Topic: How do I avoid and identify scams? (Read 577 times)

You're right, buddy, but is there a reliable exchange or platform? Before beginning to invest in cryptocurrencies, I believe the best course of action is to conduct thorough study on everything related to them.

Trust only Bitcoin.

 First, it's important to educate yourself on the basics of cryptocurrency and the potential risks involved. Second, be wary of any opportunities that promise unrealistic returns or ask you to invest without providing information about the investment. Third, always use trusted platforms and exchanges when dealing with cryptocurrency. And finally, never share your private keys or wallet information with anyone, no matter how trustworthy they seem. By taking these steps, you can help protect yourself from scams and keep your cryptocurrency safe.

If we talk about investing, I would never invest a dollar to any project, if I dont understand its way of earning money. For example if someone wants to open his own restaurant, I understand - that he'll prepare food and sell it. If some investment prospects talks about "an outstanding way to gain profit because of a unique blockchain technology that will change the web 2.0" - I bet it's probably a scam.
Other useful thing is to check legal status of the beneficiar. For example I know rather big cryptoprojects that dont have any legal business which would be officially registrated. How can I trust anyone who doesn't want to show his real name?

I mean scammers, hackers, etc. are already part of the cryptocurrency space I guess, so we can't really stop them and they not going to go away, so we are the ones that gonna need to adjust to them. If you have enough knowledge your not really going to get hacked or scammed, your surely going to get in on your experience and knowledge, For sure you're going to get a lot here in the forum since this is where I get a lot of ideas about how I'm going to protect myself from this people.

Also, you might want to see if there are a lot of green flags on some of the projects, In my opinion, some of the token projects weren't actually real kinds of scams or something that they really plan to scam people, most of them are actually legit but the model of there project was just not that great so most of the time they just end up as a fail and some people think that it is a scam because they fail, and their money is already lost. Also were gonna need to study everytime because this hackers or scammers always find and create new ways to scam investors so you always wanted to get updated to there ways.

It is assumed that most alt coins are scam and are always pump and dump projects that will definitely  end up breaking  your heart, so to stay safe in the cryptocurrency industry,  I will always advice that you stick to bitcoin  u til you're knowledgeable enough  to handle other altcoins. There are also several scam adept  and cases recorded in the industry  but I think all of the cases pipe down mostly to greed which is the trait to being scammed, so for your good, avoid offers that seem so good to be true else you'll  always have yourself to blame.

While trading on a peer-to-peer platform, always avoid clicking on external links as they might be phising  links and might end up giving access to youraway let and asset.
Also in course of your crypto journey,  please avoid cloud mining and anyone who advises you to get involved or make investments in cloud mining  is a petty thief and you should avoid such a person.

There sre several  ways you can identify scam and scammers but these are the few I can lay my hands on from my head at the moment.
So while learning, I will advice that you just buy bitcoin and hold till you think you're knowledgeable enough to explore  other spaces.
Goodluck

You're right, buddy; ever since I became interested in cryptocurrencies, I haven't been interested in any other coin besides bitcoin because it's the only decentralised coin that I've seen many people invest in and never regret. Although bitcoin has both a positive and a negative side, and it can also be scammed if someone gains access to your wallet and steals all of your money, it will be very difficult for you to invest in bitcoin and end up getting ripped off like that. I haven't invested in other coins besides bitcoin since I truly don't believe them after hearing stories about people being conned, losing money when they invest in them, and the coins devaluing to the point where you lose money you weren't expecting.

There isn't a single form of cryptocurrency that is impervious to fraud, but the most often used ones are any coins that aren't bitcoin since they are the easiest to defraud, and after you've been taken advantage of, there's no one who will give you your money back. Therefore, it is better to not trust anyone or take advice from anyone who advises you to invest in any coin other than bitcoin. You should also avoid anyone in the forum or any other place who inquires about your investment wallet because they may be looking to take advantage of your inexperience with cryptocurrency or the fact that you are a new member by scamming you. This is my brief advice as a friend.

