I fell for a crypto scam - my story and learnings

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I fell for a scam during the 2021 bull run. I didn't make a mistake, I made a whole series of mistakes. Here's my scam story - hope it helps you learn what NOT to do 🚩 👇 🧵

It's a raging bull market. Cryptofluencers are flaunting their wealth, and promising more to come for everyone. Price targets make the moon look like a friendly neighbor. I'm also scouting for some juicy moon landings. Mistake 1: Greed 🚩

Launchpad projects have good moonshot potential in a bull market. Many do a 10-50x right out the gate. To receive an allocation, you have to: 1. Hold launchpad tokens 2. Complete a KYC process / some activities for whitelisting 3. Buy the tokens when allocations open up

I found a launchpad project that looked pretty good. I created a spreadsheet to run the numbers - mainly to see ROI on holding the launchpad's token, and simulate some outcomes. Worst case: Native token + allocation goes to 0 & I lose 100% Unlikely and I was ok with that risk.

I bought the launchpad tokens and completed my tasks to get whitelisted. Now it was time to wait for allocation day. So I waited and planned my exit, mentally calculating which tokens I would roll my 50x into.

A week or so later, my calendar alerts me that it's allocation day. My day was packed with meetings, but I didn't want to miss the deposit window and I was quite eager to go and secure my allocation.

I received a telegram message on the announcements chat directing users to go claim their allocation. Mistake 2: Not verifying the telegram group 🚩🚩

I found myself with 10 minutes between meetings. I hit the telegram link. It took me to the launchpad page, where I connected my wallet. It showed me my tokens & allocation details. It looked exactly as I remembered. Mistake 3: Clicking a telegram link to access a dapp 🚩🚩🚩

Now I just had to deposit. I entered 0.5 ETH (my planned deposit amount). The MetaMask popup opened, and I confirmed the transaction.

Oops! The app showed me an error saying the transaction had been rejected. ⛔️ Damnit – just gotta try again I suppose. I muttered some curses about blockchain UX problems, and submitted another 0.5 ETH transaction. Mistake 4: Trusting the app UI instead of my wallet. 🚩🚩🚩🚩

Failed again! At this point, even my snail-brain was starting to get suspicious. I checked my MetaMask wallet history. The transactions were clearly there and had already completed. I refreshed the page hoping to see my deposits reflected - sometimes these dapps take a minute.

By this point, I already had a sinking feeling in my stomach. I poked through Etherscan, and found that my funds had indeed been deposited to a smart contract. I went to the launchpad's CoinMarketCap page and found the website from there.

It looked identical. But then I noticed it. The ONLY difference. The real domain: app-[launchpad].com The fake domain: apps-[launchpad].com This is how I felt: 🤮

I had just fallen for a scam that I like to call "The Clone Project". twitter.com/shivsakhuja/status/1523302688573693954?s=20&t=Qx3CNuk6o3sMusnS3QWMOg

A similar variation of this scam is "The Urgent Mint". twitter.com/shivsakhuja/status/1523302704642097152?s=20&t=Qx3CNuk6o3sMusnS3QWMOg

At this point, the funds were unrecoverable and I knew it. I checked the smart contract, desperately hoping that this wasn't what I knew it to be. Then I hung my head in shame, and went to my next meeting thinking about all the shitcoins I could have bought with that lost ETH.

Lessons permanent etched into my mind: • Don't act in haste. • Don't trust Telegram links / groups • Only access websites from a trusted source • Verify the website • Your wallet / etherscan are the sources of truth, dapps are not.

The only thing I did correctly here was putting in only what I could comfortably afford to lose. Everything else was a shitshow that still makes me cringe when I think about it.

I'm usually quite careful with dapps. I probably wouldn't have made these mistakes if I hadn't been acting hastily and trying to get it done in between meetings. Impatience, greed, and negligence cost me one beautiful ETH + gas fees 🤦 🤮

There's a lot of scams in the crypto world. I made this thread to share the common ones I've seen and help others avoid my mistakes. twitter.com/shivsakhuja/status/1523302665588936704

I also made this video about the same - if my pea-brain mistakes help others avoid a similar fate, it'll be worth it. youtube.com/watch?v=4H83FBlF1N0

I also wrote about more ways to get rekt in crypto - common pitfalls to avoid. twitter.com/shivsakhuja/status/1533204982438109185

I've been in Crypto for many years and yet sometimes, I still find myself falling prey to greed and negligence. I may be a pea-brain, but I try to share my learnings as I spend all my time in this exciting space - follow me @shivsakhuja.