Topic: How do I avoid and identify scams? - page 2. (Read 577 times)

Not all altcoins are bad, there are some altcoins can be trusted. There is nothing wrong to trust the top altcoins such as ETH, ADA, BNB, XRP, SOL, TRX, MATIC, DOT, or XLM. As long as the altcoins have good fundamentals or they have great developers/owners, we can believe that the altcoins can survive a long time. We just avoid to invest in shitcoins, meme coins, or the new coins that have weak fundamentals/no fundamentals. Those altcoins which only rely on the hype are better to avoid.

Sure, the safest coin to invest for the long holding, Bitcoin is the best choice. Everyone must have Bitcoin in their crypto assets, it should be the main asset for holding. As Bitcoin is the king of crypto coin, it always deserves to be prioritized. However, I'm sure many people won't miss the chance to take high profits on good altcoins as well.

Everything except for Bitcoin is a scam.

Now, before you criticize me too quickly, let me elaborate a little.

One of the most essential elements of bitcoin is that nobody is in control of it and one of the critical characteristics that is not under anyone's power is the total supply. When these new coins are created out of thin air, they are almost always some sort of pre-mine or have some sort of "feature" that gives power to a centralized authority or founder. This is why so many of these new "decentralized" coins are able to suspend service or shut down or prevent new transactions from being validated. The stories are a dime a dozen. 

The issue with centrally controlled supply is that the founding members can inflate the total supply and dilute the amount that you have in relation to the total. That's the same scam as fiat currency. that's the same scam that Bitcoin was made to prevent and obsolete. I could go on for a while but the bulk of what makes everything but Bitcoin a scam is that all elements of Bitcoin are decentralized and not under the control of any single entity. It can't be shut down or censored without controlling so much of the network (which is not possible).

I know that it's not glamorous or sexy or anything like shitcoin marketing promises but if you want to avoid scams just stack sats, move them to your own self-custodial wallet, and HODL until you are ready to spend. It's that simple.

If you're interested in learning more, a while back I also wrote this article on all of the most common bitcoin scams and how to avoid them that I think you might find useful.

To be safe, if you are a newbie in this kind of industry and you still don't have any actual idea of how the crypto market works and you are eager to invest because you already have the money. You can always try minimum investment with the existing popular altcoins and while doing that, buy bitcoins as well to secure your profit. Because not top altcoins are guaranteed to give you profit because throughout the years, there are lots of altcoins from the top who never recover because they happened to face some serious trouble with their legality or funds, so they ended up dismissing any developments or updates and ended up making their coins to crash and never recover again.

Every scam project has the quality of scam and we all know what a scam looks like but the difference is that scam is dynamic and that is why scammers succeed because they keep inventing and reinventing scamming strategies.
Maybe below could be some signs of a scam project;

• When the project team does not have a face 
• When their is no clear road map 
• When the website is hastily built
• Plagerised whitepaper 
• When they emphasize on staking even being new

Etc. These and many more are the things you look upto when trying a new project.

Cryptocurrency has the highest number of scam projects that will ask you to invest. They are mostly considered scam projects so it is better if you can avoid them. Many new investors who want to invest without experience are facing such scams on various social media. But if you notice one thing then you may not face such scams firstly you need to follow all the guides which will benefit you. Before investing in any coin recharge them well and monitor their websites well. Check the various sites of the project and then be aware of how free they are. If you find them perfectly fine then you can invest but altcoins are mostly scams with risk of losing money. So I will suggest you to avoid altcoins rather invest in bitcoin it will be good for you and will do good in future.

That have been the major limitations with altcoins and at that we all must come to term with the reality of the fact that altcoins are best for speculations and not for long term holding,  this is so because altcoins instability and centralization have brought about a lot of scams in the system and this development have given the cryptocurrency space a bad general image.


And the best possible way is to totally avoid them,  because if altcoins are not avoided,  chances are there that,  you may lose some or all of your investments.

