What is Common Bitcoin scams?
Recurring fraud patterns: fake giveaways, impersonated support, romance-investment schemes, fake exchanges and pre-seeded hardware wallets.
The shapes repeat: a giveaway that requires a deposit first; a person who builds rapport for weeks before an opportunity appears; a platform showing rising profits that cannot be withdrawn without a fee; a hardware wallet from a marketplace reseller with a "pre-configured" phrase.
Because Bitcoin transactions are irreversible, prevention is the only defence. The recurring red flags are urgency, guaranteed returns, and any request involving your seed phrase.
Related terms
Phishing
Tricking someone into revealing secrets or authorising a transfer by impersonating a service they trust.
Security & scamsSocial engineering
Manipulating a person rather than attacking a system — the most effective attack vector in Bitcoin by a wide…
Keys & custodySeed phrase
Twelve or twenty-four words from which every key in a wallet is derived. Anyone with the words has the coins.
Keys & custodyHardware wallet
A dedicated device that stores private keys and signs transactions without exposing the keys to an…
This definition is part of the Bitcoin Logical glossary. For the fuller explanation, start with Learn, or see the live numbers on The Bitcoin Signal.