Crypto-Scams: Ten Measures to Take

As cryptocurrencies continue their unprecedented rise, cybercrimes are rising with them.

If you believe you’ve been scammed, here are ten measures you can take:

Stay calm and get informed. To do that, research the platform. Do they have any customer support? If so, contact them. Find out where they are based, and who is the CEO.

IQ Option was exposed as a fraudulent trading platform when users discovered they were not able to withdraw the money they had earned. The multinational company is registered in Cyprus and St Vinent and the Grenadines and the CEO is Anton Rabinovich.

Read the experience of other users. Has anyone else had the same experience? Over 700 people complained of grievences from IQ Option.
Find out what legislation applies in your country. Legislation differs wildly around the world. While some countries have begun attempting to regulate crypto-trading, others have not, and for all it is new territory. When the fraud occured in India, there were not enough measures in place to educate or protect traders.
Speak with a lawyer. In the case with IQ Option, brought to court at the end of 2020, the lawyer involved, Nipun Saxena, invited people who had been scammed to share their experiences. Since then, the trading platform has been blocked in India, and the lawsuit seeks to permanently ban them.
Take measures to stay safe online. Add a VPN if you don’t already use one. Windscribe or TunnelBear are good options. Secure your crypto wallet by enabling two-factor identification and performing regular back-ups.
Know the difference between hot storage and cold storage. Hot storage means storing your money on the trading platform itself. Think of your bitcoins as hot potatoes—you don’t want to hold them for long! Keeping your money online puts it at risk of being hacked. Instead, move it to cold storage, in an offline account. In order to store it offline, get a hardware wallet, which works like a USB drive, keeping all the information you need to access your crypto secure.
Use a service such as Recoverydome or Coinfirm. Coinfirm offers a service to help victims of scams recover lost funds. They have a four-step process:

Fill out the
Provide details of loss
Get approval. Based on the information provided, they will calculate a fee
Enjoy returned funds. Following an investigation, stolen funds will be returned to your crypto wallet.

Be aware that the recovery process can take months or even years.

Avoid platforms offering binary options. Binary options have either a yes or no outcome, meaning those who buy them receive either all or nothing. When the option expires, the buyer gets either a payout or loses everything and the money is automatically transferred between accounts. IQ Option is based on binary options, an illegitimate product in the United States.
Try an established platform such as Paxful or Kraken. Paxful has the largest amount of users trading peer to peer in the world. When Paxful first started in 2015, they expected their largest market to be in Europe. They were surprised to discover that the largest market rapidly became Africa. In countries such as Somalia, people rely on money transfer services that often turn out to be corrup, charging large percentages. Once they discovered they could put send money through cryptocurriences, crypto trading rapidly became a popular option. Paxful invests part of their profit into building wells and schools and developing crypto education in Africa. As of January 2021 they have 4.8 million users.

Kraken was established in 2011 by Jesse Powell in California. After witnessing others get hacked, he partnered with banks in Germany and Japan to create a trading platform that would be both trustworthy and secure. It’s a great platform to start out on because it’s clear and easy to use and offers simple, intermediate or advanced trades. They have a two-step authentication processs and their fees are 0% to 0.26%, some of the lowest in the world.