Hello Steemians, crypto investors and traders,
With so many coins being released everyday into the crypto-space it can be quite difficult to separate the legit and long term solid investment coins from the fly by the night pump and dump scam coins. Of course, a huge aspect of investing into cryptos in general is speculation. Some coins have proven themselves as holding real value while others fade into the night. I felt it was time to start an open discussion and debate about what coins we think are most likely waste of time, pump and dumps, scams, or even worse. I'm not claiming to have all the answers about every coin as many are speculation. I will share my own personal experiences, honest opinion, and information from my own research and others who have come across information regarding some of the biggest scam crypto coins. More Scam and potential Scam Coins will be added to the list below as they're exposed. I feel that in doing so we can not only share each other's research and experience, but protect ourselves and also save time and money.
My intention with this post is to raise awareness about current and potential crypto scams.
Sharing this information will also be helpful for the reputation of the legitimate coins on the crypto market and be helpful for everyone just getting into cryptos. If you've experienced any or know of any scam coins please share in the comment section below. I plan on putting together a growing list of all scam coins to avoid as it would make a great addition to future posts.
My motivation to share this in the first place was from a crypto named "1337 the elite crypto currency " that I had recently started investing in about a week ago. At the time I thought it had some potential of real growth and admittedly was suckered into it. After further research, I discovered this coin was created for the sole purpose of being pumped and dumped. I've since learned there's much more to this coin and why it was put onto the market. It wasn't just involved in a pump and dump scheme but also connected with other criminal activities. Before I go into depth about this specific coin I wanted to accumulate more evidence. Until then I advise on staying far away from the 1337 coin and anyone pushing it. Many people that downloaded the 1337 wallet have reported trojan viruses on their computer and I expect more issues will occur in the coming hours and days ahead.
Please be sure to follow me because I will soon be exposing some of the most hardcore scam coins that were only created for sinister and criminal intentions and even hidden trojan viruses in their wallets!
I will now share some steps I learned along with some basic information and similarities that most of these pump and dump and scam coins have in common. The usual red flags for coins used in pump and dump scams to look out for.
Step 1. Research.
You can use https://coinmarketcap.com http://www.badbitcoin.org(1337 is not on it yet, but they should be) and https://bitcointalk.org to check into more information on most coins. Find out as much about the coin as possible by doing even more research into Google. While some scams are very easy to spot some require more research. No real website or very lacking website or information regarding the coin is a red flag. They might even have a website but still no real information regarding the coins use or proof. Although 1337 has a "nice looking" website it has no real proof of validity. In time the scam will reveal itself. Use common sense with this one as scam coins usually try to copy other coins or make bogus claims.
Step 2. Research into the reviews on the coins wallets and reviews.
Negative reviews on the wallets aren't always a bad thing but it all depends on other factors involving the coin itself. Some wallets have even been found to contain viruses on them and much can be learned by researching into the reviews of the wallets before risking all of your coins. Especially when there's no available wallet for the MAC users. The reason is MAC's are far less susceptible to malware and viruses. Just take precaution when downloading any wallet from new or speculative coins. Regarding 1337 and the issue with viruses. Crypto Jack has deleted many peoples comments about wallet issues. I never claimed to ever download the wallet so I am reporting on others experiences and what many of his subscribers reported on his own channel. He felt it was necessary to delete the comments and leave only positive comments. Just reporting on the facts and either way 1337 has many other reasons to be avoided.
Step 3. Research into the random Youtubers that promote the coins.
Often times new or questionable coins have YouTubers making videos of themselves purchasing large quantities in attempt to persuade their followers, noobs, and others into buying in without a valid reason. If you get a bad vibe from it don't risk it. These classic pump videos are designed for only the pumper to make the profits and are obvious signs of manipulation and huge red flags. Sometimes even multiple YouTubers will be involved and people that have gotten caught up in the hype. Understand that buying in with the attempt to ride the pump is very risky and not advised for new investors as I've seen many people lose extensive amounts of money trying this. Proceed at your own risk in these situations. The Youtuber that was promoting and pumping up the 1337 coin has been blocking and deleting comments from people trying to expose 1337 and share how their computer got trojans from the 1337 wallet today. I did not attempt to download the 1337 wallet myself so I am just sharing reports from many people at this point so be advised.
Post by demogirl06 exposing CryptoJack https://steemit.com/cryptocurrency/@demogirl06/attention-crypto-community-help-me-expose-this-jerk
Step 4. Be on the lookout for Huge sell walls in exchanges.
For instance, Let's say you were interested in buying a coin and its very inexpensive at 1 satoshi. Before purchasing it make sure there aren't huge sell walls already setup. This happens when coins are placed on certain exchanges like Yobit and the wallets aren't working. There's so many complaints regarding yobit it would take me a day just to type them in this post. People will buy the coins only to be stuck with them unable to transfer them out of the exchange or even sell at the same price they paid. An example of a coin like this is the "ALLSAFE" coin which has a track record of being a scam. Go take a look at yobit and see for yourself. If you were to purchase any you would not be able to transfer the coin out of the exchange or sell it. Basically your money is stuck. I also highly advise never using yobit for this reason but for research purposes it might be interesting to take a look since its a good example of this type of scam.
