Free your money and invest with confidence
With the market’s value skyrocketing in recent years, Cryptocurrency scams have become a popular target for hackers and scammers. Despite recent global instability, the rising trend has been maintained. Bitcoin is a wonderful cryptographic feat, the potential to produce something unique in the digital age is really valuable. The Bitcoin architecture, literally the capacity to have these non-replicable ledgers (accounting systems), is a huge step forward.
Can you get scammed on cryptocurrency?
The lack of worldwide crypto rules has both positive and negative consequences. While this has allowed crypto to innovate at a rapid speed, it also means that there is no standardization in terms of security. Individual investors are left to fend for themselves against scammers, hackers, and fraudsters as a result.
Some malevolent people may try to take advantage of you if you are new to cryptocurrency investment scams, just as they do with other sorts of investments. so;
How Do You Protect Your Bitcoins Against Theft and Hacks?
Bitcoin is the most widely used and valuable cryptocurrency. Bitcoin is utilized for peer-to-peer safe transactions since it is decentralized, meaning no central entity is involved in transaction approval or surveillance. Miners all across the world authorize and validate these transactions, and they charge a small portion of Bitcoin as a fee. Because Bitcoin transactions are conducted entirely online, they are vulnerable to hacking and theft. As a result, specific precautions must be taken to avoid such losses.
Bitcoin, as a decentralized cryptocurrency with no central bank or single owner, may be sent from one user to another over a peer-to-peer blockchain-based network without the involvement of intermediaries. Transactions are cryptographically validated by global network nodes and documented in an open distributed ledger.
Above all, you must comprehend the Bitcoin transaction system as well as its protection against theft and hacking. It necessitates a strong password, 2MF methods of verification, and your private wallet for Bitcoin storage, allowing you to keep your Bitcoin in a much safer location.
Scammers, on the other hand, seek to profit from Bitcoin in some way, but through unethical ways.
This typically involves targeting unprepared victims, who end up losing their BTC as a result. In this guide, we will walk you through the most common Bitcoin scams. We’ll show you how to spot them and make sure you don’t become the next victim.
Types of Cryptocurrency Scams and how to avoid them
Phishing Scams
Consumers are targeted by phishing schemes on a regular basis. In 2019, more than 110,700 people were victims of phishing schemes, according to the FBI report. They lost a total of $57.8 million, or around $500 each.
It’s a broad-scale social engineering attack that makes use of human behavior rather than a technological flaw. Scammers are particularly interested in crypto wallet private keys, which are the keys needed to access the wallet’s funds. Their style of operation is similar to that of many common con artists. They send an email that directs recipients to a custom-built website where they must submit private key information.
Do not open attachments or click on URLs in emails, go directly to the website if you have to do business there. A common tactic is to make a hyperlink look real, but if you hover over it you will see the fake website URL.
Instagram, Facebook, Telegram, Discord, Instant messaging, Social Media
This is one of the most recent, and it has affected a large number of NFT holders. Many people are receiving direct messages from individuals claiming to be representatives of well-known initiatives or corporations. Many people turn to group chat for project help and are promptly messaged by an attacker. They may initially offer to help, but soon they will demand private information such as passwords, recovery phrases, private keys, or screenshots containing private information.
People posing as representatives of a company you use, Coinbase, may approach you via social media. They could say anything to entice you, “deposit now and receive $100.” They may also notify you of an issue, like “your account has been hacked.”
In general, the best practices are quite simple. If anyone contacts you claiming to be from an organization whether that be through email, social media, or instant messaging, do not click the links they provide. Instead, use your web browser or the companies’ mobile app.
Fake Bitcoin Exchanges
Users exchange personal information and deposit bitcoins in massive numbers on these platforms. Although it appears to be a nice site for exchanging cryptos, all that glitters isn’t gold. It could even resemble your trusted crypto exchange, but it’s just a clone looking for your personal information and money.
On social media, you’ll frequently see a link that says something like “Buy bitcoin for 5% less than market value.” Save a lot of money!” This is a ruse to persuade you to visit and utilize their phony exchange. Fake exchanges that claim to be able to sell bitcoins for PayPal.
On these sites, you’ll find a web form where you may input your PayPal email address and the amount you want to sell. Following submission, you will be given a QR code to transmit your BTC to. The money, however, never appears. The majority of these phony exchanges appear one day and vanish the next.
Fake Bitcoin Wallets
Spotting fake Bitcoin wallets is a bit tougher because wallets primarily are about storing bitcoin and not buying or selling it. It has less to do with money than it does with the software you may use.
Researchers discovered a web of 249 fraudulent cryptocurrency wallet apps that have facilitated the theft of over $4.3 million to date, with many of the phony apps still on the loose. The hackers have constructed a number of phony crypto wallet apps that are supposed to seem exactly like the genuine thing, including MetaMask, imToken, Bitpie, even Trust Wallet.
They are attempting to deceive their victims in a variety of methods, including impersonating legitimate crypto wallet app companies via email/SMS and posing as legitimate crypto wallet app companies on social media. They steal victims’ mnemonic phrases, which grants the hackers access to the victims’ crypto wallets and allows them to transfer all of the cryptocurrency out of the victims’ accounts, using fake crypto wallet websites, fake support messages on social media/crypto communities, and fake customer service over the phone.
“A mnemonic phrase is a series of unrelated words that are generated when a crypto wallet is created. Typically, they are 12 or 24 words long. In the event that a crypto wallet is lost or damaged, a mnemonic phrase can be used to recover a user’s cryptocurrency. Once a mnemonic phrase is entered onto one of these fake apps or websites, it is sent directly to the hackers.”
Cloud Mining
“The Pyramid Scheme.” It’s a form of an investment scam program in which you must make a financial investment to join. Those who arrived earlier are compensated by those who arrive later. For whatever reason, the reimbursements eventually stop, and the folks at the bottom of the pyramid are left with nothing.
These services do not own the hash rate they claim and will not fulfill the rewards after you make a deposit. While Cloud Mining is not inherently a scam, it is important to undertake complete due diligence on the site before investing.
A good practice is to ask your peers if someone has used the wallet before.
Only download apps from the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store.
If you observe any suspicious behavior when updating a crypto wallet app, immediately terminate the update and uninstall the app.
To confirm the legitimacy of a crypto wallet app, the first time your transfer money, send only a small amount.
