7 Tips to Avoid Cryptocurrency and NFT Scams

How’s it going, friends? Thank you for joining me this week. My name is Laura Adams. I’m a personal finance expert. Who’s been hosting the money girl podcast. It’s 2008 and I’m also the author of several books, including my most recent title, which was an Amazon number one new release called money smart solopreneur, a personal finance system for freelancers entrepreneurs, and side hustlers. It’s available as a paperback ebook or audiobook everywhere books are sold. I’m thrilled that you’re spending some time with me today. The mission here is pretty simple. It’s to help you get the knowledge and motivation to prioritize your finances, build wealth and have more security and less stress. Every show is designed to make sure you come away with practical tips and advice to make better money decisions and hopefully take your financial life to the next level. If you are enjoying the show, I would love for you to subscribe, submit a rating, maybe a five star rating and consider sending me your money, questions or comments.

It’s easy to do. Just leave a voicemail at 3 0 2 3 6 4 0 3 0 8. Or you can email me using my [email protected]. That’s my personal website where you can learn a lot more about me, my work books and money courses. And if you’re new to the show, you may not realize that every podcast has a companion blog post that we call the show notes. They’re always published in the money girl [email protected]. Today’s episode is number 718 called seven tips to avoid cryptocurrency and NFT scams. This show was inspired by some of your excellent questions. The first one came in from Pash. You who says your crypto podcast was fascinating. And the interest rates from block five and Gemini for stable coins blew my mind. You mentioned they don’t have F D I C insurance. So to get such high rates, what are the risks? Great question. We’re gonna get to that.

And Susan H says, I love your podcast and listen to you on my morning, walks with my dogs. I’m a 51 year old married female, and have worked as a paralegal for 24 years. My husband is the same age and we’ve been married for 21 years with no children. Just two very spoiled Labrador retrievers. I love lab Susan. She says we have $500,000 in 401ks and owe about 120,000 on our home worth, about 350,000. We have a car loan and a few credit cards that equal about $20,000 of debt that I’m trying to get rid of. I listen to your podcast about cryptocurrency and want to get in the game as they say. So in 10 or 20 years, when everyone is invested, I haven’t missed the boat. My question is where do I start? I feel so stupid and overwhelmed trying to figure things out.

Thank you so much for your questions. Um, they’re both probably referring to a recent podcast, which was number 710 called six ways to invest in cryptocurrency, including tax friendly options. So today’s podcast, we’ll answer those questions. And I’m also gonna cover who should own cryptocurrency and NFTs and very important how to avoid getting scammed. So let’s start out by just talking about cryptocurrency and what it is. There are actually thousands of cryptocurrencies and circulation, but the most well known is Bitcoin. While every crypto coin is different. They’re basically a digital currency that you can use for payments or hold as an investment. Hoping the value goes up. You keep crypto in a digital wallet, which can be on your computer, an online exchange, or even an external hard drive, which is known as cold storage. The main downside of owning crypto is that it’s not insured or backed by the government.

So if you lose it or you store it with a company that goes out of business or gets hacked, you probably won’t get your money back. Plus the value of crypto can fluctuate wildly. Even by the hour. The only exceptions are stable coins backed by a reserve asset, such as the us dollar or gold. In other words, stable coins, peg their value to some external asset, giving them more stability. So we’ll cover more about this and how to become an investor and avoid crypto scams coming up. But I wanna talk about NFTs, um, because it’s really goes hand in hand with cryptocurrency. So cryptocurrency is fungible, which means it’s interchangeable. Each Bitcoin is the same as every other Bitcoin. So if I exchange one Bitcoin with a friend, neither of us loses anything because they’re both worth the same thing, but some digital assets are not interchangeable such as non fungible tokens or NFTs they’re unique.

It could be a digital image or a video file. While you might be able to physically copy an NFT file, that could be like a JPEG or a video file owning. It means there’s a record of your purchase in the blockchain, which is the underlying technology of cryptocurrency and NFTs. And there are different blockchains like Bitcoin has its own blockchain and Ethereum and Solana. However, most NFTs have been created as tokens on the Ethereum network, including one of the most well known collections called crypto punks. A top marketplace for buying and selling NFTs is open sea. You can find all kinds of NFTs on that site. It’s pretty interesting to, to browse through and coming up, we’re gonna discuss how people can fall prey to NFT scams. So let’s get into what every investor should know about ways that criminals can steal from you in crypto and NFT scams.

We’re gonna cover seven that you should avoid. The first is fishing emails and that’s spelled with a pH. You’ve probably seen this word before and fishing scams have been happening for decades. It occurs when a fraudster convinces you to divulge private data or to click on a malicious link in an email. For instance, someone makes you believe they’re from a crypto exchange that you use and, and asks you for your password or that you should click on a link. And then it installs harmful software on your computer. And attacker could use that software to take all your coins or digital assets. So instead of clicking on links and emails, it’s a good idea to hover your cursor over the link, just to see what the actual URL is. If you wanna visit the site, you can type the address directly into your web browser. Instead of clicking on the link, never click on any hyperlinks in an email or open attachments, unless you are 100% certain what they are and who they’re from a scammer who gets control of your computer or phone via a website or mobile app can really hurt you.

