patrick.net

Pump and Dump' Scam
"Pump and dump" scams aren't unique to cryptocurrency, but without the regulation enjoyed by stocks traded on major U.S. exchanges, for instance, the Wild West of finance suffers with a good degree of fraud, including the pump-and-dump scam.

Such scams, which are also primed to occur in the stock market in penny stocks, are characterized by a small group of insiders who own a given asset – in this case, a digital currency. These thinly traded assets are then hyped up through publicity, whether it be through social media, word of mouth or other forms of promotion.

When the unknowing investing public rabidly buys up the cryptocurrency, which is often newly issued with little trading history, the insiders begin to sell, or dump, the shares at high prices, sparking a steep sell-off and profiting at the expense of the duped masses.

In one case from June 2021, some members of FaZe Clan, one of the world's most popular esports organizations, were involved in promoting a new cryptocurrency called Save the Kids, with a portion of proceeds promised to charity. It took mere days for the coin to plunge, and the members of FaZe involved with the launch were all either suspended or removed from the group, which distanced itself from their activity.

The team member who was dismissed tweeted that he had "no ill intent" in promoting the cryptocurrency, but some investors accused the group of taking part in a pump-and-dump.

Rug Pull' Scam
"One particular scam to avoid is 'rug pulls,'" says Vincent D'Agostino, head of cyber forensics and incident response at BlueVoyant. Rug pulls happen "when a cryptocurrency's promoters pump their new coin to get prices up before disappearing with the funds. Investors are left with a valueless token," D'Agostino says. "This especially happens with coins with zero fundamentals and no real future."

One key difference between a pump-and-dump scam and a rug-pull scam is that the latter often doesn't even allow the non-insider owners to sell, with the token coded in such a way as to allow only insiders to exit. There are several other ways insiders execute these scams, which are specific to cryptocurrency.

The rug-pull scam got a lot of attention in late 2021, when a newly debuted cryptocurrency known as Squid Game – named after the suddenly popular Netflix Inc. (ticker: NFLX) series about a game in which all contestants are killed except one, who emerges with riches – lived up to its name and disallowed selling.

SQUID, the ticker for the coin, began selling at one cent, then rocketed above $90, before immediately plunging back toward zero when the scammers "rugged" the masses.

D'Agostino says

. "This especially happens with coins with zero fundamentals and no real future."

The commonality in all of these scams is the inability for the speculators to recover any money when things go south and the necessity for a bigger fool to pay you in order to make any money.

Next: Airdrop Crypto Scam

Airdrop Crypto Scam
Another scam, prominent in the decentralized finance, or DeFi, field, is related to something in crypto called an airdrop.

"More recently popular, nefarious actors have grabbed ahold of the popular trend of airdropping tokens, which is typically done to start and grow a grassroots community," says Alan Eschweiler, chief revenue officer at Stacked, a simplified crypto investing platform.

An airdrop literally drops tokens in your digital wallet as a reward for taking certain actions with a given platform or software.

The scam works like this: "An entity will airdrop you a token that appears to have value, and when you go to exchange that airdrop for another more well-known token, you give a protocol more permissions than you realize," Eschweiler explains. This "allows the hacker to access all of the assets in your wallet," he says.

The simplest way to avoid this scam? "Never give an unknown user permission to your decentralized wallets," Eschweiler says, "without understanding the abilities you are granting this person."

Onvacation says

The simplest way to avoid this scam?

Stay away from crypto!

Bitcoin is a great investment!

If you don't mind the massive environmental impact and you think you can find a greater fool to pay you more than you paid for it.

Bitcoin is not a commodity. It is not digital gold. It has no intrinsic value and little utility. It is like a pyramid scam in that you have to find a greater fool to cash out. Unlike a pyramid scheme all incoming money is consumed by the "miners". It's a scam.

Next: The crypto phishing scam.

BTC at 34k, close to half of its all time high.

Buying opportunity?

Nope! Not yet....

Cash says

Nope! Not yet....

Now? Or should we wait for it to go under 30K per coin? 20K per coin? How low can it go?

I still believe it can go back up to 100K, but I don't gamble.

There is no law that says crypto can't go negative value. Other assets, financial and otherwise, have done so in the recent past.

