Crypto scams: New tools for very old tricks

Crypto did not invent the scam. It made it faster, more distant, and harder to catch.

First trap: the fake token. Creating a token on a blockchain takes about ten minutes, with nothing checked.

A catchy name, a logo, a website, a few accounts talking about it everywhere. There is nothing behind it.

No company, no product, no income. Only the hope that someone will buy it for more tomorrow.

Second trap: the rug pull. As the name says: the rug is pulled from under your feet.

For a token to trade, its creators deposit a reserve: their tokens, against a real currency.

You buy. Others buy. The price climbs. The reserve fills up with your money.

One morning, the founders pull the whole reserve out at once. The price falls almost to zero, within minutes.

Your tokens still exist. But nobody can buy them from you any more.

In the app, this chapter is animated and narrated, card by card. Start free trial.

Third trap: the fake platform. It looks like a real one, with charts and a balance that rises.

For the example, you pay in one thousand euros. A few weeks later, the screen shows five thousand euros.

You ask for a withdrawal. And then you are asked for fees, a tax, a security deposit.

You pay. Then you have to pay again. The withdrawal never works. The balance never existed.

A number on a screen is not money. Money is what you can withdraw.

Fourth trap: the fake referral scheme. You are told about a community. You earn by bringing others in.

Each member recruits three. At the tenth level, you need fifty-nine thousand and forty-nine newcomers.

At the twentieth, nearly three and a half billion. At the twenty-first, more than ten billion: more than the whole Earth.

So a pyramid always stops. And when it stops, the last ones in, the most numerous, lose everything.

The twist: in these four traps, the technology works perfectly.

Transactions are real, recorded, impossible to cancel. That is precisely what protects the fraudster.

No bank to block the transfer, no counter to complain to. Often, no country responsible.

Before buying, one question: who will buy this token from me, and why? With no clear answer, stay out.