The NFT market is growing rapidly, as is the number of those who want to fraudulently make money on collectors and investors. In this article, we have collected tips for you on how to profitably buy NFTs in 2022 and protect yourself from the tricks of scammers.
Trick 1: copy, not original
It seems to be quite banal, but a common trick from those who dishonestly "lures" money. How it works? Instead of the original NFT, for example, pictures, scammers upload a copy. In this case, you are buying only a drawing downloaded from the Internet without any real value.
To avoid this scenario, you should:
- Validate images through a search on the Google search network. So you will understand when the picture was uploaded to the network, on what resources it is available.
- If the picture (gif, video) was not uploaded by the author, most likely you are buying NFT from scammers.
Before buying, it would be good to check the history of nft, find out who its creator is and whether it matches the name of the author.
Trick 2: mimicking real artists
Such scammers are more difficult to detect, because they successfully create profiles (even with the “verified” mark) supposedly from the author. In fact, these are imitators who put NFTs up for sale on behalf of another person.
A recent case: on Rarible, scammers sold nft from artist Derek Laufman. At the same time, the profile was verified, that is, his fans decided that the author had finally decided to enter the crypto market. A rebuttal was written on Twitter, the account was deleted, but one unfortunate buyer was still found.
To verify the authenticity of the token, before buying you need to:
- Explore the author/artist's social media. If there is no mention of the start of sales of the NFT token, then the profile was probably created by scammers.
- Find out directly. Many authors easily get in touch and are happy to talk about their collection.
It is better to ask 100 times and be 100% sure that the token really belongs to the artist and has value, than to buy a fake and enrich imitators.
Trick 3: Fake Famous Designs
Collectible NFTs are worth a lot of money on resale. For example, the Bored Ape token initially cost 0.08 ETH. Now, buying the cheapest NFT from the collection “by hand” will cost from 38 ETH. Alas, many want to get the treasured monkey, scammers are happy to use this.
What you should pay attention to when buying NFT:
- Suspiciously low price. Explore resources and check out the latest deals. If the sale amount is lower than the marginal one, the scammers are probably trying to sell the copy.
- Address nft. The feature of NFT is that a smart contract is used to create it without the possibility of data forgery. And it contains an address on the blockchain that remains unchanged, even when reselling. Find it, compare it with the original project and it will become clear that you have an original or a fake.
Protect yourself - always check each lot.
Other scam options
There are other ways to get hold of your funds.
- Never share your data. Neither the support service, nor the marketplace moderators.
- Check links. Files from unknown people, fake website addresses - all this leads to the theft of data and funds from the account
- Don't share publicly. Never expose wallet information to the public so that third parties do not refer to it.
Use trusted platforms to buy and sell NFTs. Cifris takes security seriously, but you should also check your purchases before you buy. Be vigilant, subscribe to the blog to always be aware of news from the crypto world.