Online Scams have become a leading and highly lucrative form of crime worldwide, both within and beyond the cryptocurrency industry. The impact is obvious. The flood of scams is wearing people down and making them less trusting, while cybersecurity researchers and fraud investigators are struggling to keep up and protect users. At the same time, compliance teams face increasing pressure to identify criminals, especially those linked to money laundering.
Although cryptocurrencies represent genuine innovations with tremendous benefits, they also pose harms and offer opportunities for malicious actors. Cryptocurrencies eliminate traditional intermediaries – i.e., banks, payment processors, and brokers – by enabling direct, peer-to-peer (P2P) transactions, but sometimes the middleman is good.
Threat actors, through sophisticated psychological manipulation, convince victims to commit increasingly larger sums of money towards ventures involving cryptocurrency. In reality, these investment vehicles are fake. More specifically, all the money is under the direct control of illicit entities, and this schematic appropriation leaves victims financially drained.
No one is immune to scams. Scammers rely on decision-making shortcuts; by exploiting urgency and FOMO, they ensure victims prioritize speed over thorough due diligence. Needless to say, the behavior discussed earlier shouldn’t serve as a model. In 2026, the crypto ecosystem has evolved, but so have fraudsters’ tactics. As Bitcoin reaches new highs and AI technology becomes more accessible, criminal actors are using increasingly sophisticated methods to separate investors from their assets.
These are the most common crypto scams to watch out for today:
Pig Butchering
Pig butchering is highly adaptable and difficult, if not impossible, to shut down because it continues operating effectively even when authorities try to disrupt it. It started attracting attention in China around 2019, initially targeting victims on dating sites, but has since become a global billion-dollar industry. The impostors on the line are, more often than not, human trafficking victims, forced to run the scheme by syndicates, especially those operating in Myanmar, Cambodia, and Laos.
In the crypto space, pig butchering refers to a romance scam disguised as an investment opportunity. Scammers establish fake relationships to con victims out of millions of dollars. The scam begins with a ‘hi’ or a seemingly innocent wrong-number text on WhatsApp or Telegram. Slowly but surely, they steer the conversation towards financial opportunities, claiming huge profits from cryptocurrency investments, often backed by testimonials or fake success stories. They may even return some of the victim’s early investments in the form of profit.
Avoid investing based exclusively on advice from someone you’ve met recently or who contacts you all of a sudden. Position yourself as uninterested in cryptocurrency and make it clear you’re unwilling to part with your funds. If they disappear, it’s proof that they weren’t acting in good faith. Most importantly, don’t be embarrassed about being a victim. Report this ASAP to your local law enforcement agency.
Fake Crypto Trading Platforms
As the primary gateways to buying, selling, and transferring digital assets, exchanges inevitably attract would-be criminals. These trading platforms make unrealistic promises about the returns investors can earn, offering supposedly risk-free returns that no legitimate investment can deliver. When victims try to withdraw their money, they’re shocked to discover that the website no longer exists, and the company is unreachable.
Far and wide, the landscape features a high density of unauthorized platforms that lack standard compliance, which in turn complicates things for newcomers and undermines trust in legitimate, regulated service providers. To get started safely, users typically rely on well-established, fully regulated crypto exchanges that offer strong account protection, high liquidity, and fast transaction processing. Registration alone doesn’t protect from fraud, but most scams involve unregistered entities, people, and products.
Many crypto trading platforms claim to have millions of customers or to generate billions of dollars in trades, even though their websites are only a few weeks or months old. They offer investment plans that advertise returns ranging from 50 to over 200 percent. Fake crypto exchanges typically have short life spans: as soon as the fraud is discovered, the website disappears only to pop up again under a different brand and web address. Exercise caution if you notice spelling mistakes, grammatical issues, unusual phrasing, or similar errors.
Deepfake Authorization Scams
Generative AI technology and deepfake creation capabilities are exploited by scammers to orchestrate highly sophisticated, multi-channel attacks that bypass traditional security filters and human intuition. In many cases, fraudsters manipulate images, video, or audio of senior executives or high-value clients to teach an AI model to imitate their likeness to coerce victims into unknowingly approving payments.
Patrick Hillmann, the Chief Communications Officer at Binance at the time, revealed in August 2022 that con artists used video footage of his past TV appearances to create an AI hologram of him and persuade key industry players to make a payment to have their token listed on the exchange. Although this didn’t achieve the intended results, it goes to show just how severe such scams can be.
At the first sign that something seems wrong, disengage immediately and take prompt action. Blocking the scammer immediately limits their ability to manipulate you, secures your personal information, and stops them from validating your phone number or email address for future attacks. Browser extensions such as Revoke.cash or Scam Sniffer can help you identify fraudulent prompts and revoke risky permissions, making your Web3 interactions safer.
If you fall for a deepfake scam, don’t fret because you’re not the only one. They’re designed to trick even the most tech-savvy people. Indeed, modern tools make deepfakes look more believable, but they can be detected by looking for mismatched lip syncing, unnatural eye movements, or awkward lighting and shadows. If you get a Zoom invite or meeting request, ensure it’s from a legitimate email or message.
Wrapping It Up
This list isn’t exhaustive, and many other scams continue to circulate. Stay current with the latest forms of fraud, consider taking a cybersecurity course, and, above all, maintain a healthy dose of skepticism to become a much harder target to hit. Even as technology advances, the end goal stays the same: securing your trust to exploit what you own.
(Image by sanjay k j from Pixabay)