Scams, there are many, most are obvious and i'll point out many of them.
Where do you see scammers on the internet? On all social media websites. Some of the most common sites to see scammers are
Youtube - The most common place to see scams on Youtube is on Crypto videos in the comments section. Often, 50% of the comments on these videos are from bots that are advertising "financial experts that can make you huge profits" and it will be a thread conversation of like 10+ comments with different accounts having a conversation leading to them revealing the "experts" whats app phone number or something along the lines. These are 99.9% scams, and are to be ignored.
Another common scam on youtube comments, is people with the same photo and name as the influencer you are watching telling you to reach out to them on their phone number for services. Your influencer will likely say in the video to ignore the fakes. Scammers almost always leave a phone number and its fake. The way to tell the fakes from the real influencer is that the influencer will have a box and checkmark around their name as shown below; Also the scammer example on the right side is shown below.
Youtube - The most common place to see scams on Youtube is on Crypto videos in the comments section. Often, 50% of the comments on these videos are from bots that are advertising "financial experts that can make you huge profits" and it will be a thread conversation of like 10+ comments with different accounts having a conversation leading to them revealing the "experts" whats app phone number or something along the lines. These are 99.9% scams, and are to be ignored.
Another common scam on youtube comments, is people with the same photo and name as the influencer you are watching telling you to reach out to them on their phone number for services. Your influencer will likely say in the video to ignore the fakes. Scammers almost always leave a phone number and its fake. The way to tell the fakes from the real influencer is that the influencer will have a box and checkmark around their name as shown below; Also the scammer example on the right side is shown below.
Twitter - If you are trading defi, then you will likely use Twitter as a way to stay up to date with your projects progress. It is not uncommon to see a ton of comments and scammers in the comments at times but also people trying to advertise their own projects of interest which are nothing but pump and dumps. Which essentially means they can go up a lot sometimes but often go down in price to virtually nothing in a short period of time ; even in bull markets except a very small few.
Telegram -
Telegram is a popular application people use to keep up to date with their defi projects and is littered with low quality channels and chat room alerts and other low quality groups that are a waste of time or a scam. People will see you are apart of a Crypto channel and then auto-join you to their group, DM or fake copy of a channel you are in and try to scam you. I've been contacted and DM'd by the CEO of a group I was apart of and ready to put a large sum of money into the project when the opportunity striked. Turns out the DM was from a fake copy of the CEO and he tried to lure me into a website that asked for my seedphrase that he claimed was a necessary to step to invest into the project. Fortunately, after messaging a few real members of the group they helped confirm that it was fake, also I was protected by knowing that you should ALWAYS KEEP YOUR SEED PHRASE PRIVATE AND OFFLINE. Only exception I know of is if you re-login to your Metamask account app.
Discord -
Discord is very similar to Twitter in how the community works. There is many private invite only channels, but there will often be members here and there that try to scam you, but not all of them are to be feared. I find Discord has a higher quality percentage of good users than Telegram does as the barrier to entry is a little bit harder. Use the same precautions as Telegram.
Keyloggers- Be careful what you download on the internet
Keyloggers, are viruses that hackers create that once downloaded from a shady website , gives them access to the data you type in your keyboard. This is one of the main reasons I recommend a Ledger. If you haven't bought one, I recommend you order one now with this link as this tool will protect your funds as it is used to give the Blockchain your seedphrase information in a way that doesn't involving typing it into your computer. This makes you able to tell the blockchain it's really you without revealing your "password" (seed phrase).
They also sell metal seed phrase plates on Ledger's website. These can be used to store your seed phrase on a metal plate that are fire and flood proof as the norm is to just write it on a piece of paper which is isn't fire or flood proof. Ever hear of the guy who had millions of dollars of Bitcoin in his wallet but can't remember his seed phrase and has only 1 more attempt to guess it right or else is locked out of his device forever? Protect your seed phrase.
