The year 2021 holds the record for the highest number of crypto related scams and with the growing interest in cryptos and push for mass adoption, there's a rise in scams and exploits in the crypto space. It's pretty easy to fall for many of these scams as a newbie and crypto enthusiast as you really can't tell the true intention of every other entity on the internet besides yourself. Even experienced people sometimes still fall for these scams and so it's important you get to know of their existence and how to handle them whenever you come across them
Fake Platform Scams:
These are one of the most popular ways so many people have gotten scammed over the years. Here, a website poses to belong to a particular platform with true and real purposes and utility like trading cryptos, buying and selling cryptos and even a wallet for storing cryptos. However, those behind these platforms are scammers and once they've gotten enough crypto deposits from their users, they permanently shutdown and disappear with the funds of their victims. As a newbie, it's pretty hard to detect if these platforms are a scam or not, as even experience people often get scammed too. The best way to avoid scams like these is to use renowned and reputable platforms for your activities and if you're gonna try out a new platform as its almost inevitable in the crypto space, you should be mindful of the funds you deposit on them to avoid massive losses if things go wrong.
Crypto Ponzi Scams:
Ponzi schemes are one of the most famous ways scammers have been getting away with scams in the crypto space. Ponzi schemes themselves have been around for decades and ease and anonymity the crypto space offers has made more scammers prefer using this means to scam many people in the crypto space. Here the platform or website appears to be an investment platform where you'd invest some of your cryptos and get paid either daily, weekly or monthly. Like other forms of scams, they appear to be real as they will actually pay alot of their victims at first. This strategy is a way to make more people invest in their platform and when they feel they've gotten the right amount of funds from their victims, they'd crash/ close down. Sadly, ponzi schemes are always lucky because of the constant search for ways to make more money online. You can be safe from ponzi schemes by staying away from any platform owned by anonymous entities that promise a high return on your investments. It's really that simple.
Romance Crypto Scams:
Love and Romance as beautiful as they are have been exploited by scammers on dating platforms mostly. These scammers pose to be in love with their victims and after a while of interaction, they'd start asking for funds for one thing or another. Cryptos are currently the best means scammers get fund from their victims because its fast, doesn't need any form of bank verification and the identity of the scammer can't be easily traced. You can be safe from this sort of scam by not sending any funds to anyone you don't really know, I mean anyone you haven't been meeting physically for years.
Rug -Pull Scams:
These are quite popular here as there are loads of them happening every single day in the crypto space. Here the scammers create a project (crypto / NFT) and as people keep buying in due to the massive social media promotions, the price of the project skyrockets (sometimes pumped to a good level by the scammers). But alas, those behind the projects sell off their holdings and dump the project hence sending the price crashing down. As a newbie it's kinda hard to figure out you've been scammed, you'd probably just think the project went bad.
Best way to stay safe from this is to not FOMO or invest because a crypto is pumping and also to stick to solid projects for with long term vision.
Phising and Giveaway Scams:
These are also so popular out here because of desire to own more cryptos. People get scammed by clicking on phishing links which appear to be links to crypto giveaways and freebies. The scammers get access to their victims wallets by requesting wallet info and then proceed to siphoning every single crypto in their victim's wallet. You can stay safe from phishing links by not clinking on random links to giveaways or anything at all. And if you will, be sure you have and will have nothing in your wallet.
If you read this whole post, damn, you're a really crazy about cryptocurrencies and I hope you a have a pleasant experience in the crypto space. I do hope yo find this post helpful.
Stay safe!!!