Don't put money into what you don't understand

Part of the mission of this blog is to point out scams. Sometimes I suspect scams and don’t say enough. Here is another potentially dangerous site I am looking into. Buying mining somewhere else is a risky proposition, so be careful. The site does offer free mining, so maybe you can investigate it with me.

Here is an older story that I didn’t get around to publishing. ( Ref1, 2, 3)

What happened is this guy bought a ledger Nano, and included in the box was a piece of paper with additional setup instructions. This piece of paper was not from the manufacturer, it was included by the reseller. The buyer followed the directions which enabled the seller to steal all of the buyer’s Bitcoin.

Long story short, know what you are getting into. I don’t use a standalone hardware wallet, as it doesn’t solve one of the simplest problems with a physical wallet, it can get lost or stolen. Sure, you can save your key on a physical piece of paper, but if your home has a problem like a fire, this will not help you.

Here is another unrelated scam. Bitcoin is becoming mainstream enough that scams are also becoming more mainstream. Some of these scams are obvious even if the subject was USD rather than a cryptocurrency. For example, on reddit someone was claiming to host a giveaway where you give them .5 ltc and then they will give 10 ltc back to you. This scam is clear in USD as well. Some scams are more sophisticated. Like in the paragraph above. It's not obvious why using the private key contained in the Nano ledge box is a bad idea unless you are familiar with Cryptocurrency.

In short, don’t put money in things you don’t understand!