Most Common Bitcoin and Crypto Scams, In this article we are going to cover:
How to Buy Bitcoin ATMs
Best locations to place Bitcoin ATMs
Scams Target Newbies
Emerging markets are full of information asymmetries that make it easy for unscrupulous scammers to take advantage of those new to the space.
Crypto scams are no different.
They often target those who are still learning the technical ins-and-outs of the ecosystem and don’t know what they don’t know.
That’s why so many people who enter the space buy a few coins and get them stolen. They get burned, and then leave with a bitter taste in their mouth.
However, with a little bit of education, we can greatly reduce the number of people being preyed upon by scammers. With a little education, we can teach you to identify these scams before you fall for them.
If you are reading this because you have already been scammed, then we may be able to help you out with that as well!
1. Seed Phrase Phishing
Your seed phrase is the key to the safe that contains all your crypto-assets. As such, it’s worth protecting. Someone who gets their hands on your seed phrase has access to every coin within your wallet.
Your seed phrase is even more important than your bank password, as there’s no one with the power or authority to reverse the transactions that are draining your wallet.
Seed phrases are unique to cryptocurrency, and so many new users don’t treat them with the importance they deserve.
But there’s need to learn that lesson by falling for one of the many seed phrase phishing scams out there.
And this is easier than you might think.
Scammers routinely create malicious Google ads that appear at the top of searches like “ledger wallet” or “MyEtherWallet”.
These advertisements link you to phishing websites or browser extensions that are designed to look exactly like popular wallets such as Metamask.
The only time you really need to use your seed phrase is when migrating an existing wallet to a new device: from a paper wallet to a new hardware wallet, for example.
So before entering your seed phrase into any online form or app, think it over once, twice, twenty times.
There really are very few situations where your seed phrase is required.
