Hello crypto world,

It still feels unreal to write something like this about myself. Usually I am on the other side, reading horror stories across reddit, twitter or medium about scams and losses in the crypto universe. Thinking to myself, how something like this could happen and wondering how you could possibly cope with a loss that substantial.

But here I am. Telling my own story about how I managed to cope with being scammed for a approximately USD 70 000 $ (that time). Maybe you were a victim of a scam yourself (there are a lot more out there than you would imagine), then I want to give you my tips, that helped me to better deal with it. Or you see this article as a lesson and a warning to better protect yourself and stop being so naïve.

But besides helping fellow victims and issuing a cautionary warning, this article is going to be about saying thank you to everyone out there, who helped me either by sending encouraging words or even some of your precious coins.
A big THANK YOU to the Zcoin community. You guys rock.

But let’s go back to the beginning. As you might or might not have read, I’ve lost all of my 1000 XZC to a scammer - six days, before Zcoin, one of the finest privacy coins out there, launched its version of masternodes, the so called Znodes. But how did the scammer do it? I got stuck when setting up my Znode and asked for help in the Zcoin Discord channel. A guy approached me and offered his help. The rest you can read on the official Zcoin blog: https://zcoin.io/avoiding-getting-scammed-setting-znodes/

You cannot imagine, how bad you feel, when you lose most of your savings in a matter of seconds. You cannot imagine, how stupid you feel, for being so naïve to trust some stranger on the internet “helping” you with your USD 70,000. Even typing this now makes me facepalm about myself.

At first, I did not want to believe, that this just really happened. Not to myself. Maybe this is just a bad dream? Unfortunately, no. When Reuben (Zcoin’s community manager) and Nicholas (one of Zcoin’s community elves) confirmed, that the guy used Zcoin’s ZeroMint-feature, which burns all coins and its history and creates new ones without any history, I started to realize that my coins are irrevocably gone. I suddenly started to sense a feeling I’ve never experienced before. Your heart starts pumping like crazy, at the same time something prevents your trachea from letting you inhale any air. You start to see flickering scenes from that discord conversation in front of your eyes.

He hacked my virtual private server. He hacked my mind by social engineering. He stole an incredible amount of money. Right from my home. You start to view your home and your computer as a scene of crime. You start questioning your exposure to crypto. Was it too much? Can I handle this loss?

How to deal with it

It was a combination of many things that helped me. Right after I’ve approached Reuben for checking if there’s any way to get back my funds (which there is not), he came up with the idea of using this case as a lesson for others and add a donation to it. I liked the idea, but was skeptical, if there really would be any people out there, helping a fellow crypto guy they’ve never heard of.

Support from Crypto community, especially the Zcoin community <3

As it turned out, my scepticism was wrong. There are quite a lot of people out there, that just want to help. Without getting anything back in exchange, aside from my more than sincere gratitude. To this day I have received ~49.5 XZC (worth some 0,33 BTC or $ 4000 USD). It might seem like a small amount compared to 1000 XZC. But I am more than aware, that nobody owes my anything and every $ I get is more than I could ask for. I want to send my love to reubenyap, MrMonotone, soraadonis, pgaucher1977, carterthomas, king_baby84, snguyen_ntu, kp, BluePhoenix, Koguma, jhm115, fugazi and johnsmith who all sent me some precious XZC. You guys are heroes! Thank you SO much! <3

I watched twitter and discord closely, but if you sent me some funds and I failed to mention you above, please get in touch with me. I am more than happy to add you. I also want to add Rebel Scum and jacobzuma, who both plan to send some XZC after their Znodes were live for a month. It is hard to put into words, what I feel about one of the main developers of ZCoin (who wants to be anonymous) and cryptothegreat, who both plan to donate a full month payment of their respective Znodes. You guys are incredible.

I was wondering why afore mentioned people were willing to donate to this cause, so I asked them. Some are just really nice people who felt bad for me and wanted to help. Others were thankful because my warning saved them from doing the same mistake I did. One guy talked to the same scammer, set everything up to the point where he had to send the coins. Then he had to go to a wedding. So that wedding and my warning just saved him a fortune.

