Two Ways to Avoid Getting Scammed in 2025

In late November 2024, a 13-year-old kid launched a crypto token on the pump.fun platform on the Solana blockchain.

The token, ‘Gen Z Quant’ pumped in price and then the kid ‘rug pulled’ everyone. Rug pulling means that because he owned such a large quantity of the token, he mass sold everything, crashing the price and making off with the profits.

From a few hundred dollars he started it with, his scam netted him around $30,000 in scammed profits.[1] 

Being a 13-year-old, he streamed the whole thing on pump.fun and flipped ‘the bird’ to everyone watching as he scammed them. Afterwards, as this is the internet, revenge ensued. His name, family address, his school were all soon made public.

His mum was abusively trolled on Instagram and even a rumoured dog napping took place. Two lessons from this.

1) Don’t launch an intentional scam rug-pull token and rip people off.

2) Don’t invest in pump.fun tokens thinking you’ll make a fortune; you’ll get ‘rugged’ by a 13-year-old.

In the (still) wild world of crypto the promise of fast fortunes in the memecoin and altcoin market are tempting. Reality is you’re most likely going to get scammed, ripped off and lose all your money.

So, while it might be tempting to roll the dice on platforms like pump.fun and invest in tokens like Unicorn Fart Dust, First Convicted RACCOON, Hasbulla’s Cat and dog with apple in mouth (these are all real tokens by the way) you’re more likely to lose everything than win anything.

Many of these things are launched with the sole intention to ‘rug’ people and make off with scammed cash.

To avoid getting scammed and losing a heap of cash in crypto in 2025, the first rule is don’t invest in random Solana memecoins on pump.fun.

Seems Like Common Sense (I Hope)

The avoidance of getting ‘rugged’ in garbage altcoins is self-explanatory. With a bit of self-control, and common sense, it’s easy to avoid that scam.

But as this is the crypto markets, the rug-pull is not the only way you can get scammed. To avoid some of the other more complex ways, let’s look at a recent example I faced on Christmas Eve.

Here’s the email:

I know this is a scam for a few reasons. The first, was the headline, “Urgent: Risk of Funds Being Frozen”.

Ledger make the popular crypto hardware wallet, a device to store your crypto. But if you know how they work, then you’d know Ledger can’t freeze your funds. So, the email is a lie.

The other thing is the email address. It says Ledger, but the address is ‘[email protected].’ That’s not Ledger’s official email.

Right away I know if I click any link in this email, I’m a very large step closer to getting scammed.

If you ever get an email like this, delete it. Ledger simply won’t ever ask you for this kind of info, anything that does, is a scam.

Two more scams for good measure

There are variations of this too, that look like they come from other crypto companies, like Coinbase (the huge crypto exchange) or Opensea (the NFT marketplace).

I’ve added two examples of attempted scams below. These are not from Coinbase or Opensea, they are phishing attempts and scams designed to rip people off.

Same kind of scam set up with both. Both trying to get me to click the link, but both also with email addresses that are clearly not from Opensea or Coinbase.

Anytime you get any email like these delete it. One of the most common ways scammers get access to crypto is because someone falls to a phishing email just like these. They are scarily successful.

But with some common sense, and a careful eye, and knowing how to operate in crypto carefully and safely, you’ll go a long way to avoid getting scammed in 2025.

Trust in crypto,
Adam Atlantic

 [1] https://crypto.news/crypto-traders-doxx-13-year-old-boy-who-rugged-a-pump-fun-token/