When you hear about a new crypto project promising 10x returns with no effort, that’s usually a crypto scam, a deceptive scheme designed to steal your funds by pretending to be a legitimate investment. Also known as crypto fraud, these scams thrive on hype, urgency, and fake social proof—especially in areas like airdrops, decentralized exchanges, and meme coins. They don’t need to be complex. Often, they’re just a website with a slick logo, a whitepaper full of buzzwords, and a team that doesn’t exist.
Look at real cases: C2CX, a fake crypto exchange that never existed, used cloned interfaces to trick users into depositing funds. Or Lucent, another non-existent exchange that disappeared after collecting deposits. These aren’t outliers—they’re standard operating procedure. Even crypto airdrop scams, where you’re asked to connect your wallet to claim free tokens, are designed to drain your account the moment you sign a transaction. The most dangerous ones? Projects like NODEMETA and FRED—coins with zero trading volume, no real network, and teams that vanish after launch. These are rug pulls, where developers pull the plug and run with your money.
It’s not just about avoiding fake platforms. It’s about recognizing the red flags: no verifiable team, no real use case, no liquidity on major DEXs, and promises that sound too good to be true. If a project claims you can earn passive income just by holding a token with no history, it’s likely a scam. If you’re asked to pay gas fees to claim airdrops, it’s a scam. If the website looks like it was built in 2017 and the Twitter account has 500 followers with 400 bots, it’s a scam. The people behind these projects aren’t geniuses—they’re opportunists who count on your excitement to override your caution.
What you’ll find below are real breakdowns of scams that fooled people, the platforms that vanished overnight, and the tokens that had no future from day one. These aren’t theoretical warnings—they’re case studies from real losses. You’ll see how Bolivia’s early crypto ban didn’t stop fraud, how Iran’s sanctions-driven crypto use got hacked for $90 million, and how meme coins like Hachiko and Vortex survive only because people keep buying them out of hope. This isn’t about fear. It’s about awareness. By the end of this collection, you won’t just know what a crypto scam looks like—you’ll know how to walk past it without looking back.
Tranquil Finance is not a legitimate crypto exchange in 2025. No reputable reviews, audits, or user reports exist. It shows all signs of a scam. Avoid it and use trusted platforms like Binance, Kraken, or Coinbase instead.