Step 5. Stay Vigilant and Connect the Dots. Make sure you stay alert and research before buying any coin. Going down the rabbit hole of information and researching into some of these scam coins will sometimes make you uncover a trail of scams and corruption you weren't expecting. If you do please document it and share it with me on this post in the future so we can all be aware.
List of coins to avoid. Please feel free to share information on others that you feel should be added to this list.
- 1337
- ASAFE
- Bunnycoin
- AMMO AWARDS(Most likely a scam)
- STABLECOIN - Same Scammers that created 1337
I wish you all the best success in your crypto journeys.
Please follow, upvote, and resteem if you found this post helpful and would like to see my upcoming post where I share and expose the specific coins that I've found solid evidence of being total scams and actually created by criminals.
Quite helpful. Checking bitcointalk is a really good way.
Definitely. I also noticed some posts about 1337 were deleted so sometimes it may still require extra digging or simply not taking the risk on these mysterious coins.
My sympathies for being involved with the scam coin. Very helpful post, I never thought about the risk of wallets carrying viruses!
I typically don't invest in any coins past the top 10-15cryptos on coin gecko due to my risk tolerance. Another thing to look out for is the 24 hour trading volume, or liquidity. If it's not higher than a million usd I would avoid.
-O.T.
http://www.badbitcoin.org/ is a site you can check for your coin. Not that 1338 or bunnycoin are on it yet, but they should be. The sheer NUMBER of coins listed on this site will give you perspective on how pervasive this problem is.
Awesome. I wasn't aware of this website. I'm gonna add it to the post now. Thank you @demogirl06 !
#4) AMMO AWARDS.
It's one of the guys who pumped up 1337 scam coin.There's a guy on youtube right now "educating" about this coin.
Now, I'm not expert, but this is literally the ONLY thing I could find on AMMO REWARDS: http://boards.4chan.org/biz/thread/2437704/ammo-awards
So steemians.... a bad coin, or no?
Looks suspicious as hell to me. Same guy that was pumping 1337 and deleting and blocking people trying to expose 1337 so no surprise.
loool here I am never go full retard
The sentence you just typed disproves your statement. Look how many people wanna buy "1337" LOL! Lets just admit it that you failed on this one and really shoulda listened to me.
In addition to the list above, I would say avoid any coins under a million dollars in capital.
Thank you. I will be adding more to the list from everyone suggestions.
Agreed!
so sorry you got scammed and i appreciate your humility in sharing the story - i upvoted and hope it helps
Thank you! I'm actually grateful about the whole situation. Sometimes its best to turn a negative into a positive and just continue to evolve. Luckily I made profit and got out before the coin was dumped on many people. I know many people who were forced to sell for huge losses because of this scam or even worse have their computers get viruses and lose coins. I will share updates as they come.
I've always wondered about some of these coins and their wallets they offer! Guess i've got my answer. Sorry you had to find out the hard way!
It was an eye opener for sure. Luckily I personally didn't get their wallet. I'm not saying all the wallets have them necessarily but its definitely a good idea to be hesitant before trusting just any coin since there's so many being put on the market everyday now. I'm sure there will be many more cases of this happening as its not difficult to get a crypto into the market as people think.
loool Your research is amusing, or should I say lack of it :D Never go full retard.
DESTROYED!
Yeah.. You definitely were bro. Still think it was a genuine coin? Ready to apologize. I'm just glad I was able to save a ton of people from losing their hard earned money instead of blindly shilling this crap coin and instead into legit coins. Even with its recent artificial rise it will dump again. Anyways.. I see you're still doing videos and being more careful now so that's good. Understand that I wish you the best and only was trying to lookout for people about this scam coin.
Yep. The price was absolutely destroyed and you made a fool of yourself promoting this garbage coin. I'm wondering when you plan on deleting your 1337 youtube videos lol. They definitely would go down in history as some of the worst coin picks in crypto history. Even doge coin is a monster compared to this crap. And look nobody wants to even buy it. Great job.
Interesting thread. Good to see I'm not the only one who thinks like this. I'm worried about the amount of scams out there. But on the contrary there's quite some jewel cryptos as well. I found this great website: https://www.coincheckup.com They seem to give this complete indepth analysis of all cryptocoins. Sorted by team, product, company, advisors, previous investors, etc. Go to: https://www.coincheckup.com/coins/Decred#analysis To see the: Decred Research report
Good points in this article. I fully understand what you're talking about. Most of the coins might not even know they are a scam. I'm sure they have good ambitions but they simply don't have the team to conquer those ambitions. Do your research properly. An interesting website I found: https://www.coincheckup.com This site did all the research for you. It's truly amazing. Go to: https://www.coincheckup.com/coins/DigiByte#analysis For a complete DigiByte Investment research report.