Billions of dollars in cryptocurrencies have already been taken.
Not everything is about the money. It was last year that Mashable looked into the biggest scam of the year. Big bucks were being funneled via various scam and schemes. Sometimes the audacity and unique nature of some of the scam and hacks are worth talking about.
So, without any further ado, here are some of the biggest and boldest frauds, swindles, and rackets that have taken place in the past year.
The government of Ukraine pulled its donors because of this scam. It needs to be included because it is a great scam.
The Ukrainian government quickly decided to accept donations in the form of cryptocurrencies to take advantage of the big pockets in the space who are always looking to pump their coins and get good press.
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A decent number of donations came in at first, but after Ukraine announced an airdrop to those who donated via the ethereum network, the number of donations began to pour in. An airdrop is when someone gives away something in the form of a token or coins. They were rewarding donors for donating.
The bad-faith actors entered the picture. The people sent a lot of donations toUkraine to take advantage of the airdrop. In less than two days, around 60,000 transactions were made on the ethereum platform. The Ukrainian officials said that people started to send small amounts of money to register in time for the airdrop. These individuals were looking to profit off of a country in wartime by receiving a reward that was more valuable than what they donated.
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The airdrop was canceled just days after it was announced. Some people who were looking for profits cried. This is called a rug pull. A rug pull is when a developer abandons a project after promising to raise money.
This is not a normal situation. When they realized people were taking advantage of the situation, they pulled the plug on the fund raising. The donations went to a charity. That is the reason it is at the top of the list.
If $615 million was taken from you, would you notice? Sky Mavis is the company behind the most popular game in the field ofCryptocurrencies.
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In March, hackers discovered an exploit on the RoninBlockchain, which is the sidechain that AxieInfinity runs on. The exploit was caused by a change in Sky Mavis' security protocols that was supposed to be temporary. The situation wasn't reverted and the hackers were able to exploit it.
How did Sky Mavis find out they were missing so much money? The user was unable to withdraw their funds because of the lack of liquid assets.
Users are required to purchase expensive NFTs before they can play the game. They can make real money from playing the game by acquiring NFTs. Due to the high cost of entry, users who can't afford the NFTs are often wrapped up in exploitative "scholarships" that require them to split the profits with other users who lend out these high costs.
Users in the Philippines can earn the equivalent of an average salary in their country with play-to-earn games. The users discovered that their earnings were not accessible due to the hack.
The company raised $125 million to reimburse its users. The $625 million they lost was much larger. They are unlikely to get that money back. A group based in North Korea is believed to have carried out the hack.
Is an investment that promises a 10,000,000 x price increase too good to be true to you? The zero key didn't get stuck. The Day of Defeat token promised that. There were a lot of people buying in.
Web3 Is Going Great is a website created by Molly White that tracks all of the scam artists in the space. She pointed me to Day of Defeat when I reached out to her to find out what was going on with thecryptocurrencies. She said it was one of the biggest red flags she had seen. She has seen many things.
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The developers of Day of Defeat said the project was designed to give holders 10,000,000X price increase. There is a "Mystery Plan" that will be rolled out in June of next year that will increase the price of the token by one million dollars. On the Day of the Defeat website, they answered a question regarding their access to the pool of funds and promised not to redeem. There is a promise.
Guess what? They seem to have broken that promise. The value of the token plummeted after the project rug was pulled out. It's likely that the people who made off with the money didn't see the crazy returns that were promised. Their investment would need to be less than 14 cents if they had done so.
Everyone likes a rags to riches story. The individual in question, who traded in his rags for wealth by scamming, was not looked into by the BBC.
In February of this year, the British Broadcasting Corporation ran a story about a local investor. According to the piece, Hassan was able to turn £50 into millions of dollars by putting it intocryptocurrencies. There was more to that. The article talked about how he wanted to help people in the community.
There were a lot of people on the internet who claimed to have been cheated.
Orfano was launched in April 2021. 3 percent of the funds would be put into charity projects. This tactic is used to make investors feel good about their investment. Everyone's investments were taken by Orfano after months. Users couldn't withdraw their money.
New investors in the OrfanoX token were once again relaunched as OrfanoX by the same man. His "good fortunes" were going to be trumpeted by the British Broadcasting Corporation.
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The story was recommended to me by David Gerard, the author of the book "Attack of the 50 FootBlockchain". There was a 30-minute documentary on Hanad Hassan called We Are England: Birmingham's Self-MadeCrypto-Millionaire, which was produced by the British Broadcasting Corporation. It was pulled hours before it was to air.
He pulled the wool over the eyes of the British Broadcasting Corporation just this year. He tricked them into thinking he was telling the truth. There is a scam inside of a scam. It's a scam.
Apes were stolen from the actor. The creator of the robot chicken had his entire collection taken away after Green fell for a scam. The Bored Ape Yacht Club is one of the NFT projects that Green lost.
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Green lost more than just the resale value of his NFTs. The actor is working on a comedy series called White Horse Tavern, which features NFT characters. Fred Simian is the star of the series.
If you own a license to the intellectual property for your apes, you can do anything you want with it. That was Green's problem. He didn't have the rights to Fred Simian anymore because the person who stole his ape sold it to a collector.
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Fortunately for Green, he was able to get his pet back at a cost of $297,000. That is correct. He paid six figures for his Bored Ape twice.
If you're familiar with the non-fungible token space, you'll know that NFTs are stolen a lot. Yuga Labs' social platforms were compromised just this month, and Bored Ape holders lost more than they gained.
Green's case should be focused on. I can't think of another NFT scam that shows the flaws of the industry. The celebrity didn't know what to do after their NFTs were stolen in a scam. They had to buy their property back from the other side. If this happens to you, what will you do about it?
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