Cryptocurrency and Scammers
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In the last few years, the popularity of cryptocurrency has exploded. While its quick growth is wonderful for those who invest in it, it has also resulted in a significant increase in frauds. Crypto frauds on social media have expanded almost as quickly as cryptocurrency itself.
Scammers prefer crypto because transactions aren’t always protected by the law and aren’t always reversed. All of the excitement surrounding cryptocurrencies can make people more vulnerable to scams, especially if they’re new to bitcoin. For these con artists, social media is the ideal hunting ground.
Scammers are exploiting cryptocurrency to entice victims on social media. Here’s why you should be cautious before investing and how to protect yourself.
According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), social media scams will account for 25% of all fraud losses in 2021. Many of these involve cryptocurrency, either by requesting cryptocurrency payments or by promising a bogus cryptocurrency investment opportunity.
These scams are most commonly perpetrated on Facebook and Instagram. The most common Instagram Bitcoin scam is online shopping fraud, in which an account sells something for cryptocurrency but never delivers the product. Some of these bogus advertisements, which account for 45 percent of all social media scams, even impersonate legitimate retailers.
Scammers frequently impersonate celebrities, even hacking into their personal accounts. They’ll then post about an investment opportunity or a giveaway that appears to be from a reliable source. Users will give away their crypto or send their crypto wallets to these accounts, only to receive nothing in return.
Fake initial coin offerings (ICOs) or NFT projects, which solicit investors when there is no actual project, are another common social media crypto scam. Other scammers pose as potential romantic partners or family members. According to Fortune, Chainalysis experts discovered that crypto scammers will make over $14 billion in 2021, owing to the growing popularity of decentralized finance (DeFi).
Can we identify a crypto scam?
Yes, we can check the scammer account first if a seemingly legitimate source promises something that sounds too good to be…
