Source
Crypto scams is not something new in the crypto-verse. There are tons of crypto scams out there ranging from Nigerian/ Indian scammers, promising to trade a good deal for you in crypto currency, to fake meme tokens and fake crypto exchange websites.
Let's take a look at some of the worst so far in 2022.
1. The Ukrainian Government rug pulls;
This has to be one of the genuinely interesting scams on this list. Although I wouldn't call it a scam, a scam is a scam no matter what it's true intentions were. Weeks after the invasion of the Russian army, the Ukrainian Government announced that they would accept crypto donations from the whales and others willing to donate.
Of course a mild amount of crypto donations came in, the Ukrainian Government futher announced that there would be airdrops and rewards for those who donated via the Ethereum chain. A massive number of People began to send crypto donations on the Ethereum network, about 50k transactions were made within 48hours. But, according to the Ukrainian Government, people started to send a insignificant amount of money just so they could take advantage to the opportunity.
The airdrops were cancelled few days after it got announced, this of course pissed off a lot of people who tagged it as a scam. I believe this rug pull was quite necessary as it Is very inhuman to take advantage of a country at war.
2. Millions stolen after Axie infinities security got breached;
On the 29th of March 2022 Axie infinity revealed that their server had been hacked and millions of dollars were stolen right after. The crazy part of it is they were unaware of the breach.
In March a group of hackers discovered a loophole in the security of sky mavis the company behind the Axie infinity P2E game, which is in fact under the Ethereum based Ronin block-chain. Sky Mavis had earlier made a temporary change in their system that reduced it's security. The hackers, suspected to be the North Korean 'Lazarus' group, took advantage of the situation and proceeded to take advantage of it.
Sky Mavis would later find out about the breach after inability to withdraw funds was reported by players . Although Axie infinity was able to raise $125 million to refund its users, it would never replace the "$635 million" stolen by the hackers.
3. Stolen Bored Apes.
On the 17th of may, Popular American actor and voice actor, Seth Green, famous for his roles in family guy and Scooby-Doo announced on his twitter page that 4 NFTs of his had been stolen.
His collection of Nfts was comprised of; A Bored ape, two mutant Apes and a doodle NFT. Seth lost more than just hundreds of dollars but also almost lost his show. Seth was working on a show "white horse tavern" that would feature various nft characters. Since his Nfts were stolen means he doesn't have the rights to the Nfts anymore and can't use it in his show.
Fortunately he was able to buy back his NFTs which was sold out to another user. However, this meant a big loss for him as it meant he bought his nfts twice over with a six figure mark each time.
There are lots and lots of scams going on this year, so much that has left many investors at great loss.
Although my list as ultimately come to an end, I would love to make mention of a very interesting scam of 2021.
2021 Squid game scam;
On the 20th of October 2021 a meme token based on the highest grossing series of 2021 at the time, Squid game, was released. A bunch of individuals invested in this token mostly because of their love for the movie. But it seemed they failed to look at the greater picture.
The most popular series of 2021 was released on Netflix on September, a month later a meme coin based on the Ethereum network was released which beared the same name as the series. On November the token reached and all time high of $2,861, many investors then proceeded to withdraw. They were left in utter shock when they realised they couldn't. About $3.38 million was robbed from the investors, making it easily the craziest scam of 2021.