NFTs and Scammers
Edited using pixellab
Who would have ever thought that artists would ever get the opportunity to market their works for silly amounts of money any where in the world. No one ever saw it coming but the birth of NFTs meant the birth of recognition for artists. NFTs surely are unique and it wasn't surprising when in 2021 NFTs sales where totalled at a neck breaking $17 billion, that is 21000% increase from the previous year.
That's crazy growth and one that is well deserved. I'm a lover of art and I know how much of work it takes to make very good art. It'll be beautiful when you know that your art is valued and also found worthy to be sold at a very good amount. This changes everything, as artists can now easily showcase their arts for the world to see even from the comfort of their homes.
But it is also sad to note that as the NFT market grows, fraudsters are also working hard to ensure they get a share of the cake and it's really sad because they're making things hard for everyone. NFTs are now the home of some of the worst of the worst criminals looking to swindle people of their hard earned money and NFT creators of their digital assets.
It's sad to see that things can't always work out without some set of people trying to ruin everything, NFTs are considered to be the future but it hasn't even gotten where it's supposed to be yet they're a lot of scammers messing things up. Most of these NFT fraudsters try to gain access to your account and drain it empty. Some of the most common NFT scams are
Phishing Scams
This scams are really on the rampant nowadays. Hackers make use of phishing links to get access to your account and to do that they send fake links either through your email or social media account like facebook, twitter and discord. The moment you click on the link they get access and when they do, you know the story, they empty your account.
It wasn't surprising when in February 2022 scammers made away with a whooping $1.7 million dollars in a phishing attack targeted at OpenSea. That's why it's pretty advisable to avoid clicking on strange links and any kind of link you're not sure of, it surely would save you.
Rug-pull scams
If you're aware of the Frostiest NFT Rug-pull you'll have an idea what I'm talking about. A Rug-pull is another common NFT scam widely used nowadays. It's start with hyping a projects, the developers do everything possible to ensure that the project gets good hype, mostly they get this hype through social media. They pay influencers to say good stuff about their project in a bid to get eyes on the project.
They try to gain trust and fanfare to a very high degree. The moment investors start coming in thinking the project is a good one, the developers shut down the entire project and make away with all the funds. This has been happening for a while now and it's sad.
Pump and Dump scam
Here, fraudsters try to ensure the price of an NFT goes up by misguiding and misrepresentation. They spread wrong information about the NFT just to make the price go up. Most of the time it's possible through the help of social media platforms, influencers and celebrities. They pump money into the NFT that's hard for anyone to resist and then when the price eventually goes up they dump the NFT and leave without any trace leaving investors with worthless assets that they'll regret owning later.
Bidding scams
This happens when you put up your NFT for sale. Fraudsters would end up bidding the highest and when it's time to pay they switch the coin in a way you'll not be aware and at the end of the day you'd be selling your NFT a lot lesser than your supposed to. For example you put your NFT up for sale for 3 ETH and you get a bidder, when payment is being made he switches things and you realized you're paid 3 dodge instead. This is one of the worst type of scam ever and it's quite painful.
Plagerized NFTs
Plagerism is one of the worst things ever and they're one of the most rampant crimes committed in the NFT space. NFTs are supposed to be really unique, which means that they're supposed to be original, they can be only one type of one NFT and even if they're other productions of that same NFT it can never be the same.
So what scammers do is that they try to replicate that exact NFT and sell it off in the market for a lot of money. That's stealing at it's highest and it's sad that they are a lot happening right now.
The NFT space is no longer what it used to be with scammers crawling everywhere, so the least you can do is to be quite watchful and very careful if you're to escape being scammed. It's always advisable to do your own research about any project before being involved and that means going as far carrying out research on the developers, if there's any trace or link to any fake NFT projects in the past then be sure to run.
Then ensure your account is secure with very long comfortable passwords and also use a two authentication on your account and try not to share your seed phrases with anybody. You need to also avoid clicking on strange links and you can use a virtual private network (VPN) when possible. Then you should also own a cold storage wallet to keep your assets offline. With all this in mind, it'll be by God's grace to avoid any scammer encounter.
Thank you for reading this, if you enjoyed it or it connected to you in a way, I invite you to drop a comment, I'll be glad to reply and Upvote for more content ❤️
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