With as manipulated as crypto is, that remains a valid concern.

The exchanges are legally able to sell out a person's crypto holdings if the account falls under certain thresh holds. Therefore, if the crypto goes negative the exchange can sell out the holder at the negative price and claim they did it for fear the currency would go down even further.

Onvacation says

Now? Or should we wait for it to go under 30K per coin? 20K per coin? How low can it go?

Im not a BTC guy so am not looking to buy any nor am I a ETH guy but will give my 2cents when I think some test buying might be considered. BTC could go all the way back down to 14k+/- or not, the price I mentioned to buy before the big 400% run up when I did own a few BTC and sold near the top of that run, I did disclose when I went flat BTC as well ;).

Until the USD hits some sort of critical mass which it has not, most all things likely including oil will stay sideways and perhaps go lower. I have crypto I am looking for 1st buys or adding to my stacks but BTC isn't included although I may have to buy some ETH to purchase some of the other coins I am after. BTW my next tgt of interest in USD is DXY 105.500 so just to be clear as long as USD raging higher I'm not looking to buy much of anything.

l also stated some of my "expectations" in this posting > a month ago.
https://patrick.net/post/1344030?120#comment-1831934

My friend married a guy who makes good money in a hospital. He's not an MD but evidently is highly paid.

My friend doesn't wear jewelry so no engagement ring, but he brought her a couple of 2 karat diamond earrings.
Just recently he got her a Rolex. She doesn't wear watches and had it on upside down.

He likes Bitcoin and wants the new wife to buy it too.
Her mother is scared. I told her to make sure her daughter doesn't do what the guy tells her to with her money.
He owns a BMW to commute and a bought a new Jeep Gladiator for the weekends.
He also has 8 motorcycles in his home town, one is with him in Florida.
Let's see what happens next.

Onvacation says

In my opinion, it’s a colossal pump-and-dump scheme, the likes of which the world has never seen. In a pump-and-dump game, promoters “pump” up the price of a security creating a speculative frenzy, then “dump” some of their holdings at artificially high prices. And some cryptocurrencies are pure frauds. Ernst & Young estimates that 10 percent of the money raised for initial coin offerings has been stolen.

The losers are ill-informed buyers caught up in the spiral of greed. The result is a massive transfer of wealth from ordinary families to internet promoters. And “massive” is a massive understatement — 1,500 different cryptocurrencies now register over $300 billion of “value.”

https://www.vox.com/2018/4/24/17275202/bitcoin-scam-cryptocurrency-mining-pump-dump-fraud-ico-value?source=patrick.net

Lol

Of course it is a Ponzi scheme.

Bitcoin like all other crypt currencies are completely unregulated by any third party whatsoever independent from them.

What that does is invite and incentivize financial criminal activity.

not just theft but also money laundering and tax evasion.

The best way to loot is not to own a bank but to own a crypto currency printing operation.

Robber Baron Elite Scum says

not just theft but also money laundering

By far more money is laundered in dollars. It's not even close. Not even in the same galaxy and after prior moronic (or more likely calculated) comments our own government admits it nowadays.

I believe more pain is coming to "all" the markets that have been dumping compliments of USD strength
BTC 25650+/- is the mean/golden ratio price off the high so all the drama is for not. The thing I love about this crash in all markets,
is leverage is getting stomped to dust, I am still way in crypto profit and look forward to piling up more giant gains with my gambles
when BUY time strikes.

The percentage of Bitcoin addresses in-profit has dropped to a 2-year low of 60.4%, looks like not so many bought at 69k
The top 100 Bitcoin wallets have added 77,618 BTC ($2,420,000,000) in the past 24 hours."Buy when blood is in the streets
even if it's your own." I haven't started buying yet due to that pesky USD Strength but look forward to stacking up some great
tokens.

DooDahMan says

Shortly afterward, the company indicated the situation might be resolving: “We’re seeing recovery after implementing a fix, but our teams are continuing to monitor the situation.”

Lol... totally embarrassing for any crypto boi. My friend coded the JP Morgan investment site. This is bad for anyone in crypto. If you cannot trade and get USD out of it, it literally is worthless. In an overall market crash, crypto will go to shit. We'll see if it stays there. At some point enough people will have been burned enough and move on after the illogical roller coaster ride.

