Scams exist in just about every field, cryptocurrencies not excluded. Of course, as the success rate increases, so do the number of scams that try to get money out of people. What are the top scams that have fooled many people? Let’s take a look.

Who is an easy victim?

As a real proof of the rapid growth of cryptocurrency in 2021 we can take the fact, that the value of the market was four times higher in 2021 than in 2020. In 2020 alone, over 80,000 cases of fraud were reported. A big attraction for scammers are mainly newcomers who have recently come to cryptocurrency world and are still getting their feet wet. These are easy victims who are much more likely to believe fraudulent sites and false promises that will eventually cause them to lose their money.

Fake verified celebrity profiles

You may have come across them too – a verified celebrity profile that promises to refund you several times the amount sent to their electronic wallet. Often, these posts also had a bunch of comments from grateful people to reassure potential “investors” that everything was safe and secure. Of course this is not the case and it is a scam. Once you send money to a given address, you will never see it again, let alone multiple times the amount sent. The scammers have made over $2 million from this type of scam alone.

Non-fungible tokens

NFT is a big hit. There are some tokens that are very highly priced and due to their nature, they attract fraudsters as well. Typically, they are lured in at very cheap or low prices. If you don’t want to lose your money, it is better to avoid ridiculously low prices and verify the merchants.

Another widespread scam is impersonating customer support. Under the guise of helping, scammers get sensitive information from victims and then steal NFTs. Therefore, it is always necessary to access NFT site servers through official accounts.

Viruses

Experienced hackers, however, rely on viruses and malware to compromise crypto wallets and thus gain access to them. Once they get into your wallet, they are free to transfer your cryptocurrencies into their own wallets. Transactions between cryptocurrencies are irreversible, so once you find your wallet empty, there is often no going back. You can protect yourself against this type of fraud by using two-factor authentication.

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DeFi

Decentralized finance, or DeFi, offers investors much higher interest rates than traditional financial products (such as a savings account). As a result, many investors are more likely to put their money into DeFi products, but even here there can be scams that lie beneath the fact that the site is owned by scammers. Promises of earning big interest vanish the moment you should be paid. Thus, the scammers disappear without a trace along with your money.

Conclusion

Just because of the amount of scams, you need to be wary and watch where you put your money.

Source: sanfranciscotribe.com