Investment and Trading Advice? No, it’s a scam
NO INVESTMENT ADVICE
NO WHATSAPP, SIGNAL or TELEGRAM groups
NO CRYPTO TRADING SEMINARS
Have you heard of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to learn how to invest or trade crypto guided by Andreas Antonopoulos? Well, it’s a scam and unfortunately hundreds if not thousands of people have lost their savings because of such scams. Nowadays, AI deepfakes are used to simulate Andreas’ voice or appearance and scam people even more effectively.
Andreas does not offer investment advice, or trading advice. He’s said this hundreds of times in public, but nevertheless scammers keep finding victims by impersonating him. Andreas doesn’t even discuss the price of bitcoin. He has always focused on teaching about the technology and the social/economic impacts of technology. Not as an investment, but as a tool for individual empowerment. In fact, most often Andreas warns people not to use bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency as a speculative investment or get-rich-quick scheme.
Unfortunately, it is impossible to stop impersonators from exploiting Andreas’ reputation and credibility to scam people. Encrypted apps like Whatsapp, Signal and Telegram are important tools for activists, journalists and many others but unfortunately they can also be used to hide criminal activity. Reporting these groups to Whatsapp, Signal or Telegram is completely useless because the scammers just create new accounts and go looking for victims again.
If you have been a victim of such a scam:
- Do not give them any more money. The “fees” that will release your “blocked” funds are just attempts to steal more money from you. None of these schemes are real investments and none of your “gains” are real either. They stole your money and they will not give it back
- Contact your local authorities and report the fraud. While they may not be able to get your money back, they may be able to block or disrupt the criminal operations
- If you still have access to a group chat, warn the other participants that this is a scam and link to this page. Perhaps some will listen to you and you will save them from the scam
