Jonas *WILL NOT DM FIRST*
You have likely seen this addition to many Telegram IDs. Most legitimate, popular new projects take these precautions because as soon as a project begins to take off, fake versions of that project begin to take off as well.
Crypto scams come in many shapes and sizes, and scammers are quick on their feet. They understand that the most effective moment to create a duplicate project is when the hype is first starting to build. That’s when the community and new community members are the most excited and least prepared. When the project hasn’t yet secured its place in the environment and familiarized itself with its members.
So what some scammers do is create a fake duplicate token with a similar name, a fake Telegram group, fake Telegram accounts for the founders, and start reaching out to people from the founder’s names. That’s why most founders will say “will not DM first,” because why would the founders reach out to random retail investors?
For example, what’s the difference between LITI and wLITI? Most of us may know the answer to that now, but as the project developed, many were confused. It wouldn’t have been very difficult for a scammer to create any variation in the alphabet. uLITI, vLITI, zLITI, etc.
In fact, there was a fake Liti Capital Telegram group with tens of thousands of bots as members and over $60k (of their own money) invested in the fake token on the Binance Smart chain, Wliti. Naturally, the Liti team found this fake group and shut it down in mere days before much harm was done. That’s what we do.
On one hand, it’s flattering for any new project to have a scam duplicate. It shows that they have real potential, and the scammers can see that right away. But, just like any other scam, it slows down the ecosystem and lowers investor confidence on a broad scale.
So what can you do to make sure you don’t fall into that trap? Follow a couple of simple steps and you won’t have to worry:
New projects can be exciting for the interesting, innovative concepts and the opportunity for a big investment, but you always need to do your own research (DYOR) and be absolutely sure before you spend your money. If everyone does their part, we can put the scam economy behind us.
If you have been a victim of crypto fraud or would like to learn more, please visit https://liticapital.com/fighting-crypto-fraud/ for more information.