Cryptocurrencies have become a worldwide phenomenon and a huge marketplace for traders who hope to fill up their pockets or e-wallets. Although investing in cryptocurrencies has become a common trend, not to talk about the greatness of all the cryptos out there.
Over the years, the market has seen numerous cryptocurrency scams that take advantage of the sudden rise and drop of values of the cryptos. Here we list down some of the most commonly seen scams that you need to be aware of before choosing to invest in new crypto.
Initial Coin Offerings (ICO’s)
Newly launched cryptos offer tokens in exchange for investing in the new venture. A vast majority of them are scams with less to no technology to promise growth in future. Reportedly, billions of dollars were invested in over 1000 ICOs in the year 2017 alone.
There have been many reports of scam ICO’s in the US and some countries including China and South Korea have banned the Sale of ICO’s.
Howeycoins is an excellent example of a scam ICO that looks so professional that you may not even think twice before investing. It is a spoof ICO website mocked up by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
The above example proves how hard it will be not to fall for a scam or fake ICO but still checking out their white paper, roadmap and if possible a complete rundown on their website may save you from falling a victim.
Exchanges
It’s too obvious that anyone who is into making money with crypto has to go to an exchange where the crypto can be bought or traded for other cryptos or real money. There are so many exchanges as there are cryptos and like cryptos, a majority of the exchanges are scams. These scams may offer low interests that change after you put in your money or in a worst-case scenario may simply steal all your money.
Some examples of fake crypto exchanges are moneycraft.info, swapex.net, myexchanger.lv, iconvex.net, likechange.biz and wowex.online, among others.
Airdrops
Crypto users will kill and die for airdrops. Genuine airdrops can be like winning a lottery ticket, fake ones can simply make you a victim of a big crypto scam. Airdrops are often used to promote fake cryptos and scams.
Trading Systems
Most cryptos come with trading systems that are either expensive to withdraw or trade for actual money or require to meet specific terms and conditions that might eliminate any profits or in the worst case may even lead to losses. Fake exchange rates are something to look for while trading crypto.
Crypto Wallets
Fake wallets are the easiest way of making money in the Cryptocurrency market. Just create a wallet and make some people deposit some cryptos in it. You can definitely save the efforts of mining or trading cryptos to become rich. This is true for those who successfully faked wallets.
There are lots of wallets for depositing cryptocurrencies, choosing the wrong one can put all your money at stake.
Fake Promotions and groups
Many popular social media and chat platforms like telegram consist of chat groups for promoting and manipulating the circulation of cryptocurrencies. Most of the cryptos, however, are altcoins that have low market caps. Such groups give the people who act fast an edge while others suffer from higher prices. The urge itself will put the money of newbies at risk as there is less time to make a decision.
Outlook
The cryptocurrency market is something that itself was born out of anonymity. Although most of the time we are forced to just rely on our instincts to make a choice as its almost impossible to identify a scam, we can still rely on legit sources of information to come up with a decision.