Holding Bitcoin is the best possible mechanism to stay at a safer level in cryptocurrency and if you must diversify,  then it is better to hold a limited number of coins and which if possible should be decentralized coins since central coins can gfrozeneze in your wallet.

You can identify a scam project through the furtherance of the project, so projects that is not reliable and have a low reputation can be seen as a scam project, where you can see a scam projects is of the alternative coins where projects is been launched every time without a good sponsors. To detect a scam project you most make a research of the project and mainly to check a prominent and pronounced investors who you know that have firm, if you not be able to figure out some prominent investors who invested you can decide to withdraw your intensions over investing such platform.

But some newbies does not make a positive research before investing to some projects and that's why they get scammed in some of the investment, but without I know quite well, it's the newbies who always be the victim because don't make a research before investment, while old investors make a proper research before investing in any platforms and that is while they don't get scam easily during their investment in any new project.

Your ability to resist giveaways will save you from becoming a victim of scam. I have come in contact with some one who was scammed through free giveaways of coins which was initially given to him as airdrop but later on he was advised to buy the coin because he was decieved that the price of the coin will be ×5 if it is listed in the market.

As you have been advised, stay away from strange investors who come in form of helpers just to decieve you with the aim of helping you with investment related issues, they only come knowing that you have little knowledge so the easiest way to get your trust is them offering you help at first to to gain your trust before scamming you.

There are good articles online that give us suggestions and advice on how to avoid potential scams.  You can try to follow the suggestion list given on the image below and click it to be redirected to the sites to read more information about the lists.



While this link: https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/how-avoid-scam provides information about the four signs of a scam and suggestion on how to avoid them.

Listing what is stated in the article here(you can visit the link for the explanation):

Four Signs That It’s a Scam
1. Scammers PRETEND to be from an organization you know.
2. Scammers say there’s a PROBLEM or a PRIZE.
3. Scammers PRESSURE you to act immediately.
4. Scammers tell you to PAY in a specific way.

How To Avoid a Scam
1. Block unwanted calls and text messages
2. Don’t give your personal or financial information in response to a request that you didn’t expect
3. Resist the pressure to act immediately
4. Know how scammers tell you to pay
5. Stop and talk to someone you trust

Learn not to trust strangers around especially in social media where they keep you pushing to invest in those coins who seem too good to be true. Instead, DYOR and never stop learning until all your doubts and hesitations have vanished. Scammers could be smarter than us that’s why we should avoid trusting people easily. And stick with bitcoin. Do not mind it’s expensive price. Because I believe the most reason why newbies fall into scams because they keep avoiding bitcoin due to its high price but end up trusting altcoins that are cheap and affordable, when it’s considered the playground of all scams.

The first easy step to discover if a project is scam is to go into research about that coin, getting informations about it's operations and also to know if truly they are actually listed in the exchange they are laying claim to.
Be mindful when their promises on their ROI are too juicy to be true. That's one of the easiest sign to raise suspicion. And not because a coin has so much publicity on social media platforms doesn't mean it's absolutely legit, most of those publicity could be a paid adverts and marketing.

To be on the safer side as a newbie, start your investment with bitcoin, through your time with bitcoin you will get to know more about other cryptocurrencies and why bitcoin is unique of them all.

Don’t trust altcoins in the market as they can’t be trustable and stay valuable for long. Most of them are just too good to be true at first and after seeing some crashes in the market, eventually altcoins have start to lose their value and end us shitcoins. Instead, focus and prioritize bitcoin. Bitcoin has been the most trusted crypto in the market, you will never go wrong with it.

To avoid scam and scammers is simple and hard. It is simple in the sense that, you have to avoid any unnecessary link send to you from unknown person. And you don't have to pay things when you have not seen. That is you have to pay on delivery. And also it is hard because those scammers will do all their best to influence and convince you to do what you won't do. They will bring different methods to lure you for you to fall for them. There are sometimes they will make advertisement that is legit to scam people.

