2019’s Bitcoin Price Boom is Reawakening Hellish Crypto Scammers

Story by:  CCN Markets

Bitcoin price has tripled and scammers want to ride the wave

In a series of tweets, Antonopoulos indicated that the prolonged crypto winter had driven scammers away. But now with the bitcoin price having nearly tripled from its 2018 low, bad actors are back with a bang.

Antonopoulos likened the current wave of scams as reminiscent of the period between August and December 2017. This was when the bitcoin price from below $3,000 to a record high of nearly $20,000.

Bitcoin price

Per Antonopoulos, the new wave of scams has been running for about a month now.

The cryptocurrency evangelist also disclosed he was receiving between 10 and 15 requests daily to conduct ‘influencer marketing’ to ride the rising bitcoin price wave. Antonopoulos, who has turned down the requests, says the pay ranges between $25,000 and $250,000. This is for the purposes of either endorsing, reviewing or promoting a project on social media.

Antonopoulos hits out at ICOs

In what could amount to a blow to the ICO sector, Antonopoulos claimed that a whopping 99.99 percent of initial coin offerings/initial exchange offerings were pump-and-dump schemes:

Please educate your friends and family:

– Promises of profit are 100% ponzi

– Request to “recruit”, “affiliate” etc are 100% pyramid schemes

– ICO/IEO are 99.99% pump-and-dump

Antonopoulos attributed the growing scams to a new wave of FOMO – Fear of Missing Out. This has been attributed to the prevailing bullish conditions which have ignited interest in newbies who are hoping to ride the wave.

Growing list of scams targeting uptrending bitcoin price chasers

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Indeed as the bitcoin price went up there has been an increasing spate of scams being reported. A significant number of them have been Ponzi schemes which have been promising guaranteed profits to investors. Some of the crypto Ponzi schemes which have been reported just this month have fabricated celebrity endorsements with X-Men star Hugh Jackman and five-time Ballon d’Or winner Cristiano Ronaldo being some of the celebrities being used this way.

In these scams where fake endorsements from the two celebrities have been used, investors have been promised unrealistically high returns. The two scams have also designed their websites to look like well-known mainstream media websites.

Using news-like articles, the scammers have been claiming that the celebrities have chanced upon a ‘wealth loophole’ which can be replicated by regular folk as well to become millionaires by investing while bitcoin price rises. The scammers also create a sense of urgency telling would-be investors that there are limited opportunities available.

The scams have not been restricted to the West though. Just last week CCN reported that a scam riding on the bitcoin price boom has been generating over $130,000 daily.

Original story: https://www.ccn.com/bitcoin-scams/2019s-bitcoin-price-boom-hellish-crypto-scammers/2019/06/20/

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