0:00 Intro
1:52 Ponzi Scheme
3:50 Ponzi “Fronts”
6:19 Avoiding a Scheme
8:00 Giveaway Scam
10:36 Phishing Scam
13:53 Wallet Phishing
17:59 ICO Exit Scams
19:54 Scam Comments
21:22 Conclusion
Ponzi Scheme
The Ponzi Scheme started before crypto itself and relies on the premise of paying out old users with the money that is being brought on from the new users. There are a number of different “Front” businesses that will be used in order to justify a ponzi return.
– Crypto lending platforms: Here you will supply a loan and you will earn interest on the loan that seems to be unsustainable.
– Cloud Mining: You will have to buy cloud mining contracts and they will buy equipment. There is no gaurantee that they are buying this crypto.
– Investment Schemes: They will take your money and use some sort of trading scheme in order to invest your money. They are just paying you out with new investors.
You can avoid these scams by steering clear of any schemes that guarantee returns. You also need to watch out for those schemes that ask you to refer your friends on a multi-tiered investment schedule. This is MLM of a HYIP and there have been many of these in the past.
Giveaway Scam
The scammer is trying to convince you to send them money in order for them to send back your money multiplied.
They usually frame the promotion as giveaway by a project, influencer or famous person of some type. They use popular social media platforms in order to push these scams.
This was a similar type of scam that was able to take over the Twitter accounts of some high profile users earlier this year including Joe Biden, Kanye, Elon Musk etc.
Scammers have found fertile ground over here on YouTube. These have often been run as live streams although more recently the scammers have bought ad space in order to run the giveaway.
Phishing Scam
The end goal of a phishing scam is to get you to hand over sensitive data so that a hacker can use said data to get access to your crypto.
Phishing scams are also not unique to crypto and have also been used to get into people’s online bank accounts, email accounts and other password protected accounts.
The usual tactic with a crypto phishing scheme is for them to get you to visit a website that you think may be a legitimate service.
The real sophisticated hackers will use what are called domain ‘Homograph attacks’. These basically use Unicode characters from non-Latin writing systems, like Cyrillic or Greek.
These scammers will also look to use adwords in order to push their scam domains up to the top of google.
Mailicious Wallets
Often times a scammer will use a phishing technique in order to get you to download a malicious wallet. Once you have done so they will ask you to decrypt the wallet with the private key which then of course means they have access to all your crypto
Essentially, if you are using a wallet on your PC, make sure that you download it from the official site.
ICO Exit Scam & Rugpull
These are common and they try to convince a user to buy a cryptocurrency in an Initial Coin Offering. Once they have done this, they hope that it builds momentum and sucks in more users.
Eventually, once they have pulled in enough users they will cut and run, leaving everyone else holding the bag.
The best tactic that you can use to avoid this is just not to buy into these scammy get rich quick ICOs. There are a lot of really impressive crypto projects out there.
