While there is a lot of incredible innovation taking place in the crypto space, it’s no secret that there are also an incredible amount of scams running rampant at the same time. Belgium has been particularly proactive when it comes to identifying scams in the crypto space, and when they do, they blacklist the domain names.
Not surprisingly, the list is growing with 14 new domains getting added to the list this week. The funny thing is, without even looking at the sites these domains already smell scammy to me.
Among the 14 domains recently added to the organization’s domain list include ajassetmanagment.com, cabinet-finsbury.com, capital-coventry.com, capital-secure.com, cashlesspaygroup.com and cobber-finance.com. (Source – Blockonomi)
So what is it that these scam crypto sites do? They try to trick users into thinking they are running safe and legitimate projects and get users excited about the idea of making a huge return with little risk. In general, if anyone ever tells you that you’ll be able to make a lot of money without doing a lot of work or taking a lot of risk, run away.
I’m actually pretty shocked that given how horribly crypto has performed this year that there are still people out there who are actively falling for these scams. At the same time, it’s clear that people are since these scams continue to pop up and when they’re discovered, they just switch domains and continue to perpetuate the scam.
Oh and these scams didn’t just start once crypto got hot back in late 2017, they’ve been going on for a long time. CoinSutra did a good article about crypto scams back in 2015, back when Bitcoin was around $500. The most common type of crypto scam back in 2015 also is likely the most common now:
The most common way to pull off a scam is to fabricate a fake ICO, create marketing hype and persuade people to buy.
That is because ICOs are a great and innovative way to kickstart a company and that is the aspect that is misused. (Read: What Are ICOs ( Initial Coin Offering) & Why Are They Good For You?)
Ethereum has become the breeding ground for these fraudulent ICOs but Ethereum is not directly responsible for it as it is an open-source project.
Instead, it is the ignorance of newbie investors who dream of 100x gains in a matter of weeks by just HODLing worthless ICO tokens. (Source – CoinSutra)
While I applaud Belgium for blacklisting domains, the challenge is, these scammers just get new domains and boom, back to scamming. Is there a real long-term solution to stopping these scammers for good, only time will tell, but for now, they seem to be content hopping from domain to domain.