Have you ever seen the case that happened to Luna coin, no one has succeeded in dedicating that the coin is a scam and at the end of the story that's what happened, Luna is really a fraud.

For this reason many people say, if you have entered the world of crypto, we must be prepared to accept risks in all things, whether it's investing, trading and so on.

OP, this year are a bit confused about crypto types, Binance has recently removed a lot of crypto types being traded on their exchange, whether it's a scam or not, but that's a fact that happened, my advice is to keep holding Bitcoin, maybe it's better for us, rather than having to be confused about judging scam coins or not.

There are too many scam projects out there that if you have been in t he cryptocurrency space for long you will be able to either identify based on the type of people promotion them, their media outreach and reviews.

People who are promotion scam projects don't change they only rebrand themselves. They move from one scam project whose cover has been blown to another scam project where they think newbies may not know them.

Their media out reach... characterized by slow and most times they are either unresponsive or unreachable. So of you have questions to ask about the project no one can give you any concrete answers.

The reviews... If you watch closely you'd see that experienced people in the crypto space have warned other to desist from investing in the project.

If you want to prevent crypto scams, do your own research before investing. You can open your own account on Coinbase or another Wellet, research the markets, and invest your own money. No one in the market can be trusted.Cryptocurrency scams are mostly successful for a variety of reasons, including the lack of a mechanism for fraud detection, and after the fraud has occurred, there is no remedy available to reclaim the monies taken. Cryptocurrency investment is highly delicate and technical.However, it is advisable and worthwhile to hire the services of an efficient and proven funds manager who is well-versed in the fundamentals of Bitcoin investment and trading to guide you to avoid being scammed because most of the reviews you see on the internet are fake primarily designed to defraud infant innocent investors.

To avoid cryptocurrency scams, conduct thorough research on projects and teams, verify regulatory , and be cautious with promises of guaranteed returns or unsolicited offers. Watch out for suspicious URLs, avoid sharing sensitive information, and use reputable wallets and exchanges. Stay informed about the latest scams and seek advice from trusted experts if needed. Always prioritize security and exercise caution in the cryptocurrency space.

That is the very first thing to do and we have to anticipate the situation that new projects often turn a scam. In fact, there are a lot of promising projects that we know already and I don't think we have to risk investing in new projects. However, we can't just disclose the fact that because of the influence of known personalities, many individuals get fooled by such promising words and invested in the wrong projects believing that it was a good investment as was been said by the promoters.

You listed a pretty strong altcoins that have been in crypto space for a long time, those coins which you listed above might be strong, but I don’t trust them, no matter how strong a altcoin is, it can fail us at any moment, some altcoins which we considered as strong once can disappoint us at any moment so we should just trust any altcoin.

But the worst is you investing in shit coins or meme coins, people investing in shit coins are just taking unnecessary risk which I believe it those not worth it, their are lots of strong altcoins which you can invest in, even if they are not reliable but they are better than shitcoin, but some people will still end up choosing shitcoin.  The best investment which I do advise people to invest in is just bitcoin, any other coin I do discourage it, and anybody trying to invest in altcoin should do it with caution.

The best step to avoid scams is to avoid investing in new projects. Because no matter how convincing the project looks, we will not know for sure if it is really legit or just a scam. because all this time, more and more scammers are making their scam projects as if they look very legit. In fact, they also have hundreds of thousands of followers on their social media which are quite active. What's more, there is not only the danger of scam projects but also projects that are easy to pull out, this is because of the hype. So don't get hooked on the hype project too easily. Or, also avoid investing in platforms that look too good to be true, let alone promise super high profits in a short time, this is also one of the characteristics of a scam.

Well spoken, you have actually stated what should be considered before any investment, I have really learnt a lot from all your advices and opinions concerning this topic, as a newbie I don't really no much about cryptocurrency let alone identify a scam projects but with just reading all the messages here it has sharpened my mentality on how to avoid scam projects.

