Has a friend or stranger contacted you about a cryptocurrency investment scheme that seems too good to be true? On Yavin scammer hunter and CEO of Cointelligence, has several easy tips on how to spot a crypto scam.
- Guaranteed returns are a lie. Never trust anyone who promises you a specific return, especially if it’s a ridiculously large number. The market is unpredictable and no one can guarantee that you will turn a profit.
- Ignore any offer that requires you to recruit others in order to gain better rewards. This is a classic multi-level marketing tactic. While not every MLM scheme is legally classified as a pyramid scheme or Ponzi scheme, even those that are operating legally have shady business practices. Only those at the top of these scams ever make any significant money, and those in the lower tiers end up losing money and damaging relationships.
- Be wary of projects that have a fully anonymous team, or whose team members you cannot find any information about. On Yavin and scammer hunters like him have written guides on how to spot fake crypto teams. Often they will steal real peoples’ images and pass them off as their own headshots!
- Always protect your financial information! Do not trust any unsolicited emails that ask you for bank account details, credit card numbers, crypto wallet keys, or other privileged information. If you receive an email that says there is a problem with your account with your financial institution or crypto exchange, do not click any links in the email. Instead, go visit the site directly to check for problems, or contact support to check on the status of your account.
- Do your own due diligence! Before investing in any cryptocurrency project, research it thoroughly. Look for reviews of the project (on multiple sites), customer testimonials, and more. It is highly recommended to never consider investing in cryptocurrency if you don’t have a basic understanding of the industry, in order to better understand what is possible and what is a false promise.
If you follow the advice of On Yavin scammer hunter, you can learn how to protect yourself from scams.