I am a novice in bitcoin world and now have been reading through this forum and bitcoin related blogs. Seems that almost every website that offers you a possibility to invest, spend, lend etc bitcoins is a scam. Especially now when the price has rocketed, the fraudsters and cybercrimals seem to have launched a full scale attack to get their share. To find real honest opportunities to invest or spend bitcoins need substantial amount of work. So I wonder whether scammers and underground criminals have hijacked bitcoin. Could they even destroy the emerging bitcoin economy?
I notice you used "almost", but you must understand that with Bitcoin, you must do the same as if you were lending, investing, spending... cash.
You wouldn't give cash to a complete stranger promising you unrealistic returns, right?
Actually, people do this all the time with the traditional stock market. If you own any shares in mutual funds, do you personally know what the fund manager is doing with your money? The difference here is that there are a lot of laws so that those who do their research can see what the funds are investing in, it generally spells it out in the prospectus: along with the legally required caveat that this is an investment, not FDIC insured, and may lose value. The difference is there are a lot more consumer protections in things like mutual funds, and the good ones are fairly diversified, so the worst you're going to do is lose 30% of the fund's value in a bad year, not 100% of it because someone just plain ran off with your money.
Of course, investing with individual stocks is a lot more risky - good investments can go up a lot higher, and bad ones can lose everything. I lost money to the Inputs hack / theft, and believe me, it feels a lot worse than losing it to a bad year in the stock market. Because here, the money's actually gone, unless we can get it back in a lawsuit, in which case the lawyers will take a large chunk of it. In the stock market example, all you have to wait and assuming the underlying investment is sound, it'll eventually go back up again.
I've learned my lesson, but I see so much of the hacks and thefts, that to me the lesson is that if I end up buying more bitcoins, I'll just stick em in a cold wallet and hope the price goes up again rather than attempt to invest in anything. The investing market just doesn't feel mature enough to be trustworthy yet in the bitcoin world.