The Top 5 Crypto Scams to Watch Out For

The crypto world is filled with cutting-edge technology and strong p2p marketplaces, but it's also full of scams. In order to not get wrecked, it's important to defend yourself against all attacks on your wallet. Today we'll explore 5 of the most popular scams in crypto and how to protect yourself.

5. Bitcoin SV (BSV)

The first on this list is BSV. From the outside, this may just seem like a normal L1 blockchain, except, when you look a little closer, it's an elaborate pyramid scheme. At the top of this pyramid is famous Faketoshi Craig Wright and shady online casino businessman Calvin Ayre.

BSV has a grand total of only 30 full nodes on the network vs Bitcoin's 16,000, so we can safely assume BSV is among the most centralized, if not THE most centralized blockchain on the market.

Wright is famous for forging all of his Satoshi evidence and forking the Bitcoin Cash blockchain, creating BSV. Their slogan is "unbounded scalability" since there is no block size limit on BSV. As you can imagine, this structure centralizes the network around only a few entities able to process these transactions. A researcher discovered that the "Bitcoin Association" (a naming attempt to confuse potential BTC investors), controls the main BSV node software and can declare any blocks invalid. This means they are fraudulently marketing their blockchain as permissionless.

It's clear that BSV is a pyramid scheme only designed to benefit those at the top, while masquerading as "Satoshi's Vision." The coin price shows this. 

4. YouTube Comment Scams

These schemes involve AI bots or real humans convincing people to trust a random "trading expert" since they supposedly made a lot of money using the person's strategies. Of course, these "strategies" are only attainable if you pay. The trick is, though, they'll just take your money and run.

Why would anyone spend that amount of time programming bots and asking real people to shill their services if they're truly competent? A legitimate service would have a strong track record to speak for themselves.

3. YouTube Giveaway Scams

Using the same platform as the last entry, these typically involve a bot impersonating a reputable person like Elon Musk to "double money" or "solve a puzzle for Bitcoin." Commonly, the scammers use old livestreams of Elon Musk and others to convince you that they are in fact the ones conducting the giveaway live.

But when you think about it, what public figure would smear their reputation for a doubling money scam? You can be sure billionaires Cathie Woods, Elon Musk, and Jack Dorsey, which appear to be the center point of each attempt, would never do this.

2. Twitter Scam Bots

While some scammers on Twitter are real humans, this method is run predominantly by bots. As with nearly every other scam on this list, these scams also center around doubling money or giveaways. It's important to NEVER click on these links. Scarily, there are some that are even able to verify themselves with Twitter. Here are some examples:

1. Rug Pulls/Fake Tokens

Rug pulls and fake tokens are indisputably the biggest problem in crypto. The amount of money lost to these scammers over the years has been truly staggering. The way these work is by writing a smart contract (typically on Ethereum or BNB Chain) to distribute tokens to unsuspecting investors. Once investors have thrown enough money in for the scammer's tastes, they execute the rug pull by draining liquidity pools and taking all the money.

This is similar to the "doubling money" scams mentioned previously; investing in something with the hopes of getting rich quick. Some perfect examples include YouTuber Ice Poseidon rugging his users for $500k in a BNB chain scam and Kim Kardashian shilling "Ethereum Max," which went to zero.

Furthermore, these scams typically start up on the r/CryptoMoonShots subreddit with bot spam. The best way to avoid these scams is to do your DD and only invest in reputable projects you can trust, which are traded on major exchanges like Coinbase and Binance.

Stay safe out there in the cryptoverse and never share your seed phrase with anyone!