If Bitcoin has a bad side, it is the aspect that seems to enable scams – tech savvy fraudsters know how to hide behind a wallet while the novices among them have false sense of security in its ‘anonymity’. 

Billions of dollars are lost to crypto scams annually. Even though experts say that there is no proof that other criminals such as terrorists have high affinity to crypto as a tool for terror financing, investors have continued to lose a lot of money to crypto-based frauds.

Tag A Bitcoin Wallet

BitcoinWhosWho is a service that enables users of Bitcoin to tag Bitcoin addresses they know. The essence of the platform is to create awareness among the Bitcoin users about these addresses in  bid to identify those that have been used for malicious purposes and those belonging to legitimate businesses.

In Q1 and Q2 of 2019, cybercrime against exchanges resulted in the loss of $356 million and $125 million respectively. CipherTrace anti-money laundering report shows that losses from crypto crimes for 2019 would be staggering.

This is disheartening for many with high expectations for the cryptocurrency industry. There is no doubt that the ease of participation by all manner of people is a contributory factor in the reluctance of institutional investors to give the digital assets ecosystem their full support. After all, they’re still accountable to their investors.

There have been several efforts by concerned members of the crypto community to stem the tide of scams but this doesn’t seem to be enough. Thousands of crypto scam sites are launched weekly literally overwhelming investigators.

Another Year of Exit Scams?

Even though CipherTrace claims that 2019 may be the year of exit scams, it is obvious that the firms focus is on notable scams such as Plus Token, the South Korea-based pyramid scheme that made away with $2.9 billion. There are many smaller heists that have defrauded many users that were not reported.

For instance, thousands of high yield investment sites are launched daily with some of the scammers known to operate more than 10 scam sites. There are also other types of scams such as phishing and other wallet-related scams.

Tagging of wallets associated with scams at BitcoinWhosWho and creating awareness about the service could be a step in the right direction. Developers and the community have their duties in the fight against scams.

According to the site,

“Bitcoin Who’s Who has been helping users identify scam addresses for years. But what about legitimate addresses? Now you can tag any address, good or bad, and view tags submitted by other users.”