Avoid getting pronned to things on the net... It's sometimes impossible to know which is a scammy project and Which is not so that would prolly be the best advice...
Don't always be in a hurry to make funds outta anything you see.. always try as hard as you can to get viable informations from genuine sources and - and three good yeses from there could build a concrete confidence. Never invest more that you spend... Never invest what you cannot lose, Be vigilant...

Sandra 🧑‍🦰

I think this kind of question has been asked so many times and the answer is not much different from ten years ago util now. The main idea of avoiding scam is quite simple actually if it seems too good to be true, than it's not true. Keep in mind that it is impossible for crypto or anything to make you rich quickly. Don't be too greedy, and only invest in something that you understand. Always be skeptical.

How to avoid them?
 - don't invest blindly, you have to do research and dig deeper
 - don't trust someone who offers you BIG rewards or says multiplying your capital xxx
 - invest only in those projects that have a use case and most of all, those projects that have a long market existence and tradable

Everything is at your discretion, not us nor these strangers. You can decide what you think is right.

Just to add to what others have said, identifying scams are very easy to spot on social media. Those tokens you see regularly on your feed aren't to be trusted. They're either scams or over hyped project been influence by paid advertisment. Scammers depends on advertising on social media because they know newbies are on those platforms in their numbers trying to look for the next Bitcoin so they can invest. Since you're not familiar with cryptocurency, just buy Bitcoin for the time been and you'll fall in love with Bitcoin and keep accumulating it until you have gotten enough for your satisfaction.

Altcoins aren't going anywhere so don't think you have missed anything. There'll be more reasonable altcoins with better blockchain in the future but for now all we have are duplicate of each other looking to sell you that their project is better than the rest meanwhile they're all trashed. Just ignore any ads you see about crypto project on social media because alot goes on there that can lead to hacking of your wallet or you losing your money to scammers. There isn't a lot of choice to make, though we have lots of cryptocurrency but your choice should be to invest in Bitcoin.

Yes, learn not to be greedy and settle on things that you currently have. Scamming will be easier if you keep on wanting more, and by being so greedy, it will lead you to take advantage every opportunity that is offered by strangers. In crypto, do not fall with these too good to be true altcoins in the market. Remember that altcoins is the playground of all scams, and you can’t easily avoid them if you keep on trusting them. Focus on bitcoin, that way you can avoid being scammed.

To avoid being scammed and buying fake coins, invest mostly in bitcoins and maybe other cryptocurrency that have a good name and have been long in the market. Invest in them through the proper way and method, not through any shady steps that someone who do not know online suggests to you in the disguise of trying to help you. Quite a number of people have been scammed by people that first appeared to be trying to help them. To avoid being scammed, learn to trust less and confirm whatever you are told before you put it to try it out.

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.

Well in my own opinion many want something that is going to do 100x if am not mistaken, lets say 100x in just few weeks thats just some hype mentality they put in newbies brain. and boom they fall into the trap... even bitcoin as a whole is unpredictable.

Study the forum well and you will see a lot of topics in the past discussion that talk about ways on how to identify and avoid scams especially on part of the beginners. Stay informed by doing your due diligence to learn how the market works and how it’s crypto coins work and attract profits. And to save yourself from rampant scamming, just focus on bitcoin. Bitcoin is the most secured and safest crypto in the market, so prioritize bitcoin over other cryptos in the market. And never be lured by exchanges, as the best way to protect our bitcoin is through keeping it in our personal and non-custodial wallet.

There are some scam projects where their website is professionally made and it would be hard to determine if it's a scam or not. What I would like OP to know is looking for people that are working for the project. For me, this seems much useful if the website looks professional as I have explained and your explanation says it all. If I am ask how to know to identify a scam is the same as you have shared but if I ever invest in it then I wouldn't spend too much money as it may be a scam and I still have some money left for other investments.