So all what you will do s to be contented of what you have and avoid any unnecessary advertisement and links that come on your way. These are some of the ways to avoid them.

Currently, the new coins that come in the market are more scams. So, before investing in new coins, do adequate research about those coins and then invest. To avoid fraud, know the project's road map or the total supply of the new coin or the identity of the support staff of the new coin. Many times it is seen that some fake volume is shown in new coins so people must be aware of this when buying the coin after seeing the volume of that coin. It is better to stay away from coins that use fake volume because such coins will only be in the market for a short period of time. And when a lot of people will buy their coins then they will do a big scam on that coin so one should know and confirm about a new coin and then buy that coin.

You can identify scam if you meet this following.

Promise to good to be true profits.
Ask you to invite more so you can earn more bigger thru referrals.
Cannot show any specific proof of legitimacy and doesn't have transparency.
They decline to answer critical question and block people who ask legit question related to their investment or business model offered to their investor.

If you spot this then leave them since this is just one if many indicator that they are scam.

There's no simple answer to this question but if you stick to buying bitcoin and are skeptical of anyone and anything involving your own personal stack, then you will avoid almost all of them.

If you are just staying humble, stacking sats, self-custody your sats, and don't get greedy or fall victim to all of the FOMO, you will be fine.

I also wrote this article on how to avoid some of the most common bitcoin scams that you might find helpful. If you would like to see a specific kind of scam added to this, let me know and I will do what I can to get it added.

The truth is in any type of investment, whether it’s in crypto or out of crypto, we should only trust our own self. That is to avoid the chances of getting scam, and just focus on working our investment based on how we understand it, and based on our own experience. And most importantly, focus on bitcoin. Bitcoin will never turned into a scam, even if a lot of us have claimed it to be a big scam.

I have to come to the agreement and facts that have given me a personal conclusion that alternative cryptocurrencies have exposed the core value of digital currency which is freedom and limitations that have been placed in the world financial sector where the traditional banking system is in charge of all transaction,  unlike Bitcoin which is the only decentralized coin and the altcoin section instead becoming a true stability approach in the cryptocurrency industry have become a major for scam coins and that is why before you decided to hold any of that be it as investment or just for speculations you have to make adequate research as to speculate the right time and amount to hold at any point in time.


Although it is better to just hold Bitcoin if you want to hold it for the long term but then also we will have to come to terms as to for what purpose since there is much more importance to also DCA at some point.

A rule of thumb in investing is that any offer/opportunity /deal that sounds too good to be true is probably not true (if you're in disbelief the first time you see the expected outcome) . This rule applies to crypto as well and it has kept me away from scams for a very long time. Whenever I see a new exciting opportunity or deal, if the expected ROI is too good to be true, I don't even dedicate efforts to follow-up on it and majority of the time, it ends up being a scam.

A couple of weeks ago, I got a discord message from a close friend (we've been workplace colleagues in the past) introducing me to a new opportunity that sounded too good to be true (guaranteed employment, high salary, etc) for a moderator? I just ignored it and moved on with life. 3 days later, I had like 5 of my friends having their discords hacked via the "exciting job opportunity". This could be in investment as well. The LUNA collapse for instance was flawed and a scam because they were artificially giving away ROI.

While there's a lot of possibilities happening in the crypto space, we've to be cautious of any opportunity before we decide to take action. T

Exactly; due to greed and eagerness to make money.

But what is the assurance of having a coin that will go 100x as they may be expecting?
I fell that all these altcoin and some shitcoin investments is the same as gambling your money in a platform where you are not even sure you will get your own money back, and assurance of becoming profitable in such investment is very low because they all depend on Bitcoin to move.

Yes! In the sense that we can’t predict the price movement for short time, but we have the assurance that it have huge potential in future due to its decentralized nature and it is dependable due to how far it has come from the scratch.
Moreover, Bitcoin gives us financial freedom, while before we can invest in altcoin in CEX, we need to share our privacy with the exchanges and risk our coins in their custody.