Crypto is Trustless… So Who Can You Trust?

For all the promise that crypto and blockchain brings, due in part to its ability to eliminate the need to trust a third party, there is still a HUGE problem that must be addressed before it can truly reach its potential. All the deceivers, scammers, thieves, schemers, liars, fraudsters, charlatans and manipulators in crypto are only hurting the new crypto economy. 😡

Go figure, the technology that eliminates trusted figures seems to have a need for… trusted figures.

As speculators, traders, or investors of cryptoassets we anxiously await the coming “herd” – the huge wave of money 💰 that is expected to enter the markets once cryptoassets hit the mainstream 🚀, and mom and pop are investing their tax refunds in OmiseGo. But that herd won’t be coming anytime soon if they think that their bag of OMG is going to get lost in some greasy con game.

We’ve all seen 👀...

✅ The scammers on Twitter that claim they will happily return 5 or 10 ETH to you in exchange for your donation of 0.5 ETH. "Good deal, where do I send my…ohh, wait…nevermind."

✅ How Ian Balina got hacked for $2M (or did he? Diary of a fake, man).

✅ How about the way Roger Ver and his buddies are shamelessly using the bitcoin.com website to intentionally confuse Bitcoin Cash with Bitcoin. Yes, Roger was certainly important to Bitcoin in the early days but… fuck you, dude.

✅ How about the guy that is said to have “accidentally” posted in public the private key to a MEW address with $5k of an ERC20 token in it, but with no ETH for gas. What an idiot, right?! Who isn’t going to look in that address, deposit some ETH to pay for gas, and help themselves to that 5k? But when the would-be theives transferred their ETH to the wallet to fund the gas so they could steal the $5k, the ETH they transferred for gas was immediately moved by a smart contract to a different address entirely, never to be seen again. Its so bad even the scammers are getting scammed.

✅ Earlier today we saw accusations of a big pump-and-dump against the people at B.B. Some of the people named are distancing themselves from these allegations. It seems like a case of an unhappy former associate leaking some private conversations. B.B. has responded. Wash, rinse, repeat.

🚔 Eventually, these scams and cons must end (or at least be severely limited). For as much as we like to see moonshots of 50% in an hour, those are going to go away eventually, because regulation will come, because it has to – because the “herd” will demand safety and protection from the army of scammers. Whether we want to admit it or not, crypto needs some trusted figures. 👥

🛡 But those protections aren't coming tomorrow, it will be a while. So until that point, be sure to use as many security tools as you can to secure your assets. Encrypted email. VPN. 2FA. Password managers. "Don’t store shit in the cloud, Ian." I am thinking about getting an electric engraver 😂 and some stainless steel blanks from Amazon to engrave all my keys and seed phrases, and then store them in a couple of safe locations. No paper, no cloud. No hack. 👍

Other than that, surround yourselves with quality people, teachers, or mentors. Crypto is much like every other asset – there is always someone trying to separate you from your money. But the crypto community is unique in that there are so many people willing to help one another succeed. ❤️

That’s the goal of the CryptoVince Team and our channels – to help one another succeed in reaching whatever personal goals you have. We do this by maintaining our honesty as a team, and by strengthening the trust of our community. So always be vigilant and on the lookout for scammers, pump and dumpers, con artists and shysters. And if you see one…call them out.

Stay safe everyone, and please share our link to your friends and family.