For August, I noticed that the word 'scam' showed up in the headline for many stories. [For an explanation of how I choose the stories, see the first post in the series, Bitcoin in the News - June 2015 (December 2015)] The number of days where 'scam' appeared at least once was more than double an average month and beat the previous record, set in March 2017.
Looking closer at the days with 'scam' stories, I discovered that a few of them came from news alerts on the term 'botnet', another topic that I follow regularly. Following is an example of the several stories involving a high tech combination of a cryptocurrency, a botnet, and Twitter.
2018-08-06: Duo Security researchers’ Twitter ‘bot or not’ study unearths crypto botnet (techcrunch.com) • 'A team of researchers at Duo Security has unearthed a sophisticated botnet operating on Twitter -- and being used to spread a cryptocurrency scam. The botnet was discovered during the course of a wider research project to create and publish a methodology for identifying Twitter account automation -- to help support further research into bots and how they operate.' • The report was illustrated by the following graphic. ETH is, of course, Ethereum.
'To celebrate 10,000,000$ worth of ETH transactions
We are giving back to the community with
*** 10,000 ETH giveaway ***
Send 0.5-10 ETH to verify your address, and get 5-100 ETH
back (limit is 100 ETH per address). Fav this tweet when you get yours!'
It's hard to believe that many people would fall for this. It's also hard for cryptocurrency outsiders to believe that so many people would fall for crypto. Greed is a powerful motivator. Following are a few more scams which popped up for August. I'll give enough excerpts to understand how the scams work.
2018-08-13: 22-year-old man loses $24 million worth of bitcoins in apparent scam (mashable.com) • 'In June 2017, Saarimaa was approached by a group who convinced him to send him the bitcoins, the report claims, quoting findings by Thailand's Crime Suppression Division's (CSD), which has been conducting an investigation into the case for six months. Saarimaa believed he was investing in shares of three companies, a casino and a new cryptocurrency called Dragon Coins, but after seeing no returns at all, his business partner Chonnikan Kaeosali filed a complaint to the CSD. As it turned out, the group converted the bitcoins into Thai currency, deposited it into accounts belonging to seven suspects, and spent some of it on plots of land.'
2018-08-23: US Federal Trade Commission Issues Warning on Bitcoin Blackmail Scam ‘Targeting Men’ (cointelegraph.com) • 'The Division of Consumer and Business Education of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) published an article August 21 titled "How to avoid a Bitcoin blackmail scam." The FTC’s letter focuses on consumer protection, in what it calls a "new scam targeting men," warning about blackmailing scams demanding payments in Bitcoin (BTC). The brief letter states: "Here’s how it works. Scammers have been sending letters to men, demanding payments using [B]itcoin in exchange for keeping quiet about alleged affairs. The letter also explains how to use [B]itcoin to make the payment."'
2018-08-26: Indian Authorities Nab High-Profile Bitcoin Scammers (bitcoinist.com) • 'One common thing promised to all the investors was that they would be getting 10 percent returns on their total investments for the period of next 18 months. One of the accused is a motivator who encouraged and inspired the investors to put their money into Bitcoin. Initially, some of the investors also started getting some returns, which gave them false assurance that their money was safe.'
2018-08-27: 'Wolf of Wall Street' warns investors of the next big trap: Bitcoin (cnbc.com) • 'Former penny-stock broker Jordan Belfort spent nearly two years in prison for scamming investors. Bitcoin, he has no doubt, is the next trap that could leave some retail investors penniless. "I was a scammer. I had it down to science, and it's exactly what's happening with bitcoin," he told CNBC in a documentary airing Monday. "The whole thing is so stupid, these kids have gotten themselves so brainwashed."'
Greed, gullibility, and high technology. That's all it takes to fall victim to a scam. There were several other stories that could have been featured in this post. I'll give two, one each from CNBC and Forbes. Both appeared around the time of the low point in the August price.
- 2018-08-08: Over $9 billion wiped off bitcoin's value after SEC postpones key decision on a cryptocurrency ETF (cnbc.com)
- 2018-08-11: One Chart Explains Why You Should Own Bitcoin And Other Cryptocurrencies (forbes.com) • 'not correlated with other assets'
I have other August stories on my short list that contradict both of the above. When all is said and done, we're on our own with our beliefs.
