Common Scams & Red Flags
Phishing, fake support, rug pulls, and how to spot them.
Phishing and fake sites
The most common way people lose crypto isn't fancy hacking - it's being tricked into signing a transaction or entering a seed phrase on a fake site. Attackers clone real wallet and exchange pages, then drive traffic with ads, DMs, and lookalike URLs.
No legitimate service will ever ask for your seed phrase. Not support, not a giveaway, not an 'account verification'. Anyone who asks is trying to steal from you.
Remember
Rule zero: never type your seed phrase into any website or app that asks for it. Ever.
Malicious approvals
When you use a dApp, you often sign an approval letting a contract move certain tokens. Scam sites disguise a 'connect' or 'claim' button as an approval that grants access to everything in your wallet.
Read what you're signing. If a simple action asks for unlimited spending permission on your most valuable token, stop.
Rug pulls
In a rug pull, a token's creators hype it, attract deposits, then pull the liquidity and vanish - leaving holders unable to sell. Warning signs include anonymous teams with locked-away control, promises of guaranteed returns, and liquidity that isn't locked.
Extraordinary yields with no clear source of that yield are the loudest red flag of all.
Self-check
Check your understanding
Choose an answer for each question, then check the results and explanations.
Primary references
Documentation and standards
References added
Official technical references for further verification. A source link is not a guarantee that every earlier editorial sentence has been reverified; provider specifications may also change over time.
The curriculum predates this reference index. These sources are offered to check technical details; no original publication date has been inferred.
- ERC-20 token and allowance specificationEthereum Improvement ProposalsRead source ↗
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