I'm at the point where I just assume that if it is cryptocurrency, I assume the likelihood of being a scam is close to 100%.<p>I followed cryptocurrency just casually out of curiosity for awhile but the association between that and scams and crime and such are just so high I have to wonder if I'm alone or if there really eventually is a perception problem.<p>Obviously you could argue "hey just money has that problem" maybe, but for some reason I don't make that association.
A number of Bitcoin hard forks are scams as well and a few of them are in the top 100 in terms of market cap.<p>The same thing could be said about airdrops.
I'm old enough to have been watching financial markets for about twenty years now, and in my opinion a great percentage of the "cryptocurrency entrepreneurs" running cryptocurrency scams aren't really doing anything novel.<p>They just have new shiny tech bullshit to baffle people with. Twenty years ago they would be running pump-and-dump penny stock scams with Canadian small-cap mining stocks.
My hunch is that the only people buying into these obvious scams is other scammers. They look at it and think "hey, I bet a bunch of people will fall for this. I'll buy some first.".<p>But maybe I'm too naive =/.
Hard Forks that end up spawning their own coins, (ie: continue to be mined under old consensus rules) are 100% scams. None of these are legit: Ethereum Classic, BCash, Bcash SV, MoneroV, Litecoin Cash. Never trust these -- at worst you can lose your money due to tx replays, fraud, pump-n-dump, etc.
Being scammed is just one of many sacrifices one must make in the name of freedom, or, something.<p>Now if you'll excuse me, I need to check my Dogecoin Wallet...
s/number of hard forks turn out to be scams/Scam/<p>I've been saying that since their decision how to handle the DAO. The devs have a special vip() function that effectively allows a hard fork if the devs lose money. And that vip() is located on the updater on each ethereum miner's machine.
A lot of people are saying that crypto is a scam because there are malicious actors in the industry. This claim is as far fetched as saying emails are a scam because Nigerian Princes want to wire you millions of dollars or that the Internet is a scam because some websites contain viruses.<p>Don't let these small bumps distract from the greater picture and all the amazing work the developers at Ethereum, Bitcoin etc are doing.