Commentary: FOMO and Greed — A Tempting Recipe for Crypto Scammers!

Caveat Emptor

It's basically Latin for "Buyer Beware."

One of the things my dad taught me when I was a kid was that if something seems too good to be true, there's a 99% chance that it is. I think most of us are familiar with that idea. And yet, we often ignore it... because "what if THIS time..."

Within context, if someone had offered my dad (long deceased) Bitcoin at a few dollars ten years ago and told him that one day it would be worth more than $20,000 per coin, chances are he would have laughed them out of the room.

My dad did pretty well with his investments, often earning a 20-30% annual ROI. That's considered damn good outside circles in which we talk about tripling our money in three weeks on a moonshot.

However, the world is full of somewhat sketchy people trying to sell us (almost) free lunches of one kind or another. Their intended targets are typically the financially needy and somewhat gullible whose lives would be radically changed if they suddenly came into even a $1,000 windfall.

The reason I decided to pen a few words here on this topic is that the cryptosphere seems particularly heavily populated by people hoping to somehow score a "free lunch" in some way... and consequently, the cryptosphere is also filled with those who who try to profit from people's greed, desperation and gullibility.

Their "credibility" is often supported by rare genuine examples like UNI from UniSwap, where some people genuinely did get $2,500 worth of "free money." However, the UNI's of the world are about as rare as the Unicorns they chose for their logo!

Anyway, the other day I came across a "project" labeling itself not only as an "OTC Exchange" for Facebook's Libra project, but also as some kind of "Basic Income" project based around Libra.

Now, let's all keep in mind that Facebook's Libra cryptocurrency doesn't even exist yet, and remains in the conceptual stages while also being locked down in legal wranglings.

But that doesn't stop "someone" (or "someoneS") from trying to profit from something that doesn't exist.

Now, we might ponder whether this is truly "an evil scam."

How different is it really from the numerous crypto/blockchain projects out there based on little more than "Let's create a White Paper and use the words 'cryptocurrency' and 'blockchain' 40 times each, issue a token and make lots of money!"

Again, "Caveat Emptor" applies... even if your educated decision is to be part of a project knowing it's doomed, but you figure you can profit from the initial wave and bail and pocket the cash before everyone else does. NOT investment advice I'd give anyone but the most seasoned of experts.

Regardless, the crypto industry seems to be filled with scammers, perhaps because there are so many "consumers" who are looking for "the next big score" rather than authentic "business opportunities."

All I can urge is "Do your homework!" And be careful that you're not falling for some silver-tongued sales pitch for something that doesn't even exist!

Thanks for reading, and I hope your weekend was a good one!

How about YOU? Have you fallen for any crypto scams or "shady" offers? How did you make out? Comments, feedback and other interaction is invited and welcomed! Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!

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Created at 20201220 23:35 PDT
0148/1375

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