6 Insane Crypto Scams and Controversies

$14 billion in cryptocurrency was scammed in 2021.

That’s an increase of 80% than last year.

Web3 created bountiful opportunities for entrepreneurs and cryptocurrency users.

But it also left ajar crypto’s pandora box.

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Here are 6 interesting scams to date.

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@beaniemaxi

• Beanie, aka Charles Moscoe, was called out for taking part in various frauds and scams. He was an NFT influencer, advisor, and investor for projects like Pixel Vault and Wolf Game.
• It was said that he siphoned $40 million (12,500 Ether) and made $16 million unrealized gains, but Beanie denied all charges.

Time Wonderland

• Wonderland (@Wonderland_fi)is a decentralized reserve currency protocol, offering 80,000%+ APY. They hired Sifu (@0xSifu),an ex-felon who oversaw their treasury — but his identity was never disclosed to the community.
• Sifu sent $8.4 million to his own wallet to use as collateral to prevent liquidation. A move that fell through since TIME tokens plummeted from its peak of $10,000 to $335, after several mass liquidations.

Sushiswap

• Sushiswap (@SushiSwap)is a DEX based on the Ethereum network. In September of 2020, founder Chef Nomi (@NomiChef) sold $13 million of tokens. Droppingthe value of SUSHI tokens from approximately $4.44 to $1.30.
• After huge backlash, Chef Nomi returned $14 million in ETH, apologizing to the community.

Squid Game Token

• Squid Coin (@SquidGameToken) was launched on November 1, 2021, inspired by a famous Korean series, Squid Game (to be clear, the coins had no affiliation with the series).
• The price hiked up to $2,861per coin, and once the currency skyrocketed, developers cashed out $3.3 million, dropping the currency value to $0. A classic ‘rug pull.’

MonoX Finance

• MonoX (@MonoXFinance)is a new DeFi protocol launched in October 2021.
• $31 million in cryptocurrency was lost because of a smart contract bug. Hackers inflated the price of $MONO tokens and used it to cash out all other deposited tokens.

Blockverse

• To all Minecraft lovers, this scam hit hard. Blockverse (@Blockverse_NFT) was considered “an on-chain Ethereum NFT that enables a unique P2E (play-to-earn) on Minecraft…”
• After earning $1.2 million in tokens, the creators deleted their website, game server, and official Discord. While they still claim that they’re not an exit scam, users believe otherwise.

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Companies to Watch:

• Poly Network
• Frosties NFT
• Afriscrypt
• Stolen Bored Ape NFTs
• Pancake Bunny

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