If you’re new to crypto, I’m going to tell you that it’s rather difficult. I created my first metamask wallet and deposited some ethereum only seven months ago. I had no idea how many scammers were out there when I was younger. In truth, I lost a significant sum of money, possibly about $5,000, as a result of several scams to which I fell victim. The wonderful thing about the blockchain is that everyone has access to the data, so I could theoretically share the transactions where I lost money with you.

In this blog, we’ll go over some of the most prevalent crypto scams, including one that’s so new you’ve probably never heard of it, and, of course, how to prevent them, so let’s get started with the top 10 worst scams on the internet.

1. Requests your private keys

The first is any website that requests your private keys. Do you recall the first time you created a cryptocurrency wallet? You probably had no idea if you were doing things right, and everything was really difficult. That was the case for me, at least. It’s a fairly basic trick. They request your personal details, particularly your “private key.” By doing so, they have access to all of your cryptocurrency funds. Some of the con artists may say things like,” Hey, I’d like to send you some money, “or” “Hey, you just won one full ethereum, “or even” “Hey, you just won one whole ethereum.” Please provide us with your seed phrase so that we may transfer money into your account. “

2. They ask to invest in you as a trusted creator

The next scam we have is number two. They ask to invest in you as a trusted creator. So the second technique is one that you might be familiar with. Once you contact one of these scam accounts, a fraudster will send you a direct message (DM) claiming to be a project team member who can help you. On Discord or YouTube, they frequently alter their username or profile photo to imitate an actual team member. You may do something really basic in the case of discord. Check the real discord handle to determine whether it matches the impersonated team member’s details.

3. Burning a portion of a coin or sending it to a developer wallet

Burning a portion of a coin or sending it to a developer wallet is scam number three. Another ruse, or at the very least a ruse, is that token developers will incorporate a burn feature. They’ll claim that every time this token is traded, a piece of the transaction gets burnt in perpetuity. This leads you to assume that if you purchase now and hold for a while, the value of your tokens will rise on their own. Let me tell you something: if my dog ate something that turned his poop orange one day, it may have been the only time his poop was orange in his whole life, but just because it’s rare and only occurred once doesn’t mean it’s valuable. For that orange feces to be valuable, it must be desired by others. This is especially true for tokens having a deflationary characteristic. For that orange crap to be valuable, other people must desire it. Keep this in mind while using tokens with a deflationary function, particularly if that’s all they have to offer.

4. Sending you a seed phrase or private key with money in it

The fourth fraud was something I observed only a few days ago. Here’s how it works: Someone calls you and says, “Hey, I live in China, and they recently declared cryptocurrency illegal, so I’d want to get rid of my wallet so I don’t get in trouble. Here’s my seed phrase.” After that message, they will actually send you a real seed phrase to an actual account with actual money in it. The one that I personally saw had three thousand dollars’ worth of tether in it, but here’s the trick: to get the tether out, you must first have some ethereum in the account to pay the gas fee, so if you’re smart, you’ll think, “Hm, I’ll just send it to my own account to do that.” Well, the fee to transact a token is around fifty dollars, while the fee to send ethereum is around ten dollars, so you deposit fifty dollars, and the scammer immediately sends the money to their account, profiting forty dollars. When I say immediately, I mean within ten seconds, they have a computer running a program that checks if the account has funds and then automatically sends them to their ethereum account, so there is absolutely no way for you to get the three thousand dollars out of there. The terrible aspect is that the blockchain is open to the public, so you can look at the account on etherscan and see that 30 individuals were defrauded for a total of $2800. If someone provides you with their seed phrase and the wallet has money in it, do not deposit money into it for whatever reason. If they were in China and didn’t want to be connected to the account, they wouldn’t have to give it to someone. Ethereum accounts don’t function that way.

5. Smart contract bug

Scam number five is a smart contract bug. Another fraud tactic used by scammers that you may not be aware of is a glitch that allows individuals to buy a token but not sell it. I understand what you’re thinking now. What makes you think this is possible? There are three options for accomplishing this. First, when the developers create the token, they simply block the approve function in the erc20 token contract, thereby preventing decentralized exchanges from putting the token up for sale without your consent. The second option is to include a rebase function in the token contract, which will cause you to lose 99 percent of your token when you try to sell it. Third, they could easily write a few lines of code that prevent the token from being sold to a dex, only being bought or supplied. This means that a lot of money is coming into the project and none is going out, making it a perfect situation for scammers to run away with all their money. Technically, they could make it so that when you sell your token, the money you receive also goes to the developers. To summarize, I’m not suggesting that you learn how to understand smart contract code, but I do recommend that you locate a buddy who can help you before making any purchase worth more than a thousand dollars.