In cryptocurrency their are some coins that are too real to be a scam coin, but at the end you will see the team dumping the coin on investors, i see all altcoins as a scam coin because anything can happen to them at any moment, most of all those coins you see that are being market on social media are just scam coins, if you want to invest in any coin then you should go for bitcoin, their is nothing like good altcoin, they can fail at any moment and everyone that invested their are going to lose their money, but when you invest in bitcoin and bad news comes in, the only thing that will happen is that bitcoin price will dump, and if you can hold, then it’s going to bounce back but it might just take time, so you should just be ready to hold.

When you see some projects, you can never believe that the project is a scam till after investing in it and they end up dumping it on you, but their are some projects which after launching they always end up dumping and die, we shouldn’t blame the team for things like this, sometimes it’s the investors that do end up dumping the coin, so we have to still call coins like this a scam coin, it’s really risky investing in altcoins because their is nothing like a trusted altcoin.

Don’t allow anybody mislead you to invest in any altcoins, if am going to advise you to invest in any coin, then it’s better you simply invest in bitcoin, but if you are planning to invest in altcoin, then you should also be ready to lose your money because anything can happen to your investment at any moment, don’t allow anybody deceive you to invest in altcoin. Just invest in bitcoin and be ready to hold, am sure you won’t regret investing in bitcoin later in the future.

The truth is there is no free money everywhere. Some exchanges may give it freely but know that it has always its own way to get it back, more than what they give. That’s the reason why we don’t need to trust centralized exchanges at all, as it’s only a tool for scamming us and stealing all the coins that we are keeping on our account. Have your own non-custodial wallet, and stick to bitcoin and avoid altcoins as much as we can.

Early detection is way possible unless the team was so bulgar from their plan. Because I will tell you that these scammers are too smart as well and they perfectly hide their real intention until such time they've got money from innocent investors. That is why investing new projects are too risky and a possible chance of getting fallen into a scam project which is why it was encouraged to just invest only in those projects that already have a market record and shows potentiality as we can at least assure something about ROI.

The very first step is about knowing the website you are sharing your personal information to. Be wary of websites and giveaways where they are asking for your personal information upon registration. While KYC is normally asked in some gambling websites, but in normal websites, never share your personal information.

If a website is claiming to give free BTCs or any other type of freebies in that regard, never share your personal information without confirming if such website is genuine. Also, never believe that any website would give free BTCs or cryptocurrencies as these things typically never happen nowadays.

Stick with bitcoin. That way you will come to avoid investing in those too good to be true altcoins that will only waste your time and money. And as much as possible, stay informed with the current hypes and FUDs in the market because that will alert you not to fall easily on the traps of scammers. And while we keep learning about crypto, know that scammers are certainly smarter than us that’s why we should always deal the crypto market with high caution to avoid us from regretting in the end.

How to spot a scam is very important if you aim to avoid scams, to be honest scammers that are intelligent are very hard to overcome but it's not all too complicated to avoid getting scammed if you do the right things.

There has been helpful post on this forum about this very topic and looking back to how I have been able to cultivate some habit I got from reading through I can say it has really been helpful.

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.34802617

Apart from scammers hitting you up or getting scammed on social media there are also projects that are set out to scam people, here is a helpful thread that would help you.

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.55238236

Of course this one could be a factor of such community. Verified account of a project the gold one of course not the twitter Blue.

Of course we can. Im a long time twitter user and obviously will discern the difference of an impersonator and the original. Of course is Ive already followed the original, now the impersonator will pop anytime on the original posts,  and from that youll see that you arent following him.

Does having official social media account such as Twitter guarantee the legitimacy of the project? I doubt that. Twitter for example now is after money and as such everyone can request and pay for verification badge. You can not tell the difference between the real owner and the impersonator because they're very smart to use very similar Username that one can hardly notice the difference. Project like Luna with reputable and trust official account failed within a twinkle of eye. Yes, bitcoin has no official media accounts and it gain the trust and popularity.

Op, stay off alt coins and stick to BTC to minimize your chance of falling victim.

