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Don’t buy a Rolex off the street, or cryptocurrency on Telegram
It’s the gold rush crypto scammers
Last week’s cover story of The Economist noted that the collapse of FTX dealt a catastrophic blow to crypto’s reputation and aspirations. In early November, cryptocurrency exchange FTX was the third largest in the world and was valued at $32 billion.
Today, there is nothing left of FTX but 1 million furious creditors, dozens of shaky crypto firms, and a proliferation of regulatory and criminal probes. The high-speed implosion of FTX has dealt, according to The Economist, a catastrophic blow to an industry with a history of failure and scandals. Never before has crypto looked so criminal, wasteful, and useless.
Yet the reality is that crypto is far from dead. It had a bad couple of weeks. And, like the Phoenix, it will undoubtedly rise again. While The Economist is in crypto mourning, the crypto scammers have left no time to wallow in the mire.
Scammers love Telegram
Crypto scammers love the Telegram and WhatsApp messaging platforms. My experience is that I am added to numerous crypto groups weekly. I will typically report them as spam and leave. But last week, I participated in the Telegram BTC Group T1 group. You can see the entire chat history here.
