One thing I notice when looking at the crypto market is that truly dangerous scam coins keep emerging one after another. Even among well-known coins, there are quite a few cases where they turn out to be complete scams. This time, I want to introduce five notorious scam coin cases that happened in the cryptocurrency market and consider why these things happen and how to tell them apart.

First, it’s important to understand the common tactics used by scam coins. They promise huge profits but in reality, they just take money from investors. These schemes often lack a proper white paper, the team’s track record is unclear, and the code is plagiarized… these are typical patterns.

The scam coin BitPetite, for example, surged to over $10 per coin immediately after the ICO, with a market cap reaching $200 million. It claimed to be an innovative platform combining DeFi and NFTs, but in fact, it had no technical foundation at all. When the founder sold off assets and fled, the price nearly dropped to zero. By the time investors realized the website was offline, it was too late.

A larger-scale scam was PlusToken. At its peak, the price jumped to $200 per coin, with a market cap exceeding $17 billion. It combined a cryptocurrency wallet with a Ponzi scheme, promising high returns, but essentially, it was a typical scam using new investors’ money to pay existing investors. When the founder ran away with the funds, investors lost billions of dollars.

OneCoin was even more malicious. It reached a high of $30 per coin, with a market cap of $15 billion. It claimed to be a legitimate cryptocurrency, but in reality, it had no blockchain and was a fully centralized, non-existent currency. Founder Ruja Ignatova is still on the run, and this is recorded as one of the biggest scams in the crypto market.

WoToken followed the same pattern. It hit over $10 per coin with a market cap of more than $1.5 billion, but it was another Ponzi scheme run by the same group as PlusToken. The scam was exposed when users could no longer withdraw funds, and Chinese authorities arrested the involved parties.

What lessons can we learn from these scam coin cases? Before investing, check the team’s track record. Ensure there is a transparent white paper and roadmap. Verify if the code is open-source and auditable. Avoid projects promising high returns with no risk. And it’s also important to see if there is a strong community supporting the project.

The cryptocurrency market certainly offers great opportunities, but there are also many projects listed as scam coins. That’s why gathering information and exercising caution are essential. I believe it’s important to learn from these scam cases as cautionary lessons to make smarter investment decisions.