Yes you must be always be on alert. The perfect example of misguided one is on social media. Example you follow an official twitter of certain project, then the scammer will post something related to that on the 2nd page as if they are the 1stu author but the truth is they are scammer who impersonating anf using the post of the original and attaching scam link or airdrop link that users wouldnt notice since they saw the first post and will thought that was just a follow up but in reality its a different person.

Perhaps, one should stop investing to every advertised coins you see on every social media platform since it's a never-ending cycle of producing new coins every now and then. Just focus on a reliable coin(s) such as BTC or ETH. It takes some experience to play well in this market since it's all a matter of winning and losing.

Through experience you will know who are those person you should trust. But crypto currency are most likely a gamble thus risking your investment whether they win or fail in this market. Since there are lots of factors that a coin may win for now but would gone after a couple of week so it's all a matter of risking or gamble.

Don’t click random links given by stranger or anyone that you don’t trust. Most cases of scam is through clicking a malicious link that gives access to your wallet for the scammer.

Avoid too good to be true offer and never believe on a passive income without doing anything in exchange for your money. All offer that is too good is a scam. Don’t be tempted to try on this kind of sweet offer if you want to be safe on crypto.

OP, one way to avoid crypto scams is to avoid altcoins. Truly, you can try your best to DYOR about any Altcoin project before investing, and it's possible that the project can be doing great at that very moment or for a few months, but the only question is: how long do you think the project can continue? Every month, there are different Altcoins coming to do promotion here on the Altcoin board, and before you know it, after the forum here, you will not likely hear about the coin anywhere; it will not even be listed on any exchange.


I was going through the bounty board here, and I have come across hundreds of projects that did some campaign here, but those tokens are no longer in existence. Imagine if people who invested that time knew that the project would not exist to date; probably nobody  would not have invested back then. Most of those projects, then, look real; you would not even think that they would fail, but a lot of them do fail.


So, the best way to avoid scams is to be diligent in your Bitcoin holding and investment; don't reply to any offer trying to assist you in multiplying your Bitcoin holding; don't share your wallet security with anyone; and don't go online and click on different links that you are not really sure about. Look out for news updates or trends in the crypto space, wallet security, and privacy. In the crypto space, let security and privacy become your priorities.

all that 👆, and you will be very free from scams.

I am always careful when I see coins that the creators engage in massive advertisements. When huge funds are spent to promote a coin, it's a red flag for me. Any coin that is hyped by celebrities is not also for me. I see these actions as a means to attract people. A coin should grow generically and not attain a high price overnight. Coins that come with guaranteed and huge profit also looks suspicious.

You will not get a black-and-white answer OP because the crypto space is complex and unpredictable. It all depends on your goals for venturing into the crypto space. If you want a long-term investment, Bitcoin remains the best. But if you want to engage in trading and make fast returns, consider altcoins. Always remember that trading needs some skills and is risky.

You already have good pointers coming from people posting your thread created so much better to read up those suggestion since you can get an idea about those possible scam tokens.

But you can also easily spot if they are obvious scam and that is where those tokens use similar name of successful /hype coins or tokens in the market and if you read their site there's no context or clear path on where they are heading so consider to read all the informations available so thag you can avoid scams.

Perhaps it is better to confine yourself to how to invest in good cryptos, so the currency may not be scam, but it is dead, as its value continues to decline for long periods without achieving a return from it.

Invest in Bitcoin until you have the technical background and the basics of technical analysis to know what may lead to a rise in the prices of altcoins, and then limit that your investment to short-term investment is driven by events. I can infer that XRP and PEPE, both of which attracted investors, for nothing but that their value increased in a short time and if you ask them about the reason for the investment, you will find them say i invest because the value may reach $ 100 or $ 10 which is a bad investment.

Identifying scam coins is not as important as Identifying good coins for investment, and definitely avoiding bad currencies for investment means that you will avoid scam one.

