The Bitcoin world has been riddled with multiple scams over the past seven years. Some of these schemes are still in operation today and continue to prey on the uneducated. Thankfully, it is rather easy to distinguish between legitimate offerings and ideas that will steal your money. The following list of known recent scams will be an eye-opener for a lot of people.
#3 CryptoDouble
The CryptoDouble scheme was causing quite a stir among cryptocurrency enthusiasts nearly two years ago. This program advertised itself as a way to double your cryptocurrency balance. Not only did the owners support Bitcoin, but also virtually any popular altcoin in existence at that time.
Anyone can see that a program offering to double deposits for free will eventually run off with funds. Unfortunately, the program managed to steal out over 2,200 Bitcoin worth of cryptocurrency from its users, which were then cashed out through the BTC-E exchange. A valuable lesson was learned, although a lot of innocent people lost money in the process.
#2 HashOcean
Bitcoin cloud mining service providers always carry a high risk of turning into a Ponzi Scheme over time. HashOcean offered such a service, and the company eventually shut down its services some time ago. At that time, the company blamed ongoing DDoS attacks and an impending server migration for leaving users unable to access their funds. As it turns out that was not the case, and the company evaporated into thin air.
Ever since HashOcean disappeared, various new cloud mining services have popped up. To this day, it remains unclear if these are run by the same team as the HashOcean platform. However, it is evident that the Bitcoin community has little faith in cloud mining right now, despite there being a handful of legitimate companies around.
#1 OneCoin
The biggest scam to haunt the cryptocurrency world is called OneCoin. Unlike other schemes, this MLM program promotes their own native currency, which is allegedly issued through a blockchain system. To this very date, no one has seen the technical details of this blockchain, and it is very plausible it doesn’t even exist.
Don’t let the myriad of positive OneCoin posts and comments fool you. A lot of people claim to make money through this program, although hardly anyone has successfully withdrawn funds from their balance. There is a vast difference between seeing digital numbers on a balance sheet go up, and having money in your hands. With Onecoin, that latter option is very unlikely to ever happen.
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