As the saying goes, wherever there is capital, there will be an endless stream of scammers. Not only in our traditional industries, but also in the crypto community, there are various myths of getting rich quick. It seems that money here is easily obtained. Recently, a well-known figure in the community was also robbed of 410wu at an offline gathering. So how can we not have a group of talented scammers here? So what are the scams in this community? Today, we will summarize them one by one.
Trojan Horse Software Downloaded in the Name of Cooperation#
This is currently the most common scam that KOLs on Twitter fall for. Scammers will disguise themselves as project parties and contact KOLs in the name of cooperation. Of course, the most common type of scam in this category is KOLs disguised as games. They will ask KOLs to download software for trial play and offer NFTs as rewards. Once this software is downloaded, your computer will be vulnerable and it will detect your wallet mnemonic phrase. If your mnemonic phrase is leaked, are the funds in your wallet still yours? However, there is a common characteristic in this type of scam, which is that the downloaded software is almost exclusively in .exe format. So if you are using a Mac system, you may be able to avoid it temporarily. Of course, scammers may continue to upgrade their tricks, so be cautious of unfamiliar private messages!
Fake Websites, Fake Projects#
This type of scam mostly occurs on Discord, especially in some popular NFT projects. Scammers will target these projects and create fake minting websites, where users are asked to mint. They won't trick you into authorizing your wallet or revealing your mnemonic phrase, but they will charge a small fee, such as 0.1e or 0.2e, for each mint. They can scam as many people as possible, and once they have scammed enough, they will disappear. Some scammers with technical skills directly hack into the Discord of project parties and release fake announcements. For example, projects like Little Ghost have been hacked before.
Account Theft#
This type of scam requires some technical expertise. Scammers steal KOLs' social media accounts and use them to publish false information for fraud. Some scammers even directly purchase KOL accounts for fraud.
Ghost Addresses#
This type of scam has a very low threshold and a low success rate, but as long as they succeed once, it can be rewarding. Scammers first check the wallet balance and transaction frequency on the blockchain, and then use tools to generate a wallet address that is identical to the last few digits of the address you frequently transact with. They will then send a small amount of funds, such as 0.000x, to your wallet. This transaction record will appear in your wallet history. The next time you make a transaction, you will instinctively copy the previous transaction address from the history. It is very likely that you will copy their ghost address, and your funds will be transferred to their wallet.
Ghost Apps#
These types of apps are mainly found in exchanges and wallet apps. As we all know, it may require some magic to download these things while in China, and many newcomers may not be able to distinguish them. Therefore, there are many fake Binance, fake Huobi, and even more fake Metamask and fake imToken apps. The purpose of these fake apps is only one: to trick you into revealing your mnemonic phrase or exchange account password. Recently, there have also been fake Telegram apps that can chat and allow you to log in with your account. They look exactly like the real Telegram, but the only difference is that any receiving address you see will be the hacker's address. Even if your friend asks you to transfer funds to an address, it will become the hacker's address. If you transfer funds, you will be scammed! When downloading any app, please make sure to use the official website! I have created a navigation website in this regard to prevent everyone from making mistakes: Blockchain Navigation
Others#
Of course, scams are updated every day. For example, many apps can read the clipboard, so we should avoid using copy-paste for mnemonic phrases and use offline input methods. In the crypto community, we need to be cautious at all times.