Scammers are relentless when it comes to a space where a massive amount of money is being moved around, predominantly by individuals and crypto is no exception. Whether you know someone who's lost money to a scammer or you yourself have...and there's no shame in it, I have in the past as well....there are some key things you can look for to tell you if someone is trying to scam you or not. I've been in this space for a long time and I've seen the scammers come out of the woodwork, they started out by saying "Send me 1 Bitcoin and I'll give you 3 back in a month", but people caught onto that fast and it was easy to spot. Scammers have got a lot craftier lately though and they're becoming harder and harder to make out, so we must be more vigilant now more than ever, just remember, these scammers only exist because 1 out of every 500 people might fall for it and that's enough to make them rich, take that away and there's no more reason to keep trying to scam.
Ok, so the most common one I've seen which started on Youtube and is now everywhere, is when you see someone comment and say they've had success investing with *person's name or tag* and they recommend them, then you'll see multiple, sometimes 20-30+ comments from different people on that original comment saying how they worked with that person and had success in some way too, they will often say things like "I can't believe I saw her name suggested here, she's great!" as if to say it's some coincidence that the person was mentioned and all these people had success with them too. HOW is this a scam? Every one of those comments, including the original comment, is a bot...a computer software that has been programmed to post said comment followed by backup comments, thousands of times over, on every social media network you can think of. Very often you'll see that these comments have nothing to do with the original post or video or whatever it might be. You can tell that the program writers don't speak English natively from some of the grammar used, it's too formal, often referring to the suggested person as Mrs Jane Smith or Mr John White for example. Every single one of these where someone refers you to someone else as a success story....is a scam.
Another method is the original one I had stated earlier in this article, "Give me a Bitcoin and I'll give you 3 back". There are a lot of variations on this scam but the underlining principals are the same, give me something of value (crypto, asset, fiat, etc) and I'll invest it, make a profit, keep some and give you the rest. This sounds like easy money, you might not be making as much as everyone else but you don't have to put in any work and you still get a profit.....it's a scam....all of them. If someone asks you to give them something that has immediate real value and promises to return it with profits at a later date, it's a scam, no ifs or buts about it.
One of the worst types out there is known as a "Rug Pull", this is where a person or multiple people will create a new cryptocurrency (anyone can make one) and begin to advertise or "shill" or otherwise convince people to invest in their crypto, usually by saying it will 10X soon, maybe some fake article to boost it, you get the drift. When the creator/s made the crypto they will have kept around 50%, maybe less but usually more, of the total supply to themselves, say it has 100mil total supply, at the time of creation the crypto is worth nothing so they keep 50mil, as more people invest the total value goes up as does the individual token value, they're 50mil coins are then worth a substantial amount. At a point where the creator/s deem it plausible, they dump (sell) their share in either one hit or many incredibly fast increments, as this happens, investors panic sell and instead of 50% being sold you end up with 70-80% sold, leaving whatever's left over, completely worthless. It's true that ANY crypto has this possibility where a large amount is held by very few, but highly unlikely for trusted projects, I won't get into those right now though, that needs a whole blog just on it's own.
I'm often asked "But if you're asking for money to make us money does that make you a scam?" What we do here is provide you with the knowledge and tools to make your OWN investments wisely so that YOU can make YOUR profit, we will never take crypto from you to invest it and make you more, that's entirely up to you to do, we just help you do it with significantly less risk.
Always remember these rules:
1: If someone is referring you to ANOTHER person so that you can invest with them and make money, it's a scam.
2: If someone says they can take your money or crypto and make a profit on it and give it back to you + profit, it's a scam
3: If you want to invest in a new coin early on, DO YOUR RESEARCH!! Look at their creators, their wallets and how much is already owned and my how many. If you're shown a promising document, try to find that document again through search engines, if it doesn't come up at least 3-5 times, it's forged. If you want to know how trustworthy a project is, contact us, we can find out pretty quickly and give you an honest and unbiased answer, I've actually found 2 of my favourite cryptos this way!
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