For those of you who are new to cryptocurrency and new to this account, this post is going to clue you in on how to avoid being a victim of an ICO scam.
For those of you who are experienced in this space, I’m also going to show you a very helpful tool you can use before you invest Ethereum for a new ICO. It’s free and it can save you a lot of money.
It seems like the reputation and popularity of MyEtherWallet is constantly the tool that scammers use to try and trick unsuspecting crypto users into sending them some Ether.
There are a couple reasons for this.
First, the legit MyEtherWallet is indeed open source.
It’s great that this service is open source, but because this code is able to be viewed by anyone who is interested in doing so, it’s also open to be copied by anyone interested in doing so. As we’ve seen for quite some time now, many of those interested in this code are those wanting to use it for fraudulent activity.
Second, many of the ICOs these days are run on Ethereum and are ERC20 tokens.
Because MyEtherWallet is a wallet provider and is an access point for these ERC20 tokens, it’s the perfect tool for scammers to utilize.
There are a couple ways you can find yourself on a fake MyEtherWallet website:
1.) If you are a member of a slack channel for an ERC20 token you might receive a private message that urges you to immediately click the link provided and give them your details, usually they say there has been an emergency hard fork or some situation that required immediate action. Please know that these are fake and if you click the link and follow their directions, you will lose money.
2.) If you use Google search many times the first options are indeed imposter sites that pay to be the top listings.
Avoid this by typing in the URL yourself, and using a bookmark.
If you’re interested in investing in an ICO but you’re not completely sure if the address you’re about to send your Ether investment to is legit, then you need to check out this awesome app.
Here is a website that lists scammy websites and I think everyone should know about, and bookmark it. The URL is etherscamdb.info.
It shows you the category, subcategory, status, and URL of these fraudulent sites so that you can know if you are about to visit or have visited a scam site.
Thanks to the people behind MyEtherWallet, there is a way to track Ethereum addresses with the EtherAddressLookup, or EAL. This is particularly helpful if you want to know if you are about to interact with a blacklisted address.
You can very easily interact with the EAL by downloading the Google Chrome app.
The app also provides links for MyEtherWallet, although I would still recommend that you manually type that URL in, you can also find links to etherscan.io to track transactions and view your wallet.
You can see Ethereum Network Stats for information on how the network is running and the mining activity happening.
There is a link for ethplorer.io- thank you Ethereum for that great name to pronounce, making me sound like Mike Tyson… this is where you can see the activity of the top Ethereum tokens, and see how the coins are distributed among its holders.
And you can also use the last two links to check out the Ethereum and EthTrader Reddit pages.
Additional Reading/Sources:
Check if ETH address is a scam
Chrome extension for EAL
Tips from MEW for avoiding scams
ICO Tracker
Steemit user @rahulbhuyan9 gives great specific details on ICO scams and lists past scams
Blockchain Graveyard- Learn how crypto projects failed thanks to hackers
great information, thanks
Sweet article. Scams annoy me more than anything else online. I feel bad for all the people who get sucked into them. Following you now!
Thanks for the add! I really don't like the fact that for many people, their first experience with crypto is a very bad one. Hopefully this will help.
If the ICO ure interested in is not on this website, there's a high chance (not 100% of course) that there's something fishy in itAlso, you might wanna check out this website: http://icorating.com/
Great! Thanks for the supplement.
"...making me sound like Mike Tyson" XDDDDDDD LMAO
;) haha
Great article nice content thanks for sharing
Every day i learn something new from you @heiditravels !!, i am still learning about myEtherWallet and your informations add to my knowledge..and as always nice panorama!
Thank you for these valuable tips, we are tired of cheating
Highly valuable information
Always remember that legitimate companies and organizations will never ask for passwords, social security numbers, and other sensitive data via email.
Yes good points.
Very good points :-)
I know How To Be a Pro at Spotting and Avoiding Scams and Phishing Attempts:
this blog is more important
@heiditravels thank you for keeping us informed!
Hey man you had really tell us about what what it should be used for your investment and also how we can protect yourself from the various schemes in the name of ICO. I must appreciate your post.
He really great, you had really provide very helping formation for all the investors who are looking for the security and to not get in these scams thank you
Muy interesante gracias por tu publicación.
This scammers are using this opportunity to fleece newbies their coins.
They are so active of late with all kinds of tricks since crypto is booming at the moment and many new people are joining the crypto world.
Thanks for the great tools especially this etherscamdb.info that needs to be bookmarked by everyone as you said.
Take care fellow Steemians
Jarau
This is very useful information for us. Thanks for sharing.
Very informative. Thanks a lot for sharing
Omg.
Thank you for all this information!!. I am totally new to this new world of Crypto.
It's definitely worth it for you to seek out more information like this before you invest in anything.
Thank you for useful information
Useful information!
nice information ....
Great Info...THX
Great work UPVOTED, Help spread the steem take a look at my submission for todays challenge I thought you might enjoy!
https://steemit.com/travel/@adriansky/foggy-adventure-up-mount-tam
Awesome, i am bookmarking the page right now so i would read this again when i have a tendency to buy ICO's.
Usefull #info
Thank you for these valuable tips
Well done thx!
Excellent. Thanks for all the great info
@heiditravels fantastic, video, fantastic post, thanks a lot for teach a useful information in your videos, you look so beautiful in the video
I turelly believe, one should take care of few things before stepping ahead, Since crypto is quite something like, Internet in 90s, mistakes will happens eventually but can be prevented.Excellent input and very informative @heiditravels
Would like to know your view upon my recent DASH Evolution post, if possible of course. :)
Every post so nice.i like it
Great post Heidi! Keep up the good work.
With best regards from the Bitcoin for Beginners-community
Excellent information and very useful tools! Thank you @heiditravels!
Also, as a general tip, always check the website name for misspellings like "rn" instead of "m" (happened once in in Ambrosus crowdsale, scam site was arnbrosus.com).