Why do cryptocurrency scams work and how do you avoid them? – Naked Security

Fascinated by cryptocurrencies? Wishing you’d got in on the ground floor for the Bitcoin boom of 2017?

Many people would answer “Yes” to both those questions – and with good reason.

After all, the dramatic roller coaster ride that the Bitcoin (BTC) price has been through from 2017 onwards is kind of unimportant to anyone who mined their own bitcoins in the early days.

Ten years ago, bitcoins were almost worthless, with one historical chart claiming that a user going by the name SmokeTooMuch tried to sell BTC 10,000 for just $50 back in 2010, but couldn’t find a buyer.

Only in 2011 did one bitcoin go above $1, so if you have even a tiny stash of BTC from before that date, the very worst value multiplier you would have seen in the past two years would still be more than 3,000-fold (that’s 300,000% if you prefer percentages).

In other words, the currency’s recent volatility in flapping between a nadir of just over $3,000 and a zenith of just under $20,000 since…