Topic: Crypto Newbies - Some tips to keep you safe (Read 117 times)

Hi everyone
I feel it needed to try and help the case around scams here, the amount of new people I see getting scammed is shockingly high. This is bad for our community as a whole.
Consider the below to help yourself stay safe

Telegram
You will probably  end up joining some telegram chat of sorts for a coin you like at some stage, this is the number one place I personally see people getting scammed. The scammers usually impersonate some admin from the group you are from and offer to sell you coins or accounts directly.  This will always end in tears, even if its a legitimate admin from the ICO you are in to, don't trust them. Any legitimate ICO will sell the coins via their website where you would usually send ether or something to a smart contract address that you will get from the site directly. If its a listed coin you must only buy it from an exchange.
Telegram is still a good place to be, don't avoid it, just be careful

If you want to buy into an ICO, always investigate it properly first, this includes looking up the history of team members, companies they work for and so on. I usually look for a reason to not invest when im looking at ICOs, I look for a reason for it to be a scam. It's safest to assume everything is a scam.

Youtube
There are lots of channels  where people would just try to pump some coin or ICO, these aren't always scams though, but they might be trying to push a bad product sometimes. Some of these even have high numbers of subscribers. Always do your own investigation, don't ever buy a coin just because someone else is buying it. That is never a good reason to buy a coin. If its something you believe has a market then that is always a good reason to buy and hodl it.
Some of there youtubers would have referral links for things that they want to push. Always ask yourself "Is this guy trying to show me something good to look into?" or "Is this guy just trying to get referrals and monetize his viewers?"
Youtube is a great place to find new good projects, but always take it with a grain of salt.

Remember this is cryptocurrency, unlike your normal bank account you can't dispute a transaction. If funds were sent somewhere there is no way to reverse it. You cannot complain to anyone since nobody owns bitcoin


Some tips on keeping yourself safe
1. Use VPN
2. Dont go publicly announce and like all crypto things on facebook under your real name and say how much crypto you hold - hackers are watching these things.
3. Install a good antivirus and firewall.
4. Store private keys on paper in two locations (my backup location is my parents house)
5. Refrain from logging into all crypto things on your mobile, mobile phones are highly insecure.
6. If you hold enough BTC to justify the cost, get a hardware wallet


As a community I think we need to take some responsibility to try help new people more, there are unfortunately a lot of scammers in this space and it's a bad thing if someone wants to join in on the cryptocurrency hype and instantly gets scammed. We should all work together to help bring forth more adoption.
I hope all you new cryptocurrency enthusiasts have a good experience in this space and get as excited about the future as I am.

I am sure there are some other things I haven't thought about, hope some other members will give their say in this thread as well.