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SEC Charges Eleven Individuals in $300M Crypto Pyramid Scheme

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11–20 of 46 posts

Re: SEC Charges Eleven Individuals in $300M Crypto Pyramid Scheme

#11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> YouTube Saylor and Musk giveaway scams I think I saw one of these once. It involved an atrocious (but still somehow impressive) deepfake of Musk. Is this common?

They are getting very creative too. There is a common bot scam nowadays where it will ask for help and share private keys of a crypto wallet with money inside it. The catch is to transfer those tokens from the crypto wallet, you have to fund it with native token to pay the gas fee. When you do, the gas fees is automatically sniped by the bot and stolen. Another interesting one I've come across is where scammers plant…

> When you do, the gas fees is automatically sniped by the bot and stolen.

Wouldn't stealing the gas fee cost more gas to initiate a theft transaction? So they'd be net-zero?

Or do they use a SUICIDE op, etc. to get a partial gas refund?

Re: SEC Charges Eleven Individuals in $300M Crypto Pyramid Scheme

#12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> YouTube Saylor and Musk giveaway scams I think I saw one of these once. It involved an atrocious (but still somehow impressive) deepfake of Musk. Is this common?

They are getting very creative too. There is a common bot scam nowadays where it will ask for help and share private keys of a crypto wallet with money inside it. The catch is to transfer those tokens from the crypto wallet, you have to fund it with native token to pay the gas fee. When you do, the gas fees is automatically sniped by the bot and stolen. Another interesting one I've come across is where scammers plant…

I consider myself a "normal person" in this matter, just one who happens to hold the belief that crypto is always, everywhere, and fundamentally a scam -- even though the technology is cool and theoretically could be used for honest purposes.

This makes it easy to avoid getting hosed :)

Re: SEC Charges Eleven Individuals in $300M Crypto Pyramid Scheme

#14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are getting very creative too. There is a common bot scam nowadays where it will ask for help and share private keys of a crypto wallet with money inside it. The catch is to transfer those tokens from the crypto wallet, you have to fund it with native token to pay the gas fee. When you do, the gas fees is automatically sniped by the bot and stolen. Another interesting one I've come across is where scammers plant…

> When you do, the gas fees is automatically sniped by the bot and stolen. Wouldn't stealing the gas fee cost more gas to initiate a theft transaction? So they'd be net-zero? Or do they use a SUICIDE op, etc. to get a partial gas refund?

I think the idea is, someone would fund it with more than just enough to pay for gas, making the snipe profitable.

Re: SEC Charges Eleven Individuals in $300M Crypto Pyramid Scheme

#15

I mean, it's some progress, I guess. How long until the US Gov goes after all the folks who keep doing pump & dump/"rug pull" b.s with new coins? There seems to be a never-ending trail of those.

Prosecution takes time to build a solid case.

The absence of news of prosecution does not necessarily mean an absence of prosecution. There are lots of reasons why you wouldn’t announce an ongoing investigation.

Re: SEC Charges Eleven Individuals in $300M Crypto Pyramid Scheme

#16

I mean, it's some progress, I guess. How long until the US Gov goes after all the folks who keep doing pump & dump/"rug pull" b.s with new coins? There seems to be a never-ending trail of those.

I’m not educated on crypto but wouldn’t it be easier to go after the fiat->coin people or do people really just mine / buy coin with cash?

Re: SEC Charges Eleven Individuals in $300M Crypto Pyramid Scheme

#17

74 votes and a single comment, I think that is record high ratio. The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged 11 individuals for their roles in creating and promoting Forsage, a fraudulent crypto pyramid and Ponzi scheme that raised more than $300 million from millions of retail investors worldwide, including in the United States. Those charged include the four founders of Forsage, who were last known to be…

I’d imagine they don’t target people who closet follow crypto but instead people who only think of it as “some high tech money thing making people rich”.

Re: SEC Charges Eleven Individuals in $300M Crypto Pyramid Scheme

#18

I mean, it's some progress, I guess. How long until the US Gov goes after all the folks who keep doing pump & dump/"rug pull" b.s with new coins? There seems to be a never-ending trail of those.

> I mean, it's some progress, I guess.

Ever wondered why the majority of ICOs in the US have been stamped out since 2017/2018?

> How long until the US Gov goes after all the folks who keep doing pump & dump/"rug pull" b.s with new coins? There seems to be a never-ending trail of those.

Until regulations are much clearer and those people who create such coins have to be registered and fully doxxed and exposed first perhaps.

But either way, it is never going to fully go away, so some of them will slip through the net.

Re: SEC Charges Eleven Individuals in $300M Crypto Pyramid Scheme

#20

74 votes and a single comment, I think that is record high ratio. The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged 11 individuals for their roles in creating and promoting Forsage, a fraudulent crypto pyramid and Ponzi scheme that raised more than $300 million from millions of retail investors worldwide, including in the United States. Those charged include the four founders of Forsage, who were last known to be…

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