Beware of scams.
Do your own research.
Don't put in more than you can afford to lose.
This is some of the most common advice given to new crypto investors.
But how do you identify a scam
and be sure you don't lose your hard-earned cash
to some pesky thief or hacker?
Well, today, I'm going to show you.
Let's get it.
BitSwap is the hottest new way to trade tokens.
Crawling all the top decentralized exchanges,
BitSwap gets you the very best price and value for your trades.
BitSwap is changing the game.
Try it now at bitswapdex.io.
Welcome to BitBoy Crypto!
My name is Ben.
Everyday, I show you how to make money in cryptocurrency.
If you like money,
make sure to go ahead and hit that subscribe button.
Also, guys, don't forget to follow me on TikTok.
@bitboycrypto
That's where we got the most followers.
In today's video, we are talking about some of the most common crypto scams
and how to avoid getting burned.
Beware of scams!
I'm sure you've heard this before.
It's common saying that often circulates around the crypto world.
Yes, scams and con artists have been around forever.
However, because of crypto's novelty,
crypto scams offer a new chance for an old trick,
and, sometimes,
even an opportunity for investors to fall for a new trick as well.
There are so many different types of crypto scams out there.
Sources say that around $4.3 billion were stolen in 2019 alone,
so crypto scams are definitely profitable for these con artists.
From fake giveaway scams
to phishing
to impersonation
to Ponzi schemes,
there are a bunch of different scams out there,
so we're here to break them down for you and show you how to avoid them.
You should know a little bit about these types of scams so you know what to look for
and you can avoid falling victim to these scammers.
A super common scam,
known to many in the crypto world,
especially this year,
is the notorious 'Giveaway Scam'.
In this type of scam,
a fraudster tries to dupe innocent victims into sending crypto
with a promise that they'll send multiple times the amount of crypto back
for merely participating in the giveaway.
For example,
the fraud will say something like this:
"Any amount of BTC sent to this address will be sent back double."
These scams are pretty effective.
They're some of the longest running scams in crypto,
even though oftentimes they sound like broken English.
But they have new iterations popping up every few years.
Crypto Twitter is a hotbed for these scams
because of its massive reach.
Not to mention,
the last few years,
Twitter has been known as the most widely used social media platform amongst world leaders.
Scammers love this!
They typically try to impersonate someone famous
with deceptive techniques
such as using the same profile pic of a verified account
with a slight misspelling of the username.
In 2018, scammers use this tactic to impersonate celebrities like Elon Musk,
John McAfee,
and Vitalik Buterin.
In response to this scam,
Vvitalik changed his Twitter handle to read 'Vitalik "No I'm not giving away ETH" Buterin,'
and has only recently changed it back.
Occasionally,
the verified accounts will be hacked and used to perpetrate this scam.
Probably, one of the most famous examples happened earlier this year,
when some of the world's top A-listers like Jeff Bezos,
Bill Gates,
Kim Kardashian,
Elon Musk and Barack Obama
had their personal Twitter accounts hacked.
The hacked accounts posted a message telling people to send BTC to a specific address,
promising double the amount of BTC to be sent back in return.
Even though the scam was shut down pretty quickly,
the scammers still nabbed over $120,000
from their gullible victims.
These giveaway scams have become less and less common on Twitter
because the social media platform has really started to crack down on them.
Unfortunately,
that only means that the scammers have to adapt,
and, now, they are starting to make their way over here to YouTube,
using videos of a livestream or an interview with someone famous in the crypto world
to lure victims to a website.
The website has a wallet address and similar guarantee of the crypto being sent back doubled.
While YouTube has taken notes out of Twitter's playbook
and started to crack down on these scams,
it's still critical that you guys know how to recognize these scams
so you don't end up losing your valuable crypto.
Phishing is an old scam in the internet world.
However, crypto is now a new breeding ground for this scam.
Phishing is when a scammer tries to get personal information from you
by disguising themselves as a legitimate third party.
There can be multiple flavors of this one,
like phishing emails,
text messages,
even phishing websites.
Most of the time, phishing websites are duplicates--
or close to duplicates at least--
of real websites that you know and are familiar with.
You will log in as if it were the real website,
and then the phony site will steal your login credentials
and/or install ransomware on your computer.
Phishing emails and text messages, on the other hand,
are messages sent by what seems like a company you know and trust,
but the email or text actually is trying to get you to give up your personal information in reply,
or trying to send you to a phishing website.
Some types of these fake texts and emails will give you a link that might trigger a virus to download.
Always check the return address and/or the URL, guys,
and make sure it's legit
and not a phishing scam.
Another clever scam that you guys need to be on the lookout for is the 'Bogus Investment Scam'.
These types of scams usually involve someone reaching out to you,
offering an amazing opportunity
to invest in a crypto that's gonna blow up in value and make the investor a boatload of money.
