How crypto scams work
Lesson 1 of 5
You’ll be able to name the five pressures scams use, say why crypto is the payment method scammers ask for, and spot the four “safety checks” that prove nothing at all.
Why scammers ask for crypto
A card payment can be reversed. Your bank can sometimes claw back a wire for a few days.
A transfer of bitcoin or ether is final the moment the network confirms it, and no company, court or wallet maker can pull it back. Some dollar stablecoins are different: the company that issues one can block its token, though a block doesn’t mean you get the money back.
That finality is the point of crypto, and it’s also why scammers steer every victim toward it. There’s no chargeback to argue and no helpline that can undo the send. The money crosses borders in minutes and is swapped and split before anyone has read your report.
So the defense has to happen before you press send, and everything in this course is about that moment.
Five pressures scams use
Every scam in this course uses at least one of these pressures, and the worst use three or four at once. Learn the five and you’ll recognize a scam you’ve never seen before.
Urgency
“Your wallet will be suspended in 24 hours.” “The allocation closes tonight.” A real company gives you time. A scammer can’t afford to.
Authority
A badge, a uniform, a regulator’s logo, a “senior analyst”, a famous face. Authority is the cheapest thing to fake.
Greed
A screenshot of someone’s gains, a mentor’s “signal group”, a token you were lucky to hear about early.
Fear
“Your account has been linked to money laundering.” “Pay the tax or lose the balance.” Fear is why victims pay the “fee to withdraw” that lesson 2 describes.
Affection
Weeks or months of daily messages before money is ever mentioned. The romance scam runs on this pressure alone until its last stage, when it turns into investment fraud, the costliest kind.
When a message makes you feel one of these, the feeling is the signal, whatever the message says. Slow down, and read the rest of this lesson.
What it cost people in 2025
The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center counts what Americans report each year. Its report for 2025, published in April 2026, puts the crypto figures in the billions.
What the FBI recorded for 2025
Complaints that involved crypto
181,565
Reported losses involving crypto
$11.4 billion, up 22% on 2024
Losses to crypto investment fraud alone
$7.2 billion, the largest single category
Average loss per crypto complaint
$62,604
Investment fraud, the slow scam of lesson 2, caused more loss than every other crypto crime put together. And people over 60 reported $4.4 billion of the $11.4 billion, so the people losing the most are parents and grandparents.
The problem isn’t only American. Chainalysis, which traces money on public blockchains, estimated in January 2026 that scams took about $17 billion worldwide in 2025. In Ireland, Gardaí recorded about €31 million lost to investment fraud of all kinds in 2024.
Four checks that prove nothing
Older safety advice taught people to look for a padlock, a checkmark and an audit. Scammers read that advice too.
The site starts with https and shows a padlock
The connection is encrypted. Any site can have one, including a copy of your exchange’s login page made this morning.
The account on X has a blue checkmark
Someone paid for a subscription. X’s own help pages say the checkmark doesn’t mean the account’s identity was verified.
The team has LinkedIn profiles and photos on the site
Profiles are free to create and photos are free to copy.
The project has an audit
Someone checked some code on one day. An audit says nothing about whether the people behind it are honest.
Any scam site can have all four, so none of them counts as proof. The same goes for a polished website, a company registration number and a glossy white paper.
What a scammer can’t fake
The checks that work are the ones you control.
1
You go to them. Type the company’s address yourself, or use a bookmark you made on a calm day. Never follow a link in a message to log in or “verify” anything.
2
You call back on a number you found yourself, from the company’s own site or the back of your card. Never the number in the message.
3
Nobody genuine needs your recovery phrase. Not support, not a “security team”, not an airdrop, not the police. The phrase is the wallet, and a request for it ends the conversation.
4
Time. A real offer is still there in a week. A scammer’s isn’t, which is why urgency is the first of the five pressures.
5
A second person. Scams work in private. Tell someone you trust before you send money anywhere new, and the scam usually falls apart while you’re explaining it.
The rest of this course takes the scams one kind at a time. Lesson 2 is the slow investment and romance fraud. Lesson 3 is the fake support staff, fake apps and deepfakes.
Lesson 4 is the traps that live on the blockchain itself, and lesson 5 is what to do in the first hour if one of them reaches you.
Your next step
Pick your second person now, before you need them, and tell them they’ve got the job.
Last checked: 6 November 2026
