I started learning about cryptocurrency three months ago and I have come across many airdrops spread by scammers who disappear after many persons have signed up on their platform. Are there ways one can identify the scammers in the crypto space?
2 Answers
There are so many airdrops, scams and fake projects, because it is an easy way to make money quickly.
Over the past years I've identified the following heuristics:
- If it sounds too good to be true, it definitely is
- If it's not clear how a service/project is making money, you're not a customer, but a victim
- Whenever someone requests actions from you out of the blue, it's a phishing attack or scam
- Nobody gives money away for free, there's either a catch, it's a scam, or you're the product
- Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, anything unproven is just marketing
- Altcoin software is malware trying to steal your bitcoins until proven otherwise
- Everyone is a scammer until proven otherwise
- The "next Bitcoin" is Bitcoin
There are scammers because there are people susceptible to being scammed. There is no way to be 100% certain that something is not a scam. Just be smart, and don't enter your private key or passphrase on random websites.