These scams are very intricate
because they employ a very personal technique
to give the potential victims confidence in their investment.
Sometimes, they will take the form of the long con,
interacting with their mark for days,
weeks,
sometimes months
in order to gain their confidence
and get them to part with their hard-earned moolah.
While these types of scams are very common on platforms like Telegram and Instagram,
these scammers are getting more clever by the minute,
constantly looking for different channels to use in order to lure their victims into their scam.
A friend of mine was nearly duped into this scam by a girl he matched with on Tinder.
They matched on there,
chatted for a bit,
and, eventually, they moved on to WhatsApp--
Always a scary app to be on--
where the long con took place over the course of a few weeks.
She even had photoshopped charts from TradingView,
showing the crypto having huge gains in a very short period of time.
He eventually contacted me when she started to put the pressure on him to invest in this one crypto.
Seeking my advice about it when the only info he could find was on what he deemed to be fake news websites about the coin.
Now, she promised that his investment of $1,000 was guaranteed to become $12,000 immediately.
She was trying to get him to sign up for a fake exchange to purchase the coin,
saying that there was a special deal that wouldn't be available tomorrow.
Luckily, he saw the red flags and had a knowledgeable crypto friend like me
inform him of the scam
and keep him from falling victim to it.
He also didn't even get to second base.
However, not everyone is so lucky,
and that's why we are here to try to help you guys know the signs
so you can spot these types of scams and protect yourself.
Here are some obvious red flags that you can look out for.
The person or company contacts you out of the blue.
This can be through a message on social media, an email or even a text or call to your cell phone.
With all the data breaches of major corporations,
you'd be surprised how easy it is to get your personal info on the dark web.
Even more recently, the scammers have been impersonating me
and directly contacting people who subscribe to my social media channels,
offering to help them manage their crypto
for the most gains.
Do not fall for this.
This is not something I do for people. I barely got time to manage my own.
Oftentimes, scammers try to pressure you to make a rushed and rash decision.
This pressure typically is in the form of some kind of special limited time offer
or rapidly approaching deadline
for a discount or sign up bonus.
The scammer will sometimes ask you to keep the investment a secret.
They will likely tell you that the amazing investment opportunity is for you alone,
and that, if too many people know,
then the investment will somehow lose value.
That'll make no sense.
The biggest red flag of all is that the investment seems too good to be true.
The old saying is still around for a reason
because it's usually correct.
When something is too good to be true,
it usually is.
Many times, this means that they make the investment seem to have an extremely low risk
with an incredibly high return,
which is the gold standard for a scam.
Perhaps one of the oldest types of crypto scams is the Ponzi scheme.
This is actually one of the oldest scams in general,
with the earliest recorded Ponzi's dating back to the late 1860s in Germany and the US.
However,
one of the most famous examples was perpetrated by Italian swindler Charles Ponzi in the 1920s.
So famous that it was forever named after him.
The way that these schemes operate is actually super simple.
The scammer uses money from new investors to pay old investors.
This helps to maintain the illusion of it being a legitimate investment,
and it can keep operating as long as there is a steady stream of new investors.
Or that is,
until they get caught.
Oftentimes, these investments will advertise a type of bonus or incentive for bringing in new investors,
so the other common term for a Ponzi scheme is called a pyramid scheme.
Maybe you remember that episode of 'Hey Arnold!'
where Gerald buys more Wacko Watches
that he can chew,
and Arnold, like the true OG he is,
finds different ways for his buddy Gerald
to unload inventory.
Legends!
However, if you don't know 'Hey Arnold!' and had a deprived childhood,
con artists have attempted thousands of notorious Ponzi schemes throughout the history of the world,
so there are numerous examples to choose from.
Of course, in crypto, Ponzi schemes leave a big impression on everyone---
from the infamous moment with the BitConnect dude,
who looked like he was chosen in the first round of the NBA draft,
all the way to the multi-billion dollar Bulgarian behemoth---OneCoin.
OneCoin was founded by the Bulgarian "cryptoqueen" Ruja Ignatova.
Onecoin is not only the biggest crypto scam in history,
it's one of the biggest scams in history!
While it's hard to get precise information about how much money OneCoin took from people,
it is thought to be around $4.4 billion,
with some estimates even going as high as $19.4 billion.
The scam has attracted so much attention internationally
that inspired a book,
a BBC podcast,
and even an upcoming Hollywood movie about it,
starring Kate Winslet.
I will be playing myself.
Hopefully, some of those movie profits will go to the victims who lost money to the scam,
but I doubt it.
Hollywood accounting will probably nix any hope of that.
But what do you guys think?
How will crypto scams evolve in the next few years?
Will scammers become even more advanced?
Will thieves start deepfaking face imagery to hack digital bank accounts?
The future is pretty wild.
Tell me what you guys think by dropping a comment down below.
That's all I got.
Be blessed.
BitBoy out.