Fake alert! New projects pose as prominent brands to lure crypto investors

2 years ago

Creating a caller crypto task is dangerously easy: One needs to make a token, prime a ticker, marketplace it to the crypto assemblage done coin accusation websites similar CoinMarketCap oregon CoinGecko, and past get it listed connected decentralized exchanges oregon the thousands of caller centralized crypto exchanges that volition bash astir thing for money.

Malicious entities tin simply deliberation of a catchy marque sanction or, amended yet, drawback a salient brand, condiment it with further keywords that could marque crypto beginners deliberation it’s related to its morganatic counterpart. Because of this, the crypto marketplace is afloat of tokens that person thing to bash with the sanction oregon marque they bring to mind.

We created a speedy database of crypto projects that are not affiliated with the salient brands they resemble:

Mini Tesla

This task starts disconnected its website with a Tesla car bouncing up and down carrying the Mini Tesla logo. Urging visitors who whitethorn beryllium “tired of rug pulls and scam projects,” the Mini Tesla marque encourages radical to bargain their BSC-based token connected PancakeSwap. However, assemblage members are frustrated with it and are calling it a scam.

%100scam due to the fact that mgass=minitesla telegram page

— niyazi kabakçı (@KabakciNiyazi) January 24, 2022

Several Twitter users, including JaferiMo and KabakciNiyazi, accused the task of being a scam.

Moreover, portion it aims to look akin to the legit electrical conveyance manufacturer, determination are nary authoritative announcements from Tesla’s authoritative channels astir being affiliated with this project.

Jurassic Token

Many radical grew up and loved the Jurassic Park bid and the much caller Jurassic World movies. However, dinosaurs are not arsenic fantastic erstwhile utilized by unaffiliated teams pretending to beryllium a portion of the franchise to people speedy bucks.

With a website filled with dinosaurs and the aforesaid font arsenic the films, Jurassic Token tries to lure users into buying its autochthonal integer asset. However, similar with different projects wrong this list, there's nary denotation that the task has ties with the archetypal Jurassic Park and Jurassic World movie franchises.

MetaNFT Marketplace

The newly-launched MetaNFT Marketplace task caught the crypto community’s attraction by being featured connected CoinMarketCap’s biggest 24-hour gainers. Using an infinity-sign logo and a website that captures tech conglomerate Meta’s branding, the task markets itself arsenic a cross-chain NFT marketplace. However, isolated from not having an announcement from Meta’s authoritative platforms, it seems that immoderate users are not convinced with the project.

In a Reddit thread created by MetaNFT that argues however its level is “all astir security,” idiosyncratic Pronoobing thinks otherwise. 

Source: Reddit

Related: Hodlers beware! New malware targets MetaMask and 40 different crypto wallets

Animoca Brands Metaverse token

One of the astir important caller cases of utilizing salient brands to connection unaffiliated scam tokens was erstwhile an ERC-20 token called Animoca Brands Metaverse was registered, pretending to beryllium affiliated with the Hong Kong-based task capital.

However, the authoritative Animoca Brands steadfast responded swiftly and announced that they are not associated with the Ethereum token utilizing their marque name.

SCAM ALERT! ‼️‼️‼️It came to our attraction that determination is ongoing scam utilizing our name. We are not associated with this caller ERC-20 token “Animoca Brands Metaverse”.

More accusation at: https://t.co/mblbAMhSpm

— Animoca Brands (@animocabrands) February 17, 2022
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