A walk in the dark side of crypto

Yesterday someone mentioned in Noise the Ranches in BenSwap, saying that he'd made good profit there. I saw the release some time back but didn't pay much attention.

So I went to look and found some very juicy pairs. Curious as most, one called my eye. It was a token called Nails. Never heard of it. There was a ranch of FLEX-BCH giving 4K APR in Nails. FLEX is a good coin, so I thought it was safe enough.

I created my LP token, staked it, and today I had already $ 1.5 in Nails. Like in the disclaimer it says the creator of the ranch can pull it at any time (or that's what I understood, could be wrong), I took the pair out.

Now, I realized that I couldn't swap it. It was only 1.5 bucks, so I said, ok, lets take the risk and stake a pair with flexUSD, let it run. And I did it.

But... I didn't like it. I'm not a gambler. So I decided to find out more about this project.

Found a Telegram group, Twitter and website for a coin with the same name but working on Pancake Swap. Website down, and both Ts showing latest activity on July 2021. In one of the posts it provided a link to poopcoin. I followed and what that curve told me was the story of a rugpull:

https://poocoin.app/tokens/0xed6e69203af0ebfe4205991f2b3f6dbf6b85205d

Ookey... lets get out of there, I said... (good luck with that)

Unstaked my pair but there was no way to open the LP token.

I went to the SmartBCH telegram group, but... didn't want to bug people before working it. So I searched for the BenSwap telegram page instead.

On top there was something called BenSwap support. It was weird that there was almost no people, but well... (took notice though)

I started asking my question of how the "clouds" do I open the LP token and the guy tells me to talk privately. I go and he sends me to a website with dozens of links none of which said open LP tokens. So I asked which link it was, he signals one that didn't seem related.

But, hey, this is what school indoctrinates us, right? to follow directions?

I didn't like it but I clicked anyway. I found a page that asked me to provide my Metamask seed phrase.

That's a no-no for me. I don't give my seed phrase to anyone under no circumstances. PERIOD.

So I came back to the group and told them... "hey, this thing is asking for my seed phrase. The guy that took me into private sent me there. There is something wrong here."

Two other guys appeared, yes, he is an admin, he knows what he is talking about it. Another one said: "that solved the problem for me".

(What? Are you going salesman with me? Social proof? Really?)

I said, thanks but no thanks.

So I did go to bug the guys in the SmartBCH telegram group and they told me two things: that there were a scammer group impersonating BenSwap and they gave me the real link to their group.

In the real group there was a lot more history, and a bot, and they didn't answer my question. (A couple of hours later after writing this and now checking, some people answered but still no solution.)

I have a useless LP token with three bucks in my wallet, but other than that I dodged the bullet. Now I worry if I downloaded something when clicking on that link. My computer is fairly protected, but you never know.

Note to me and all who feel represented by this (true) tale:

Careful kids when you decide to walk on the fringes looking for shiny objects. There could be great profit, but it's also close to the dark side of crypto.

Thanks for reading.

Imgs: screen captures. Lead image and the last one are made in Canva.