Scammers are known to create fishing websites, which are replicas of sites that are designed to steal data or install malware leaving you susceptible to a cyber attack. So if a URL looks suspicious or the spelling is just slightly different, from an honest companies, don’t visit that site. Another scam to avoid is any communication. It could be an email text, or social media post asking for money or help moving money. That is a common fraud where a criminal says that you’re gonna get a portion of the funds in exchange for your help. But all they do is take your money. Instead, even if it comes from someone, you know, their email or social media account could have gotten hacked. So don’t believe an email that looks suspicious or funny, even if it is from someone, you know, also watch out for any email, asking you to reset your password or click through, to handle some administrative issue on your financial account, check the communication by forwarding it to the company or logging into your online account.

When in doubt, if there’s a legitimate issue, you should see it there in your online account. All right, the second way that scammers try to steal from you is using ransomware. Ransomware is a type of malware that blocks access to files or to a device. Unless you pay a ransom, a criminal may say, they’ve hacked your computer and have all your confidential information, or even used your webcam to record you doing something embarrassing. They may threaten to send it to your email contacts and to all your social media contacts, or even destroy your data, unless you pay them in Bitcoin or another cryptocurrency. Again, that’s why it’s so important to never click on a hyperlink, never download a file or install software that may not be legitimate. If you become the target of ransomware, do not send the money and immediately report it to the federal trade commission.

All right, the third scam to avoid are fake exchanges. As crypto has become more popular and valuable, more bad actors are trying to steal it from you by setting up fake exchanges, which are just digital marketplaces to buy and trade crypto. You can’t buy Bitcoin or other cryptocurrency directly from a traditional brokerage or bank. You must create an account on a crypto platform first to exchange your us dollars or another currency into digital currency. So beware of email or social media posts that say you can buy crypto under market value. And when visiting an exchange, make sure the URL starts with the letters HT TPSs and not HTTP without the S that means the site is not secure and you should definitely stay away from it. If you fund a fake crypto exchange to buy crypto, a scammer can just run off with all your money and in the notes for the show.

Again, they’re in the money girl [email protected]. I’m gonna include a list of reputable exchanges where you may want to open up an account to get started. All right, the fourth scam to avoid are free giveaways. Sometimes scammers try to take advantage of you by offering something for free, such as Bitcoin or an NFT in exchange for personal information, like your email, phone number or mailing address. They may use that information to try to hack your financial accounts in the NFT world. Creators can randomly airdrop tokens to crypto wallets. They may be legitimate, but they could also be sent by a cyber criminal and include malicious coding. They could try to lure you to a fake website to sell the tokens where you discover they aren’t real. So if you do receive an unexpected token or NFT to your crypto wallet, ignore it because it’s likely useless and potentially dangerous.

The fifth scam to avoid are impersonators. Many old school scams rely on someone trying to impersonate a company, the famous person or authority such as your bank or the IRS crypto scammers. Try to do the same thing by calling you to say you owe money for debt or taxes when you really don’t. They say you can clear up the fake problem by buying and sending crypto to their wallet within a short period. Remember that no legitimate company or government official would call you about owing money. It would always come in the mail. So never give any caller your personal or financial information. When in doubt, ask for the caller’s contact information and call the company or institution to ask if they contacted you. Likewise, if a social media influencer contacts you through social media and ask for your crypto wallet, password known as a seed phrase or any personal information or money, ignore it.

Unfortunately it’s easy for scammers to create fake social accounts and impersonate people to try and trick you. All right. The six scam to avoid are known as pump and dumps a pump and dump happens when someone or a group purchases, a large number of investments, it could be stock or crypto in order to drive demand. So the price will go up known as getting pumped. Then those in the know, sell or dump the asset for a quick profit causing the price to dive. So everyone left with that asset loses out, always do your own research about investments and never buy something based on a tip from someone. If you see the same people buying and selling an asset, it could indicate a pump and dump. And if you think you’ve already bought an investment that is getting pumped, sell it and get out quickly. And the seventh scam to avoid are known as rug polls.

A rug poll happens when a criminal creates crypto or an NFT manipulates its perceived value and then steals money from investors in a well known rug poll with the squid token. Once it’s value reached a peak of $2,850, the developers pulled the rug from investors, preventing them from selling the coins value plummeted to nearly zero, leaving it worthless for owners while the squid creators stole millions of dollars. Fraudsters used various tech tactics and hidden triggers to launch rug polls. But the idea is that they hype an asset such as on social media. They get people to buy it and then leave them with a worthless investment. A notorious NFT rug poll happened in October, 2021 when a collection of 10,000 evolved apes went on the market and sold out within 10 minutes. A week later, the developer known as evil ape rug pulled 798,000 Ethereum worth about 2.7 million from the project that money was supposed to pay various expenses such as marketing, developing a promised video game and reimbursing the artist.

