Jun 19
Crypto ponzi schemes
Medium’s new favorite crypto scam — stay away from these platforms!
Stay away from these dApps if you want to keep your money
“Hey, do you want to sign up to this platform where you’ll lose all your money with my referral link?” That’s not what many authors they’re saying, but it very much could be.
Medium can be a great way to find about new crypto projects. I follow a lot of awesome writers who strive to educate the community, warn about the risks, and share their experiences. However, it can become a dangerous place if you blindly believe everything you read, especially regarding crypto.
In the last few weeks, Medium’s algorithm started sending these “BNB miners” stories my way, advertising ridiculous — and I mean, absolutely ludicrous — daily yields.
I’m talking about:
- Solar Farm Miner
- BNB Miner
- Baked Beans
If you’ve seen these names flying around and are considering investing in them, read this article. I tried this kind of dApps so you don’t have to.
Let’s get started.
Red flags
Disclaimer: I’ve only tried the Solar Farm Miner app, so this article is going to describe that platform in particular. I haven’t experimented with the others although, for what I can tell, they work very similarly.
Let me start being extremely clear. I’m not saying this project is an outright scam. I’m just pointing out the several red flags that make me believe it is.
That said, if you believe this project is legit or don’t agree with me, that’s totally fine! I’m just expressing a point of view here which you can share or not.
Now, let’s dive into the specifics. Here’s what I don’t like about Solar Farm Miner:
- Not-doxxed team (although doxxing isn’t as popular now, it’s still a plus if you know the faces behind a project).
- No whitepaper — the alleged “whitepaper” the platform provides is just a tutorial on how to use the platform.
- Not open-source.
- Once you put money in, you can’t get it back. You can just claim the rewards.
- Insanely high yields — again, with no specific source.
- Developers can change yields and rules at will — they’re open about it one their website.
- App provided stats, yields, and investment values change randomly with zero explanation.
- No yield sources explanation on details — where is the money coming from?
Recently, I wrote an article of red flags and alerts you need to look out for when diving into a crypto project. If you want to learn more, here’s the link:
Of all these points, I want to stick with the last one. If an crypto project can’t justify or explain how they earn revenue, it’s almost certainly a ponzi scheme.
Ponzi schemes in a nutshell
Ponzi schemes essentially sustain themselves with the inflow of more people coming in.
Example: I promise you that if you give me $10 now, I’ll give $20 back to you in 30 days. I do this with one more person each following week.
At the end of the month, I’ll have $40 dollars, so I can give you the $20 I promised you. However, I need to keep more people coming (and at a faster rate) to keep paying the ones that came after you.
Furthermore, when I pay you the $20 I promised, I will try to prevent you from taking them, doubling down and saying that if you leave the whole $20, I’ll give $40 back to you.
Eventually, I won’t be able to bring new money in, and my “business” will collapse. More importantly, everyone who wasn’t able to cash out by then will lose their funds. Forever.
That is common practice on ponzi schemes, and Solar Farm Miner is not an exception. More importantly, they insist that the best “strategy” is to compound you daily earnings to maximize your return. In reality, what they’re doing is making sure you don’t withdraw, so they can keep the fraud going.
Relatively speaking, this is what happened with OlympusDAO, Charge, Axie Infinity, or Terra Luna — ambitious promises of high yields, sustained only by the inflow of new money. In other words, short-lived by design.
So why does Medium love these so much?
That one’s really easy: referral links.
As I’ve said, ponzi schemes desperately need to constantly bring more people in to keep the wheel spinning.
As a result, they often offer extermely generous referral programs, rewarding everyone who invites other people to join in on the scam. Of course, it’s their money they’re after.
That said, I’ve seen countless writers ignoring the morality of the situation and directing their readers directly into a financial dead end for a few BNB.
It’s not wrong to share referral links. In fact, I share mine in my stories. It’s not even wrong to let them know of a risky opportunity as long as you give proper warning and point out the risks. But it is morally questionable to encourage your readers to put money into a shady — to say the least — platform because you’re making a few bucks off it.
Of course, it’s not the writer’s fault — it’s yours. In crypto, you’re always responsible for your actions, and that is why you have to do what I always tell my readers to do: your own freaking research.
If you’re reading this, I hope it’s not too late to prevent you from losing your money on BNB miners. Believe me, you’re better of without them.
On another note, if you’re looking for new ways to build some passive income with crypto, you can check these 5 reliable methods I’ve tried:
Just remember, crypto investments are extremely risky and you most certainly can lose all your money. Proceed with caution!
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I’m glad you did! My name is Santi. I enjoy and write about video games, cryptocurrency, and pop culture. If you’d like to read more content like this, follow me on Medium and Twitter. I’d really appreciate it!
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