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Do you know anyone who has gotten ‘rug-pulled’ this year?
Or perhaps received a gentle ‘soft-rug’?
Maybe someone you know has been trapped in a ‘honeypot’?
There is a high chance that you have in fact been misled, tricked, and conned into falling for one of them.
I will explain them all in one moment.
Rest assured however, as I write to you today, I am STUNNED!
Flabbergasted, incredulous and downright mad.
Why?
I cannot for the life of me understand the ridiculous and unnecessary risks young people today are taking investing in meme-coins.
Meme coins are cryptocurrencies that have gained popularity in a short amount of time, usually because of influencers and retail investors promoting them online.
Dogecoin is the original meme coin: It was created as a joke based on a meme back in 2013.
What are we doing here?
Today I learnt how so-called investors in these coins do their due diligence before placing their money into one.
If you want to know exactly how NOT to invest in these cryptos then you better read on.
There is nothing new under the sun.
People who spend most of their time in cryptos will be familiar with them.
To be ‘rug-pulled’ is to use a few keystrokes to pump and hype an apparent brand new crypto to the moon, before cashing out and leaving no trace.
No liquidity means no trading full stop.
A ‘soft rug’ is when a meme-coin creator says nothing and refuses to communicate with its community. They basically stop developing the coin and no longer promote it.
Whereas to be exposed to a ‘honeypot’ is to set up a so-called legitimate meme-coin and ask for investor backing but not allow them to easily take their money out again.
Sometimes you can get your money out much later, sometimes not at all.
The perfect example of a scam.
And things are now really starting to get out of hand.
And innocent people like you are getting ripped off with no legal help whatsoever to reclaim what is lost.
Here’s an example of what it is like.
Take (gulp) Safe Haven.
You have so-called developers key up basic code to create a meme-coin, then join Telegram, an instant messaging app like WhatsApp where you create your own Safe Haven boiler room.
This is where the true believers and developers plan out world domination via various GIFs and Emojis to each other, hyping it even more.
And then one day, the coin drops to zero, the developers have left, the Telegram Safe Haven page is closed, and your money is gone.
Awesome.
“Everybody I know has gotten rug-pulled,” says Titus, a 38-year-old butcher in Salem, Oregon. “You know, you win some, you lose some. Hopefully, win more than lose.”
That’s the spirit.
Get right back out there, Titus, and let someone do it to you all over again.
Guys, this is serious money being stolen now.
Billions of dollars are being lost every year. Everything that’s wrong with the financial systems is now being mirrored within this community too.
And now we see the mother of them all, a Ponzi scheme, rear its head recently in South Africa.
That resulted in $3.6 billion dollars’ worth of Bitcoin stolen.
Between 2019 and 2020, 7.3 million people fell victim to scams in this space. A 48% increase, or the entire population of Hong Kong.
In this financial world, take this as gospel; there is nothing new under the sun.
This is NOT how you determine risk.
Frankly, I’m not surprised at all.
Not when I learned how so-called investors do their due diligence on what meme-coin to invest in.
I appreciate that everyone must learn someplace. I too have made many grave and amateur mistakes in the past. Still do in fact.
But the definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result.
But I digress.
So, what’s the deal here, how are these people vetting which meme-coin to buy?
Here’s a rough breakdown.
One is the number of social media accounts a coin has (legit coins tend to have more than dodgy ones). Another is whether those accounts are public or private (public is safer than private): how much time those accounts spend chatting with investors (more is better than less).
And what’s happening in Telegram groups, known in meme-coin-speak as “shilling groups”. If the page doesn’t look professional, that’s apparently a bad sign.
If you like what you find, you hand over your money!
Flawless.
Or not.
It is clear to me that almost none of the above steps can truly be verified, it comes down to your experience with these things. And that’s now clearly not enough.
So far this year there has been 10,000 new coins minted.
Authorities mandated to keep some order over this space can hardly keep up.
Most individual scams are so small that the authorities don’t bat an eye.
Regulators around the world tend to prioritise cases involving lots of money, or violations that seem particularly egregious. Cases involving less than $US100,000 tend to get a pass, and buyers have little incentive to chase after fraudsters on their own.
This, folks, is precisely what you are up against before you even put a single dollar on the table.
You cannot ignore the sheer number of people getting hoodwinked. With a few outsize exceptions, most crypto scams seem to be getting smaller.
That’s the good news.
The bad news is that there are more of them, and more people are getting stung.
Between the last three months of 2020 and the first three months of 2021, the number of unique scams rose nearly 18 per cent, to 1335, according to Chainalysis.
Win some, lose some? Or just keep losing?
Make this your next investment.
It’s clear that normal folk who are simply trying to better themselves and their family financially are the ones who are getting the most hurt in this space.
And they are the ones who can least afford too as well.
And that’s the part that makes me the angriest.
If you are simply using play money and don’t really mind if your chosen meme-coin goes up or down, then enjoy yourself.
Unfortunately, the data is showing a different picture, with significant amounts instead being stolen.
So, I offer two suggestions for today.
Firstly, just don’t get involved.
I’ve rarely, if ever. in more than two decades trading and investing ever seen such enormous odds against you succeeding than in this area.
Secondly, if such facts engender a “bring it on” mentality instead then you need to spend the time and money to properly prepare yourself.
Learn the basics correctly, start small and develop the knowledge of your market to allow you to scale up over time.
You should start here with a membership to the Boom Bust Bulletin. Every month we discuss topics ranging from the history of the 18.6-year Real Estate Cycle, why it repeats and where and how to find the life changing opportunities that the cycle presents.
Future editions will cover the work of legendary Wall Street trader W.D Gann and his timeless work on stock markets. His ability to read the chart to determine the safe and profitable entry and exist of whatever it is you’re trading remains unmatched after 100 years.
I believe this would be of much more benefit for you than relying on social media posts.
And all for less than $4 a month.
Incredible value. Especially when set against how much money you could lose from dodgy investments that are popping up a lot more these days.
Don’t waste your time or money any longer.
Sign up now.
Best wishes,
Darren J Wilson
and your Property Sharemarket Economics Team
P.S – Find us on Twitter under the username @PropertySharem1
P.P.S – Go to our Facebook Page and follow us for right up to date information on the 18.6-year Real Estate Cycle.