Note that cryptocurrency fraudsters are just gaining momentum in their activities. The day before, we told you about the so-called piggybacking scheme, which involves deceiving victims after a long dialogue with them. The main task of such a scheme is to enter into trust and then “accidentally” plant the idea of some favourable investment or convenient platform.

Sometimes it takes several weeks to realise this scheme. However, as statistics shows, the “earnings” of scammers in such cases are quite large, which means that the efforts are worth it.

Alas, the scale of activity of scammers has led to the fact that they do not hesitate to advertise their schemes in social networks.

Advertisement of cryptocurrency fraud in the social network Twitter

For example, here the scammers are touting the alleged launch of the official Platform X token, which was “created by Ilon Musk amid the recent rise of cryptocurrencies.”

Obviously, an inexperienced blockchain user might believe such an advert and send money to scammers.

How not to give money to scammers?

In an interview with Cointelegraph, Pshelozny briefly described the nature of the problem. Here is a relevant rejoinder on the subject.

If we see an 80-year-old man withdrawing large amounts of funds in cryptocurrency, he’s going to get a call.

According to the exchange, “cryptocurrency-related people over the age of 65” have a good chance of falling victim to scammers. Pshelozny admitted that the likelihood of being scammed by this category of people is higher because they are not as familiar with the Internet and technology in general.

Adrian Przelozny, head of Independent Reserve

The exchange chief added that Independent Reserve has a dedicated compliance department that “calls people all day long” if they notice suspicious activity. This is done to warn potential fraud victims of the danger.

Usually, the history of accounts that have been affected by fraudsters is quite similar. For example, experts of the trading platform note many small withdrawals and top-ups on such an account. Next, the potential victim is asked a series of questions – his answers can be used to understand the severity of the problem and prevent further losses.


It should be noted that sometimes victims of fraud are unable to communicate promptly with representatives of exchanges and minimise the risks of various incidents. For example, in March this year, a cryptocurrency trader under the pseudonym DoomXBT complained about the slowness of Binance support. According to him, the scammers initially emptied his account for $70,000, after which he was unable to get adequate help. Read more about the story in a separate article.


Cryptocurrency scammer

Unfortunately, the algorithm of actions does not always work. It happens that victims are so encouraged by the words of the attackers that they don’t even realise that it’s a scam. Here’s a rejoinder on the subject.

People may start to get defensive before they realise they are being scammed. They may think they have a really good opportunity to make money. It can be hard to convince them that they are being scammed.

More often than not, scammers play on offers to make money. For example, one of the classic crypto scams is the promise to double the amount of coins sent in honour of an event. And it is allegedly offered to transfer digital assets to confirm the address, but in fact this money remains at the disposal of the scammer.

However, if the compliance team receives enough evidence that their customer is being scammed, they won’t wait for their agreement to start taking active steps. Individual exchange accounts can be blocked even without the user’s knowledge for the safety of their own funds.

The statistics of losses in cryptocurrency just last month show that the relevant authorities still have a lot of work to do. Still, in August, hackers stole $313.86 million worth of digital assets in more than a dozen cyberattacks.

Cryptocurrency hacker loss statistics

According to the PeckShield platform, phishing attacks alone accounted for 93.5 percent of the volume of all $293.4 million in stolen cryptocurrencies. Of the top five hacks in August, two phishing attacks caused losses of $238 million in BTC and $55.4 million in Dai.


The bottom line is that Independent Reserve's stance comes down to proactive communication with customers that is able to protect them from the potential loss of funds in the event of a hack. This is not a bad approach to protect users' digital assets. However, it can also lead to unnecessary and erroneous blocking of assets that will take time to retrieve.

And this is once again a reminder that people do not essentially own their own crypto on custodial platforms, as even to withdraw coins they need to get permission one way or another. Therefore, for full ownership of coins, non-custodial solutions like hardware wallets should be used. They make crypto inaccessible to intermediaries, including various authorities.