The United States’ Federal Trade Commission (FTC) will host a workshop on Cryptocurrency Scams later this year. In an announcement made on Monday, the agency said that through the Workshop tagged “Decrypting Cryptocurrency Scams” it will educate consumers about cryptocurrencies and the scams associated with it.
According to its press release, the event hopes to bring together consumer groups, law enforcement, research organizations, and the private sector and will “explore how scammers are exploiting public interest in cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Litecoin and to discuss ways to empower and protect consumers.”
The Workshop which will hold on the 25th of June at DePaul University in Chicago is free and open to the general public.
The Need for Cryptocurrency Awareness
While bitcoin and cryptocurrencies have rapidly grown in popularity, a lot of people don’t have in-depth knowledge about cryptos and can easily fall prey to cryptocurrency scams. FTC sees the cryptocurrency education event as part of its duties to consumers. “The FTC has continued its efforts to educate consumers about cryptocurrencies and hold fraudsters accountable,” the statement read.
The agency also acknowledged the prevalence of cryptocurrency scams and listed some to include “deceptive investment and business opportunities, bait-and-switch schemes, and deceptively marketed mining machines.”
Tackling the Problem of cryptocurrency Scams
Several efforts have been made to stem the tide of these cryptocurrency frauds ranging from awareness campaigns, government policies, and prosecution. In one of such scams which riddled the twitter cryptocurrency community, fake twitter profiles of notable persons are used to solicit for small donations of ETH or BTC in exchange for large deposits. Ethereum founder, Vitalik Buterin who is constantly impersonated in these scams eventually changed his twitter account name to include “Not giving away ETH” in a bid to detract impersonators.
Big internet companies like Facebook, Google, Twitter, Mail Chimp, and Taobao have banned cryptocurrency ads altogether citing deception and scams as the reason for the bans.
FTC has also contributed to the fight against the scams. Last month, FTC obtained a restraining order against some Florida-based investment groups who were allegedly promoting cryptocurrency-related scams.
Solomon Sunny is the market reporter for Smartereum, one of the global leaders in Ethereum, blockchain and currency news. He produces technical price updates on digital currencies and writes recent developments about blockchain.
