Crypto Scam Year in Review 2021

 Crypto Scams From ADA to Z

By Dominic Alvieri

@AlvieriD

12-31-2021

Cryptocurrency price records were challenged by volume records of crypto scams this year. Broad Wall Street adoption brought out fraudsters from all corners of the world. Coinbase and Robinhood went public this year and zero-day exploits broke records. Elon Musk became the ultimate crypto spokesman.

Crypto exchanges, DeFi platforms and personal accounts were hacked. Verified social media accounts were breached to further expand crypto fraud this year. Several instances of leveraging smart contract exploitation begins with (redacted)

This is a hacked Twitter account below that attempted a Binance giveaway scam. 

January roared in this year with the events at the Capitol Building on January 6th, 2021. Financial and criminal litigators sharpened their pencils and went to work. Besides the slew of criminal prosecutions cryptocurrency regulation framework was hashed. Crypto regulation is coming sooner rather than later. 

Stable coins are under reporting assets and deficits abound. Stable coins require serious attention from regulators in my professional view.

Elon Musk became the spokesman for cryptocurrencies this year even making an appearance on Saturday Night live sparking a selling frenzy. Crypto traders hang on to every tweet and make split second decisions in the middle of the night based on Elon's words.

Scammers took note.

One of the many Musk memes

Endless cryptocurrency frauds

Hurry up and take part in all of the fake giveaways using any name and company to gain your trust and get your digital assets.

MicroStrategy

Cardano

Giveaways, Events and AirDrops are all ways to say good bye to your crypto.

Twitter

Social platforms and anything that could make a buck was used. Twittertoken.[live] is still active. Several variations were attempted this year. BEP20 tokens made it easy for anyone to issue just about anything.

Winklevoss twins

Boss Baby themed crypto scam

Baby Coin Mania

 

UFC-Fantoken. Not a fair fight just fraud.

Account credential phishing skyrocketed

Ponzi-type crypto scams came back

These scams are not new but have come back with a vendetta this year. Send me one coin or token and I'll send you one back is a scam that has been around since Bitcoin began. Social media accounts have been big promoters of this old hoodwink.

Promoters or just outright crypto scammers?

Spider-Man token again timed with new movie launch

Bonus

Crypto miner coming with bootleg torrent download of new Spider-Man movie. 

MetaMask fake support(s)

Year end holiday scam rush

Over 600 crypto scams have been personally reported and I can't list all the crypto scams this year but this gives you an idea into the year of zero-days and crypto scams this 2021 has been. Log4J critical logging exploit exploded on the scene late this year and will no doubt have a lingering impact.

Happy New Year

Crypto scams continue even on New Year's Eve and I'm sure I'll catch at least one on New Year's Day.

Crypto scams are not going away anytime soon.

How do the scammers get away with it?

In many cases they just don't give anything away at all. One new Twitter account allegedly gave away over $81,000 in under one month. Other instances have the scammers just recycle the crypto giving a token amount to a controlled account.

No one is auditing these giveaways. 

A so called "Crypto Professor" with 120,000+ followers even set up a trading firm and site which have been closed. The site alleged an unsustainable 4-6% daily return, ie scam. Coming in January.

Meta New Year

Not from Facebook or Meta.

Do your due diligence 

If it sounds like a duck...

The Cyber Show

by Dominic Alvieri

Twitter @AlvieriD

How to Get 20,000 Followers a Month

 Fame, Fortune, Followers and Fraud

By Dominic Alvieri

@AlvieriD

12/12/21

Go viral. Create the next monopoly. Give away cryptocurrencies. 

Are cryptocurrencies really being given away or is it all just fantasy? Well, yes and no.

AirDrops are promotions for new cryptocurrency DeFi launches when a certain portion of the float or supply is sent or dropped out to registered users. Many of these new crypto accounts propose offerings in concert with the "random person" giveaway and come with large reference bonuses paid to the promoter while many are outright scams after your crypto.

Drill deeper into this new account and view the activity and (redacted)

The modus operandi is the same throughout the crypto landscape. Thousands in a top name crypto given to a random person.

This account gained over 20,000 followers by allegedly giving away over $80,000 in cryptocurrencies in under one month.

Show me the hash 

This suspect account has allegedly give away over $80,000 in under one month. A twenty something philanthropist. Followers have gravitated. Originally listed from California, this woman is now listed just as from the United States. 

How can an account afford to be so generous? Are they sponsored or just scammers in disguise?

Reverse images searches suggest this woman is not a crypto professional behind this account. (redacted) Tracking these accounts since inception and cross referencing other suspect activity, I feel confident in saying this is not a woman from California.

If you didn't follow this account you could spot a huge tell in the tweets above. Can you spot it?

But wait, there's more...

(redacted)

Back to Stella in a moment...

So how do they do it?

Do they really give away thousands every day?

Short answer is that most just don't. Several requests for transaction hashes for an audited result have gone unanswered.   

The random person giveaway

One lucky winner who usually has to follow and retweet to be eligible for the giveaway. These random person giveaway accounts tend to promote other suspect offerings like Chinese mining or Lithuanian daily return sites.

Something looks eerily similar here. One of many such accounts online.

The geolocation of this account (redacted)

photo/link redacted

Show me the account owner. Sending a winning to a controlled account (redacted)

This blog has been edited for content.

The Cyber Show by Dominic Alvieri