6. Phishing on phony websites

Phishing on phony websites is number six. The next tactic is one you should be wary of and keep an eye out for anytime you start a new project or use a new device or computer to explore. Some con artists may construct a website that is an exact replica of a crypto project that you truly want to invest in, complete with the same user interface and content. There are only two differences between this bogus website and the actual one: For example, because fraudsters are unable to use the same domain as a legitimate website, they would build a new one that is nearly identical to the legitimate one. Scammers might, for example, change the .com to the .org, .net, .phi or any other top-level domain to build a phony cryptoinsight website. They might either add a s to the end of the domain name, such as cryptonisightscryptos.com, or remove the s from cryptoinsightcrypto.com. Anyway, the idea is that they modify this minor feature so that visitors are unaware that they are on the wrong page. The smart contracts, which are the scammy element, are the second item they modified. Scammers might alter the smart contract code such that if you engage with it, they have access to all of your wallet funds, leading you to lose everything. In reality, they have complete control over this contract, which is why you should only connect to programs that you personally trust. I go to reliable websites like coingecko or coinmarketcap to make sure I’m always clicking on the appropriate links. You may also utilize the official project’s twitter account to get the proper URLs, which you can then save so you always use the appropriate one.

7. Fake icos

Scam number seven is fake icos. If you’re familiar with how kickstarter projects or really any crowdfunding projects raise funds, they show a product that has yet to be manufactured and then people fund the project in exchange for a great deal, such as two products for the price of one or a limited-edition crypto version. We have something similar called an ico or initial coin offering, and it works as a way for scammers to present a project to investors with no intention of actually creating it and then simply run away with their investors’ money. Well, fake icos are a really easy way for scammers to present a project to investors with no intention of actually creating it and then just run away with their investors’ money. Scammers usually present investors with a really nice innovative revolutionary project, then ask for money to kickstart their project, luring inexperienced investors in with a juicy roi like a hundred percent or a thousand percent, which leads to the investors giving their money, but then the scammers just run away with it, and because many projects in the crypto space are not regulated, scammers get away with it pretty easily. Before investing in a crypto project, seek for authentic white papers, a project’s timeframe, or excellent tokenomics to support your investment. Don’t only look at the beautiful user interface or the juicy return on investment.

8. Hidden Whales

The eighth con is known as “hidden whales.” Because this is so clear, and fraudsters know that people would look at it before putting money in a project, they’ve come up with alternative strategies to mask the fact that they own the majority of the tokens. For example, if a project’s total liquidity was $500,000 and the team only had $50,000, they might divide the money into 10 separate wallets, each containing $5,000. This gives the impression that the project is safer and more legitimate. I’d want to point out that you can easily examine the early transactions of a project’s first tokens, but it takes a lot more effort on your part, and I’ve seen that a lot of projects have begun doing this since people won’t do any more work than look at the token holders page on etherscan. They’ll just examine it and conclude that there isn’t a single whale wallet, and then invest. Here’s a hint: look into the blockchain. It’s possible to lose an hour just looking around and observing where the early money is flowing. It’s extremely simple, and it just takes a little time.

9. Psychologically making you think a small price is able to 10x easier

Scam number nine works by persuading you that a lower price is simpler to achieve than a greater price. Although this is not a fraud, it might be challenging when a project is launched and the tokenomics are set by the project’s team. The developers get to address the following questions: what is the token’s maximum supply, what is the token’s initial price (which they can decide), and who receives the early tokens. All of this is decided in advance. Now, many scammy projects just print a big number of tokens in order to keep the price low, even if the project has a substantial amount of money behind it. Owning 100 tokens at one dollar each is the same as owning a hundred thousand tokens worth a tenth of a penny, right? Well, in people’s minds, owning more tokens at a low price is way more appealing psychologically because it makes them think that with a price this low, it’ll easily double, triple, 10x, or even 100x in value, and they also get to feel like they own a ton of tokens. It’s cool for these investors to say they own a billion tokens, but going from a tenth of a penny to a dollar is just as difficult as going from one dollar to a thousand dollars, so this trick is really about making people think their gain opportunity is higher than it is, which leads to them investing more in the token. Make sure you don’t invest in a project just because the token price is low because if you do, you might be disappointed.

10. Gambling with your trust

Number ten: Putting your confidence in jeopardy. The last fraud is similar to the newest and most popular scam, the squid games token. These creators took advantage of the fact that a show named “Squid Games” had become quite successful, and they rode the hype train with the same name in order to gain a lot of attention. But this isn’t the method I’d like to discuss for creating a false sense of security. They literally made a fictitious squad. Yes, you heard me correctly. They made approximately ten false accounts with bogus biographies to give the impression that the initiative had a strong staff behind it. They even went so far as to include computer-generated images of people who did not exist in order to make the project appear more legitimate. The only thing I’d want to mention about this one is that crypto frauds are becoming increasingly compelling, so you’ll have to work a lot harder after reading this blog to make a judgment on a project.

Rugdoc.io

There is one thing I would recommend if you want to invest in a project. The first is to go to rugdoc.io, which is a website dedicated to rugdoc. This website analyzes projects, and if there’s any evident risk of exploits or frauds in the contract code, they’ll tell you how dangerous it is to invest in it. In the description, I’ll include a link to this page. It’s quite beneficial.