I have been in the crypto space for like slightly over 6 months and one thing I realize is that there are tons of scams out there. And they are targeting crypto users and investors. If you have been in the crypto sphere for some time, I am pretty sure you would agree with me. And they are getting very sophisticated. Enough to even trick seasoned investors into parting with their hard earned money. I recently joined a telegram for a project that I am interested in and within a day or two of joining, I got 3 to 4 users asking me whether I need help. I had highlighted one of such scams in this blog post which you should read. In most cases, such telegram groups’ administrators or moderators will NEVER message you first. And they will NEVER ask you whether you require assistance. You will need to initiate that request. And most probably they will answer or direct you to another channel for assistance in the telegram group. So if you find someone asking you whether you need assistance or somethin in Telegram, you should be careful. And beware of the group you are joining. Always go to their official website and click on the official link to join their Telegram groups. Anyone can create Telegram groups and some of them are scammers trying to trick you into believing that they are the official group when they are not (fake Telegram groups). That goes the same for other social media platforms like Whatsapp, Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. I normally just stick with one channel.
I cannot highlight how important it is for everyone NEVER to give out information regarding your login or even your wallet private keys. Such information can result in your data and funds being stolen. In most cases, the official staff of any organization will never ask you for such information. Why would your trading exchange want to know about your login password? If you have issues logging in, you should be contacting their official support team first. And no matter what, passwords should not be shared with their team as well. Of course in some cases they might need to verify your personal information to ensure that you are who you are claiming to be. Most importantly is that you should be the one initialing the request for support. Not the other way round.
And please never give out your wallet’s private keys. It is called private for a reason. If you give someone your private key, it is akin to giving the keys to your public locker at the gym. The person with the key can access your locker just like it is you. And if your wallet is non custodial, you can kiss the cryptocurrencies inside good bye. Even if your wallet is custodial, you will probably not be able to recover the funds too. So please be very careful with who you share your private keys with. But of course you will need to keep the keys somewhere safe, where you can retrieve if necessary. If you lost those keys, it is nearly impossible to gain access back to your wallet.
I also need to mention about social media promotions. If you are the kind who loves “airdrops” or “rewards”, you should be careful when signing up for such events. Yes I agree that there are a lot of legitimate projects that leverages on social media to promote their platforms. But with that said, there are also a lot of fake projects and scams that abuses social media to cheat or trick investors. It can be very difficult to differentiate between a real project and a fake one nowadays. There are scammers making use of professional looking websites and even very well-made Youtube videos to trick viewers. So I normally stick to a few well-known website crypto sites like CoinMarketCap to check out new offerings. Of course not everything being promoted by such sites are all genuine. So you should always do your own research. And I would NEVER spend money on such projects either. Yes we are all hoping to get that 1000x altcoin at bargain prices but honestly I don’t see that being a possibility nowadays. The trick here is don’t be too greedy. If the project is really growing and do have the numbers to back it up, sure go for it. But if a project is like just starting up with nothing to show for, I don’t think you should take the risk. Well that is my opinion anyway. There are just so many scammers on the Internet that I immediately consider any new project a scam.
So please take care and don’t let your guard down when people start throwing around exaggerated words like “just like Bitcoin”, “Don’t miss out” and “1000x”. Fool’s dream if you ask me.