The lesson is that if a project seems cooked up quickly, the developers are not well known or the website just doesn’t look legitimate. It’s likely a scam before buying an NFT, check the transaction data to see who minted it on the blockchain. And when that’s an easy way to spot a replica, no one wants to buy a fake, especially when NFTs are supposed to be irreplaceable and unique. Digital assets, crypto and NFTs are relatively new and complex assets that have skyrocketed in value. Unfortunately, that’s exactly why scammers can fool uneducated and unsuspecting investors. The best way to protect yourself from cyber thieves is to do plenty of research before buying a coin or NFT and only use reputable exchanges and marketplaces. If anyone approaches you on social media promises, a guaranteed risk free return wants your confidential information or asked to give you something valuable for free question, their motivation while I believe there are great investment opportunities in crypto and NFTs.

If something seems too good to be true, it probably is. Even if you follow the advice that I’ve given you here in the show, there’s still no guarantee that you can’t lose money in legitimate crypto and NFT investments. So I wanna get back to the questions that we covered at the top of the show from money girl podcast, listeners, Pash and Susan Pash wanted to know about the risks of getting high yields on stable coins. And Susan asked about how to start investing in crypto as a newbie. First, I wanna emphasize that crypto and NFTs are alternative investments that don’t fit into conventional categories, such as stocks and bonds. That means average investors should own a relatively small percentage of them. For example, if you have half a million dollars in total investments, including real estate, you might limit your crypto exposure to no more than three to 5%.

That would be about 15 to $25,000 in crypto. However, if you are a conservative investor or you don’t max out a workplace or a self-employed retirement plan, crypto may not be right for you before making any taxable investments. I encourage you to always max out your tax advantaged options first, such as a 401k or an IRA. And if you wanna learn more about buying crypto in an IRA or a retirement account for the self-employed check out that podcast that I mentioned earlier, six ways to invest in cryptocurrency, including tax friendly options. Most crypto exchanges offer stable coins such as us coin, which trades under the symbol, us DC, it’s pegged to the us dollar. Right now you can earn up to 10% on us [email protected] exchanges pay high yields on stable coins because they offer liquidity in the crypto market, allowing them to earn money by making crypto loans.

That’s similar to how traditional banks make money. The bottom line is there’s an imbalance of supply and demand with more people wanting to borrow stable coins than the total supply of stable coin deposits. That means that borrowers pay high interest rates and they get passed along to depositors. Plus crypto companies share a much larger amount of the spread or profit with depositors than traditional lenders share with their customers. Stablecoin have been compared to traditional money market accounts, which also strive to match the us dollar. However, it’s not an apples to apples comparison because crypto accounts are not F D I C insured. So the high crypto yields factor in potential risk in a relatively young market with little regulation. However, I will say that block five just announced that it reached a resolution with regulators, that it will register their interest account as a security offering.

That’s really significant because it means there’s more maturity in the industry and a lot more transparency for crypto earning accounts. The regulatory clarity is likely to attract more retail and institutional investors, especially if we continue to see higher inflation rates while reputable exchanges have not caused stablecoin investors to lose money, it’s always possible. And as the market matures will likely see stablecoin yields drop significantly. So Susan, my advice for you is that if you are interested in buying crypto, but maybe the volatility of coins like Bitcoin and Ethereum is something you’re not comfortable with purchasing a high yield stable coin could be a great place to start again. You wanna limit your total exposure to crypto or any alternative asset to a percentage that makes sense for your financial goals and risk tolerance. And if you’re ready to buy the first step to investing in crypto is opening an account at a reputable exchange.

And then you transfer funds from your bank account to the exchange. It may take a day or two for your account to get funded, but then you can buy any digital asset listed on that exchange. Many exchanges offer terrific education about their coins and OFTs and blockchain topics. Coinbase has a learn and earn function where you complete a short amount of schooling about certain coins, and then you can get paid small amounts of the currency as a reward. So it’s an excellent platform for beginners to explore and see if owning crypto is right for you. Precaution Susan, thank you so much for your questions. And I hope this show about scams helps you avoid losing any money when it comes to crypto and NFTs. And before I let you go, I wanna invite you to join my free private Facebook group called dominate your dollars.

It’s a fantastic group of people who are asking good questions, helping others in the group and reaching ambitious financial goals. You can also visit Laura D adams.com to find my contact page and more about me, my books and online classes. That’s all for now. I’ll talk to you next week until then here’s to living a richer life. Money girl is a quick and dirty tips podcast. It’s audio engineered by Steve Ricky bird with editing by Adam Cecil. Our advertising operation specialist is Morgan Christensen. Our assistant manager is Emily Miller and our marketing and publicity assistant is Davina Tomlin.