The wave of cryptocurrencies is sweeping across the globe, but the undercurrents of Ponzi schemes disguised as "blockchain" are devouring investors’ assets. Monitoring in the first quarter of 2025 shows that 86% of new financial fraud platforms are packaged with the concept of virtual currency, and the "pig butchering" scam alone has caused over $3.6 billion in global losses. The core weapon of these scams is a meticulously designed script system.
Analysis of Core Phrases in Ponzi Schemes
High Yield Commitment Phrases
- "Daily fixed appreciation, studio manager performance bonus salary over ten thousand", "100 days 6.5 times return" (annualized 2365%) are typical bait. These phrases exploit human greed, promising unreasonable risk-free returns, deliberately ignoring market volatility and investment risks.
- The truth behind: Such profit models severely violate economic laws, essentially being a Ponzi structure—using the principal of new investors to pay the "returns" of early users, and once the influx of new funds slows down or stops, the scheme collapses immediately.
Impersonating Authority Endorsement Scripts
- Impersonating official personnel: "Account migration is required due to platform upgrades", "Risk control requires withdrawal to a secure wallet", inducing users to transfer funds or disclose private keys.
- Forging government/business projects: Using names like "National Energy Group", "State Council PPP Center", forging official documents and equity certificates, fabricating projects like "National Infrastructure Financial Management", "Ethnic Asset Unfreezing", demanding payment in USDT.
- False technical packaging: Claiming "deep cooperation with Binance Smart Chain", "smart contract ensures security", while the actual contracts contain backdoors, allowing arbitrary freezing of user assets or minting additional tokens (such as the Crypto Bull project).
Emotional Induction and Community Manipulation Language (Pig Butchering)
- Establishing Persona: Scammers create the image of an "elite investor" or "thoughtful partner" on social platforms, claiming to have "insider information on Wall Street" or that "Uncle is a financial PhD," using the halo effect to gain trust.
- Emotional Dependency: They establish emotional reliance through daily care (like teaching how to hail a cab or order takeout) and even by giving gifts, painting a shared future (such as "buying a house by the sea").
- Inducing Investment: They guide individuals to false exchanges (like the "Myth Coin" platform) under the pretense of "accumulating wealth for the children’s future" or "making money to reduce stress," initially allowing small withdrawals to build trust, and later using excuses like "insufficient trading volume" or "need to pay a security deposit" to prevent large withdrawals.
MLM Recruitment Scripts
- "Directly recruiting 1 person increases earnings by 30%", "Establish a team of 10 people to receive management awards", "Lead the team with love and gratitude to achieve a shared economy". These scripts emphasize team compensation and hierarchical rewards, which are essentially pyramid schemes.
- Projects like "Li Certain World" and "ArtGee" require the purchase of platform tokens/points, and earnings are strictly linked to the number of recruits and their levels, which meets the legal definition of "team compensation" in the "Prohibition of Pyramid Selling Regulations".
Four-Step Defense Strategy: Stay Away from Ponzi Schemes
Break the Myth of High Returns and Adhere to the Rational Bottom Line
Maintain a high level of vigilance towards any project with daily returns exceeding 1%. Remember: high returns are inevitably accompanied by high risks; "guaranteed profit" and "principal protection with high interest" are bound to be scams. Learn to calculate the real annualized return rate and see through the rhetoric disguising "short-term windfalls."
Strictly verify the information sources and platform qualifications
- Check the official website/filing: Verify the APP/website qualifications through the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology ICP filing system, and be cautious of platforms with servers located abroad (such as Southeast Asia).
- Identify official authenticity: Any "customer service" that asks for your mnemonic phrase, private key, or requests to "migrate accounts" should be regarded as a scam. The official will never ask for this information via Telegram/text message.
- Background of the project: Use Etherscan/Solscan to check the contract address, read third-party security audit reports (such as CertiK). Be wary of "three no" air coins projects that lack clear team information, have no open-source code, and no practical use cases.
Strengthen Fund and Account Security
- Use Hardware Wallets: Such as Ledger, Trezor, to store core assets offline and isolate from network attacks.
- Enable Two-Factor Authentication (2FA): Instead of SMS verification, use authentication apps like Google Authenticator.
- Never Share Keys: Mnemonic phrases, private keys are equivalent to the keys of a safe, and should never be disclosed to others or websites under any circumstances.
Beware of Emotional Manipulation and Community Brainwashing
- Offline Identity Verification: For online "friends" or "mentors", confirm their real identity as soon as possible through video calls or in-person meetings to avoid falling into long-term emotional scams.
- Ignore "showing off profits" in the group: 80% of members in scam groups may be bots or paid promoters, specifically praising projects and fabricating profit screenshots.
- Actively Question the Language: When the other party mentions "referring others for commissions", "insider information", or "the police will hinder your wealth", immediately terminate contact and report.
Conclusion
The world of cryptocurrency is full of opportunities, but Ponzi schemes are like a festering sore. The essence of their rhetoric is to exploit human weaknesses—greed, gullibility, and the fear of missing out. The core of defense lies in adhering to common sense: there is no free lunch in the world, and there is certainly no magic that turns stone into gold. Only by maintaining technical vigilance (checking contracts, using hardware wallets), exercising caution (not clicking unknown links, not leaking keys), and being rational about profits (being wary of interest rates over 1% per day), can one protect asset security in the waves of cryptocurrency.
