My Sh*tcoin Experience: Lessons To Learn From

'In the bleak midwinter of 2021,' I came across a crypto coin available at a dirt-cheap price, courtesy of two crypto listing articles headlined Best AltCoin your money can buy or something closely. Like every other altcoin investor, inspired by several 'rags to riches through altcoin' articles and social posts, I was also hustled to find it on listing apps. Yes, the coin was there with links to its official page, Twitter handle, and official telegram community.

My scout for the treasure hunt

I didn't find any developer or management team details while navigating through its official site. So what? My eyes were stuck to its homepage claiming this BSC-based token would offer a plethora of airdrops just for buying and holding this precious gem. Moreover, it claimed to provide the tokens from projects with solid growth potential and top crypto project airdrops such as BTC/BNB/ETH and partner projects.

Gauging my sheer brilliance, my eyes started sparkling. I headed to its official Twitter page and found tens and hundreds of followers. I lauded myself for my analytical ability, navigated to its official Telegram community, and found thousands of active users preaching with their support and "to the moon" slogans.

I checked other sites, including BscScan, as every other shitcoin buyer would do. But unfortunately, I didn't understand that I was bewildered and driven by FOMO. So I hurried and exchanged a fair amount of my hard-earned money with the coins.

Now I started twiddling my thumbs to see the special airdrops on my wallet. Days passed, but nothing I received. I mentioned them in a tweet and immediately got surrounded by scammers offering a helping hand. I checked its Telegram community and found that many like me didn't receive any airdrop. I messaged and immediately got intimidated by an admin via direct message. He asked for my wallet address, and I directly sent it.

A few Minutes Later

The person said your wallet is supposed to get synced to receive the Airdrop and send an URL to do the job. So I checked with it and saw the site is prompting for my wallet seed phrase. The moment I became a little skeptical and messaged back to the support person, saying, "Hey, why the site is asking for my wallet seed phrase?" He said it's just a part of the process, and I have nothing to worry about. But for the first time, I started feeling dubious. Moments later, the admin messaged me, "Have you done it?" I said thanks for your support, but I don't need your airdrops in exchange for my seed phrase. He said, "Okay, no problem," and forwarded a PDF file with a message, "please follow the instructions written in the file, and you're all set." Again I asked why don't send an URL with the right set of instructions instead of a PDF? He replied that's the process, and you have to follow the same to receive airdrops.

The Stupified Me

I felt like I was scammed and thought about selling it and found the selling tax was almost 80%, meaning I would get less than 20% of my money back after swapping and paying smart chain fees. All I could do was see how other investors reacted to it and wish my assumptions were wrong.

Weeks later, the price tanked, and the coin value came to nothing. I headed to the Telegram community and found there was no airdrop after the third one. The admins pinned a message saying they encountered a major DDoS attack, but things will be fine soon. People raising questions are getting banned, and there was a pandemonium altogether.

Since the coin is worth less than 2% of my portfolio, I stopped following its activities for a couple of months until I saw the number of coins is there, but the value went missing. So I headed to the CMC app and found a red flashing banner "Kuber Finance (KFT) has migrated to a new contact address with the new ticket KFT. Please visit here," with a Twitter link heading to a month-old tweet for more information. The Telegram community and announcement channel evaporated. The Medium page has wiped everything except the first post, leaving only the site and Twitter page alive. The site mentions a new token contact, which I added to my wallet but no changes.

I started searching $KFT on Twitter and discovered that some other DeFi project dubbed Knit Finance has been using the same since November 2020. It has a bridge, staking, and liquidity pool and is available on Polygon and BSC. It has many partners and an authentic team active on Twitter and LinkedIn. So I got it. I could have searched it before purchasing and not after.

I learned an essential lesson about crypto trading, and I have no shame in sharing this, even if you tag me as an amateur. I learned from my mistakes and that I would pursue further. Here are the lessons I learned which might be beneficial for you too.

My Arudous Lessons

1. Avoid FOMO. Never invest in anything without DYOR. You should always look at whether the coin has a purpose or is it a hard fork of some other project.
2. Be sceptical about crypto communities with a massive presence. Crypto communities are almost synonymous with a multi-level marketing pyramid scheme. Trust on your own.
3. Don't fall blindly for a project prompting a blossoming future. Most of the time, it's a pure marketing gimmick. The statement is especially true for many web3 play-to-earn projects that would never ignite real gamers' interest. Many prevalent metaverse projects will sink to a crouch.
4. Investing in meme coins is equal to staking your money on casinos. It's only great for early bird investors and developers. Most such projects do have any long-term or any vision at all.
5. Trust on building a more expansive portfolio with a significant stake in stablecoins and projects with large market caps such as Bitcoin and Ethereum.
6. Most rug-pull projects will evaporate soon after the crypto regulation comes out.
7. Never write your seed phrase on your smartphone, iPad, or laptop.
8. Never trust any unacquainted person on Twitter, especially those who would approach you to help or teach you something via DM.
9. Never click on any links shared by forum members, even if it directs to a treasure hunt. Instead, you Google it and find it on your own.
10. Never open any PDF or other attachment files approaching to help you.
11. Never ever share your wallet seed phrase with any person or a site. Trezor hardware wallet user recently received a phishing message saying, "Trezor has experienced a security incident involving data belonging to 106.856 of our customers, […] If you're receiving this e-mail, it's because you've been affected by the breach. In order to protect your assets, please download the latest version of Trezor Suite and follow the instructions to set up a new PIN for your wallet." The Trezor official team immediately comes up with instructions to detect such scams.