Don't expect someone to come here and tells you this is the coin or crypto project to invest on and this one is to be avoided, things aren't done in such manners, you have to engage on making research about them and take the risk after you would have been satisfied enough with your findings about them, there are few additional information i will like to let you know are needed when searching for a crypto coin for an investment.

1. Run a background check on the people behind the coin or project
2. Try to understand their aims and objectives for the project work they developed
3. Try know there liquidity pool, market cap and those major investors of the coin project.
4. Research on their precious projects and success made in recent times on same field.
5. If it appears to be too good to be real then it may just be too bad for an investment.

The best way to avoid cryptocurrency scams is to stay away from alternative coins altogether Since alternative currencies are the main vectors for cryptocurrency fraud. Bitcoin is the only trustworthy currency. 

Reading the project materials, spotting errors in the white paper, looking for promises of rapid currency growth, and other indicators are some ways to spot a scam coin.

People fall victim to cryptocurrency scams in a variety of ways, but newcomers to the field are frequently seduced by initiatives that provide free tokens. Since they are inexperienced and lack knowledge, they just fall into their trap because they want to own a coin. People I know experience this; all they want is to wakeup and see a number of tokens in their wallet. Beware of airdrops because most phoney projects utilise them to defraud their victims as it is the easiest way to attract a bigger number of victims. Participating in an airdrop is a quick way for people to get cheated in cryptocurrency.

you can avoid scam tokens if you don't buy them at all somewhere. just buy the top 10 coins and you save yourself from getting scam. just ignore those meme coins, there's already one among the top 10.

don't look for new coins, thats the bottom line. just stick to the olds ones that are already being listed on different exchanges.

It seems to me that many see cryptocurrencies as some kind of easy way to profit and in some rare cases it can really happen, but in 9 out of 10 cases the ones who will profit are the owners of these projects and a narrow circle of people around them. But in order for them to profit, they have to successfully "sell" the idea and dump mostly premined coins at the right moment and take the money of all those suckers who got caught on the hook.

It's a game of cat and mouse, only the mouse gets the short end of the stick almost every time and I don't find it particularly interesting so I decided not to play that game a long time ago. Of course, it's not up to me or anyone else to tell others what they're going to do with their money, but if you're already investing in various crypto projects, be aware that most of them are pump&dump schemes, and that means you need to have the perfect entry and exit if you want to profit.

There are many ways but IMHO the few basic ways are these;

~ Checking if the website is professional made. At first impression that the website made cheap and like a grade school project, that's one sign. But even with professionally made websites, you cannot be sure with them as well as they can still be a scam but as I have said, that's the basic one.

~ Look at the people that are working for that project. Most cheap and scam likely projects don't even think of the people they'll put as the developers of the project. Like grabbing of photos and name that are obviously copied and invented.

You can't identify all the scam projects out there, you can only identify those that are obvious or display some red flags because some projects can start solid but as time goes on they'll pull out their scam card and disappear into thin air.

Whenever a project promises you returns that are too good to be true, then just know that they are most likely to scam you. If a project comes into the crypto space and starts promoting its project claiming that they have some remedy to a certain problem or that its project offers a certain utility without proof, then it's most likely a scam.

Another red flag is, using a fake team, most scam projects I have seen always make use of stock photos to create fake team members, you should also look out for those. If they aim that they have a mechanism that will help them main a steady price and so make the proof of their coin/token rise just know that they are only BSing and they have nothing of such nature.

"Trustlessness" is the main goal of decentralization so we no need to trust anyone based on the reputation, popularity, years of existence, etc. We simply can analyse the decentralization level via the diversification of miners which completely control the confirmation process and all the nodes verify and validate the blocks so each individual can do it on their own.

For starters, what you would have to do is to study Bitcoin a bit and realize what makes it essentially different from the rest of the cryptocurrencies, which in the forum we usually call shitcoins. There are some less bad than others but they are shitcoins after all. Then you will realize that apart from some being pure scams, which are created as pump and dump schemes, the others are not worth it especially compared to Bitcoin.

