tech

Scams and cryptocurrency can go hand in hand – here's how they work

6 Comments
By Yaniv Hanoch and Stacey Wood

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Surely selling something with no intrinsic value and no real use, just the dream that some greater fool will pay more for it in the future, is also a scam?

Sorry, but I have little sympathy for anyone losing money through crypto scams or "investments".

4 ( +6 / -2 )

Currently there are hundreds of millions of cryptocurrency owners, 

"hundreds of millions" Really?

2 ( +3 / -1 )

Luckily, older people who are more vulnerable to scams are less likely to use the net, so it is less likely that they will be victims.

The internet wasn't invented yesterday and most users are now quite savvy as to the threats found upon it. Kids are growing up using it and learning about the risks from the moment they start. Although traditional media run scare stories about the net everyday, particularly about any new development, people are learning to be as careful online as they are offline.

Crypto scams usually involve quite large sums of cash, which rules most people out of becoming victims.

It is actually possible to recover crypto. Police forces and crypto exchanges regularly do this. It's just tougher for individuals. A reporting and recovery system and the marking of crypto as stolen should be possible courtesy of blockchain. Crypto isn't as anonymous as everyone thinks. As the article says, people have been nicking cash for thousands of years. It is now, in the digital age, harder to get away with that. It could be harder still with additional fraud protection built into the system.

The best solution to a scam is simply to warn people about it. Not to have governments 'take back control' of every aspect of people's online experience, so they can surveil everything they do. We don't want to be like China or Russia, with other countries, like India moving quite quickly in that direction.

We don't believe all we read in newspapers. We don't believe what politicians promise. And the internet has been here long enough for people to not take anything they see at face value on it, especially if it involves money.

Keep your wits about you and engage in thorough due diligence when money is involved.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

"Scams and cryptocurrency go hand in hand "

FIFY

0 ( +0 / -0 )

"hundreds of millions" Really?

Apparently so; 300 million by this estimate:

https://triple-a.io/crypto-ownership/

81 million unique Bitcoin wallets:

https://explodingtopics.com/blog/blockchain-stats

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Surely selling something with no intrinsic value and no real use, just the dream that some greater fool will pay more for it in the future, is also a scam?

The Greater Fool Theory at work.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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