If you trade on a Blockchain, for example Binance Smart Chain (BSC) you will get random air drops of coins that will be worth "hundreds of thousands of dollars" or sometimes millions. But when you go to sell them, you will be charged a HUGE gas fee that goes to the scam artist and the coin doesn't sell. Be wary of airdrops in your wallet and don't try to sell them. Once in a while if you participate in new exchanges or a part of a community that rewards coin/token/NFT holders , you will get free tokens as a reward for being a holder. I have got a few hundred dollars for free by staking HEX.com token. Be sure to confirm the contract code with the community provider and research online to verify you have the real token.
False Smart contracts-
Smart contracts are basically a blockchain transaction that happens usually on many DEFI websites that can be used for good causes like Uniswap's coin swapping feature. When you "approve" a transaction or "swap" you are running a smart contract script that says "Yes, I will do what is in the coded smart contract". For ex: I will swap my 1 ETH for Dogey Dogs NFT and the smart contract does the work. The problem is , hackers can make their own smart contracts if they have the technical know-how and make a smart contract that on the front end (what you see) says Swap 1 ETH for Dogey Dogs NFT, but on the back end (code of smart contract that you aren't looking at ) it says empty the entire wallet balance of ETH to the hackers wallet. This is why you must research the project with the website you advertising. If you are playing with low- cap alt coins (less than 200 million market cap), the chances of the project being low quality and you losing your investment goes up drastically. Sticking to the big dogs, Ethereum and Bitcoin and storing it in cold storage is the safest bet.
How to protect your wealth
1. Store 70-90% of your Crypto in a cold wallet such as a Ledger.
2. Set up Google Authenticator on your centralized exchanges. You will see this in your exchanges 2FA security settings. This will make it so anyone logging into your account will have to verify using YOUR google authenticator app on YOUR cell phone. Do not use text verification, as this can be hacked if someone ever SIM swapped you.
3. Always keep your seed phrase private and offline. Store it on your Ledger and if you invested a lot of money, consider storing a copy your seed phrase in a real bank vault at your local bank that you trust. If you reinstate your Metamask on Metamask.io, they will ask for your seed phrase, in this case you might have to enter your seed phrase. Verify its the real app, and only put a small amount of money on your hot wallet (regular meta mask account) .
4. Bookmark your most used Crypto websites, so you know you are using the official website.
5. Use SimilarWeb Chrome extension to verify that it's the real popular Crypto site by looking at its traffic and other metrics. Low traffic websites won't work with Similar web.
6. Revoke Transactions - If you use the Ethereum network or any DEFI network and interact with websites such decentralized exchanges (DEX) , staking or anything else that asks you to approve transactions, then it is important to revoke the approval afterwards using this website if on Ethereum network. Remember when I said smart contracts can approve the removal of your funds from your wallet? Well, revoking those approvals stops future ability to take funds. While legit websites are rarely a threat after approving, it is still good practice to revoke these approvals, especially on low cap projects. Just go to this website , test it on Similarweb extension and connect your wallet and revoke transactions.
Telegram -
Telegram is a popular application people use to keep up to date with their defi projects and is littered with low quality channels and chat room alerts and other low quality groups that are a waste of time or a scam. People will see you are apart of a Crypto channel and then auto-join you to their group, DM or fake copy of a channel you are in and try to scam you. I've been contacted and DM'd by the CEO of a group I was apart of and ready to put a large sum of money into the project when the opportunity striked. Turns out the DM was from a fake copy of the CEO and he tried to lure me into a website that asked for my seedphrase that he claimed was a necessary to step to invest into the project. Fortunately, after messaging a few real members of the group they helped confirm that it was fake, also I was protected by knowing that you should ALWAYS KEEP YOUR SEED PHRASE PRIVATE AND OFFLINE. Only exception I know of is if you re-login to your Metamask account app.
Discord -
Discord is very similar to Twitter in how the community works. There is many private invite only channels, but there will often be members here and there that try to scam you, but not all of them are to be feared. I find Discord has a higher quality percentage of good users than Telegram does as the barrier to entry is a little bit harder. Use the same precautions as Telegram.