Then there are quite a lot of people who were victims of scams in the past themselves. You would not believe how many well-known names in crypto got scammed. Reuben himself got scammed for some 40 BTC, one of their developers for around 10 BTC. Another guy lost 10k PivX to the same scammer that played me. A known YouTuber also got scammed in the past. Talking to people, who are miles ahead in the crypto universe, that got scammed as well, reduces the hate you put on yourself. A problem shared is a problem halved.

Do not trade for at least a week

If you experience something like I did, do not trade for at least seven days. Your portfolio will thank you. When you are scared your decision-making process will suffer. There is a high probability that you feel you must win back your loss. You will fail miserably in the short-term. I am not saying, that it is impossible in the long-term. But please don’t force it.

Yes, I know, a week in crypto feels like forever. But do yourself a favour and stick to this rule. Thank me later.

Have a life outside of crypto

Delete Blockfolio, CoinTracking or whatever app you use to track your crypto portfolio for a week. Hit the gym, go for a run or a hike, spend some quality time with your family. When was the last time you did that? Read a new book. No, I don’t mean Cryptoassets or that brand new trading book your best friend recommended. Read something completely different. Try a novel for example. For me this worked beautifully. A good novel will let you enter another world outside of crypto. Exactly what you need right now.

#1 Rule in Crypto: Safety First

Just in the last three months, the market cap of crypto went from around 170 billion to around to over 500 billion, with a peak of over 800 billion. Think about all the new money that is coming into this world with ETFs, futures, institutions on the one hand and millions of retail investors on the other hand. This combined with crappy exchanges, even worse wallets with no usability at all and the complexity of crypto in general makes it a dream for every hacker or scammer out there.

I use hardware wallets like Trezor and Ledger Nano S, I use a YubiKey to secure my login to my e-mail account, I use 2FA on every exchange and I never use any public WiFi to to anything crypto-related. My weakness was trusting some guy on Discord. Know your weakness and do something against it. Don’t postpone it. Just get that damn hardware wallet and remove your coins to it. Stop saving your exchange passwords digitally on your PC. Start using Two-Factor-Authentication. If you own any coins/tokens, that are not supported by hardware wallets, get yourself a cheap new notebook, install the respective wallets and unplug the notebook from the internet.
This is not kindergarten. There are a lot of tech-savvy people out there, that go all out to get access to your coins. Make it as hard for them as possible.

Do not trust anybody

Do not trust me, do not trust your favourite YouTuber (all the legit ones will say the same thing), do not trust that new hot ICO team and do not trust your new buddy on Slack, Discord or Telegram.
Do your homework. Before investing in any well-established coin or hot new ICO, deep dive into their respective Github, read the white paper, check their reddit, examine the team. One Zcoin developer told me he got scammed by a guy, that is now cofounder of a new ICO. A perfect example, that shows how important it is to do good due diligence. Read more about this story: https://steemit.com/scam/@aizensou/scam-alert-christian-josephs-socialx

Do not do anything that is above your understanding. In crypto, mistakes can be expensive. If you are not able to set up a node, read and learn how to do it. Don’t take the shortcut and let some stranger assist you. Do not have enough funds to own your own node? Beware of pooling with strangers. Just do that with people you trust 100%. If there is the slightest doubt, retract.

Feedback

If you feel that his blog article helped you in any way, I would be happy to read your feedback, get an upvote or a maybe even small donation :-) Thank you!

XZC:
aAYnnrP4chV9KyaFc88ME2dKSQyFfJq13p
or
aP6rKKwenzhEaRYeABiyt1tEFfFstGBpmy

(first one is mine, latter one is the one Reuben from Zcoin set up for donations; he sends the funds then to my XZC address)

BTC:
33QPhPhjnCZw6d8j8Qwpa7KoskJ4ceqot3

ETH:
0x27f22A992d06133FC1DeF66859128d6ad14c494b

Contact

You want to talk to me? Hit me up
Discord: magvie#8479