Maybe start a business and do something productive for society? That would be my tip instead of pissing money away on a gamble.

DooDahMan says

What a novel idea - other countries seem to be doing that very thing but we are days late and dollars short to the party again.

There are innovators in America still. Not a fan boi of Musk, but we have an individual company putting more shit in space than any other country combined.

I do get the feeling we're nearing peak prosperity over the next 2 decades though. The decline might be tough, but we're in the best position to come out ahead. Too many resources. We have to bring manufacturing back sooner than later. We could easily be autonomous from the rest of the globe besides needing good relations with Mexico and Canada. Which would happen anyway.

Onvacation says

BTC at 34k, close to half of its all time high.

Buying opportunity?

yeah....go all in....I'll cheer for you

Wow! Who'd have thought Bitcoin would go down to mid 20k?

Buying opportunity yet?

komputodo says

Onvacation says

BTC at 34k, close to half of its all time high.

Buying opportunity?

yeah....go all in....I'll cheer for you

I'll buy a hundred coins when the price goes below one dollar.

I once worked for a company on its way to bankruptcy. A colleague purchased a thousand shares for less than $20. He lost it ALL!

Onvacation says

Wow! Who'd have thought Bitcoin would go down to mid 20k?

Buying opportunity yet?

BACK UP THE TRUCK!!!

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YOLO bitcoin; transfer all of your investments to Fidelity.

Anyone want to be a Bitcoin miner? You can do it from home!

But seriously, is the scam over? Does the crash in prices come at the realization that there is no there there?

Are there enough fools to pour more money into the massive energy suck that crypto is to bring the prices back up? I'm not betting against it. But I'm not betting on it either.

Bitcoin is just a gamble that someone will pay you more than you paid for it.

BTC

Onvacation says

Anyone want to be a Bitcoin miner? You can do it from home!

Yeah...all you need is a video card and you can get rich.

Onvacation says

Bitcoin is just a gamble that someone will pay you more than you paid for it.

Just like NFT art

Just wait till the global warming talk starts and it cancels bitcoin because shit requires too much energy to keep going.

DooDahMan says

was trading at around $0.09 on Friday.

That's all crypto is. Pinkies. A penny stock at least has a chance, though it's usually pump and dump for a con artist business owner to take your money.

Onvacation says

BTC at 34k, close to half of its all time high.

Buying opportunity?

Be cautious with it.

The problem with bitcoin is that the transaction time and fee is ENORMOUS. I like the general idea, but it's not workable as it is now. I think it's just a Ponzi scheme, but I'm stupid, maybe I'm wrong. I know the Federal Reserve is a Ponzi scheme, but I can trade a dollar for a gumball, try that with a bitcoin. Try to buy a pizza with bitcoin. It's too volatile to be a currency, however, you can make money off from volatility. I don't have the stomach for it though and I regard it as a scam and so I consider it unethical to make money that way.

But what do I know?

Cryptocurrency exchange FTX's founder has said that bitcoin has no future as a payments network and criticized the digital currency for its inefficiency and high environmental costs, the Financial Times reported on Monday.

Eric Holder says

bitcoin has no future as a payments network and criticized the digital currency for its inefficiency and high environmental costs,

That's what I've been sayin'.

Bitcoin has little practical use.

where are the 2 bitcoin cheerleaders that were formerly posting daily?

Crypto is a house of cards economy. It's all like investing or speculating in tulips back in the 1700s in Holland.

That is why I would only spend no more than a $1000 a hop from one new crypto to another new crypto in hopes I could make money during the early speculation phase of a new crypto currency.

At least silver and gold have some intrinsic value and utility, and can be used as a hedge against fiat currency.

.

Musical chairs. Has the music stopped?

HODL!!!!

Big Daddy to the Moon any moment now!

HOW BITCOIN PIZZA DAY RESEMBLES FESTIVUS

Bitcoin Pizza Day. The fabulous event that takes place once each year on May 22. I won't bore you with all the details. Laszlo Hanyecz paid 10,000 BTC for two Papa John’s pizzas in what’s widely believed to be the first transaction of bitcoin for a physical good.
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/industry-events/how-bitcoin-pizza-day-resembles-festivus