Keyloggers- Be careful what you download on the internet
Keyloggers, are viruses that hackers create that once downloaded from a shady website , gives them access to the data you type in your keyboard. This is one of the main reasons I recommend a Ledger. If you haven't bought one, I recommend you order one now with this link as this tool will protect your funds as it is used to give the Blockchain your seedphrase information in a way that doesn't involving typing it into your computer. This makes you able to tell the blockchain it's really you without revealing your "password" (seed phrase).
They also sell metal seed phrase plates on Ledger's website. These can be used to store your seed phrase on a metal plate that are fire and flood proof as the norm is to just write it on a piece of paper which is isn't fire or flood proof. Ever hear of the guy who had millions of dollars of Bitcoin in his wallet but can't remember his seed phrase and has only 1 more attempt to guess it right or else is locked out of his device forever? Protect your seed phrase.
If you trade on a Blockchain, for example Binance Smart Chain (BSC) you will get random air drops of coins that will be worth "hundreds of thousands of dollars" or sometimes millions. But when you go to sell them, you will be charged a HUGE gas fee that goes to the scam artist and the coin doesn't sell. Be wary of airdrops in your wallet and don't try to sell them. Once in a while if you participate in new exchanges or a part of a community that rewards coin/token/NFT holders , you will get free tokens as a reward for being a holder. I have got a few hundred dollars for free by staking HEX.com token. Be sure to confirm the contract code with the community provider and research online to verify you have the real token.
False Smart contracts-
Smart contracts are basically a blockchain transaction that happens usually on many DEFI websites that can be used for good causes like Uniswap's coin swapping feature. When you "approve" a transaction or "swap" you are running a smart contract script that says "Yes, I will do what is in the coded smart contract". For ex: I will swap my 1 ETH for Dogey Dogs NFT and the smart contract does the work. The problem is , hackers can make their own smart contracts if they have the technical know-how and make a smart contract that on the front end (what you see) says Swap 1 ETH for Dogey Dogs NFT, but on the back end (code of smart contract that you aren't looking at ) it says empty the entire wallet balance of ETH to the hackers wallet. This is why you must research the project with the website you advertising. If you are playing with low- cap alt coins (less than 200 million market cap), the chances of the project being low quality and you losing your investment goes up drastically. Sticking to the big dogs, Ethereum and Bitcoin and storing it in cold storage is the safest bet.
How to protect your wealth
1. Store 70-90% of your Crypto in a cold wallet such as a Ledger.
2. Set up Google Authenticator on your centralized exchanges. You will see this in your exchanges 2FA security settings. This will make it so anyone logging into your account will have to verify using YOUR google authenticator app on YOUR cell phone. Do not use text verification, as this can be hacked if someone ever SIM swapped you.
3. Always keep your seed phrase private and offline. Store it on your Ledger and if you invested a lot of money, consider storing a copy your seed phrase in a real bank vault at your local bank that you trust. If you reinstate your Metamask on Metamask.io, they will ask for your seed phrase, in this case you might have to enter your seed phrase. Verify its the real app, and only put a small amount of money on your hot wallet (regular meta mask account) .
4. Bookmark your most used Crypto websites, so you know you are using the official website.
5. Use SimilarWeb Chrome extension to verify that it's the real popular Crypto site by looking at its traffic and other metrics. Low traffic websites won't work with Similar web.
6. Revoke Transactions - If you use the Ethereum network or any DEFI network and interact with websites such decentralized exchanges (DEX) , staking or anything else that asks you to approve transactions, then it is important to revoke the approval afterwards using this website if on Ethereum network. Remember when I said smart contracts can approve the removal of your funds from your wallet? Well, revoking those approvals stops future ability to take funds. While legit websites are rarely a threat after approving, it is still good practice to revoke these approvals, especially on low cap projects. Just go to this website , test it on Similarweb extension and connect your wallet and revoke transactions.