcoins that has high confidence to investors to assure high success rate of investment. Even top altcoins can turn into scam like what happened to FTX and Luna before so there’s no 100% safe in altcoins.

[legiteum]

This is a thread to gather all of the known scams in one place, and also talk about how these scams can be prevented.

This is a hard task to do because the number of scam project is too big compared to legit project right now on altcoins specifically meme coins. The thread will be flood by scam project if we will compile them all while we can just avoid investing on relatively new altcoin or meme coins to limit our risk exposure to scam projects.

The only advice I can give to a friend if they will invest on altcoins is to avoid meme coins in general and buy only an altcoins that has high confidence to investors to assure high success rate of investment. Even top altcoins can turn into scam like what happened to FTX and Luna before so there’s no 100% safe in altcoins.

Yes, I agree. I am interested in listing the types of scams, not individual scam projects.

The goal here is to help people identify future coins that are scam.

(For the purposes of this discussion, there's no difference between a "memecoin" and an "altcoin").