A general rule to detect if an economic offer is a scam is that it has a too attractive profitability. In traditional assets, anyone who guarantees you more than a 10% annual return is probably trying to scam you, let alone if he offers you 50% per month and the like, as it is sometimes seen.

In the crypto world the returns are higher but there is no guarantee of anything and it is subject to extreme volatility.

A strong reason why people are not so interested in involving themselves in cryptocurrency is because there is no guarantee that the money invested will return as desired (scam).
Perhaps 2017 and 2018 may be the years that make people undo their intention to withdraw from investment activities in the crypto world because there are some of the most severe cases of fraud such as BitConnect and OneCoin.
The almost weekly birth of crypto projects in the crypto space seemed unstoppable.
Investors who have opted for Bitcoin since then have never experienced scams like other cryptos.

Know who the team members involved in the crypto project are because from my experience since being active in altcoins, many team members and devs have run away in the middle of the road.
Look for coins that have a clear purpose and have a large community and a strong foundation.
For me it is in Bitcoin.

Make sure you avoid all centralized coins, that's the first step to avoid scam.

Then you should check about decentralized coin, check the use case, the current circulating supply and maximum supply, how long the coin has been exist and check this site https://www.crypto51.app/ to know the probability the coin could be attacked with 51% attack. The lower the %, the better the coin is.

Incorrect, Bitcoin is one of the good decentralized coin, there are other good decentralized coins e.g. Monero and DAI.

If someone is providing you some monetary benefits or giving you any coin which he says is worth millions if you trade it on a random DEX, that is a complete scam.
No one gives out free money to anyone in this world except MrBeast. Also, there are various topics already on this forum discussing various different types of scams going around.

Make sure you read more and type less, that way you learn more. Good Luck!

If you are referring to get knowledge about how can you identify a scam in the field of crypto then i jave a latest thread in my mind where the OP has shared many scams and other people too Have you ever been scammed ?. If you wanted to identify that either the project or coin in which you are investing will stay for longer period of time or not then you should try to check their partners and the history of their partners.

And you should avoid to join such project which looks ponzi because huge return is not a real thing. They will scam you by luring into huge return promises. You have to avoid projects that rug pulled, such projects are hard to identify until they did it. But some red flags might help you like see if they are active on all social media accounts like telegram, discord and Twitter etc. Because if they do not have any platform where a user could discuss with them then its a red flag.

See, if such projects are late in completing their tasks according to their roadmaps. Because this shows their laziness and less interest toward the development of the project but more focus toward in getting fund collecting.

This is a common problem for every newbies also for some of the experts and about this topic in this forum here are several discussions you should check them.
These are:

1. [Guide] How to detect fake token and spot scammers.
2. How to detect scam token on Binance Smart Chain
3. What tips you will give to a new investor to identify scam projects early ?
4. How to check a Scam token on BSC.

Try to read these threads, and replies hope you learn a lot from it. Also try to use search option in this forum that will help you to find out more useful discussions about crypto scams. Or you can search by Google and read articles about crypto scams and how to detect them. Obviously try to read from trusted sources. Best wishes for you.

Trust is the main problem in cryptocurrency, that is why any altcoin cannot be trusted as it may result to scam due its centralized nature.

To avoid scam in cryptocurrency, invest in Bitcoin only because it is one of the coin that is decentralized and trusted.

We know that scam coins are everywhere, mainly advertised on social media, I spent time trying to know the exact way to fish out scam coins but to no avail, despite how inquisitive we could be to generate more funds for ourselves through Cryptocurrency investments and to try new things, we should also be much aware of the scam coins and their possible pernicious damage.

I agree that there are a lot of choices to make regarding cryptocurrency but early dictation of this proposed scam needs to be checked.

Am not much familiar with cryptocurrency, and that's why I need more guidance so that if eventual I see one, I will know how to handle it, this will help me to have a good knowledge on the path to settle for.