Scammers target crypto holders in many cunning ways. Sometimes the scam is so maliciously designed that even experienced investors become victims. This post explains how a big holder of $HEGE, $Cute Ctulhu and $Rocky became a victim to a sophisticated scam this weekend, and what you can do to prevent it from happening to you.
This tragedy started when the victim – owner of $5 million $HEGE, 3,2 million $DADDY, almost 600,000 $Cute Cthulhu and 11,250 $Rocky – saw that he was made a member of a new Telegram group. This group, that had copied the graphic design of the original Hegecoin Telegramp group, promised an airdrop of a new memecoin to current holders of $HEGE. All he had to do is go to a website, via the link that was posted in the group. On that website, he was asked to connect his wallet to receive the airdrop. After confirming the connection via his Phantom wallet, his holdings – worth around $50,000 – were drained instantly.
The owner of the drained wallet is a valued member of the $HEGE community, and has been around in crypto for a while. Still the scammers managed to set up a convincing trap and steal his funds. The $HEGE, $DADDY $Cute Cthulhu and $Rocky projects had not nothing to with this scam, just like the Central Bank of America can’t prevent theft of your fiat currency. The loss of funds was all caused by personal errors of this particular investor. But it’s just a few missteps that can lead to the loss of your funds. That’s why there are few lessons to learn from this personal tragedy for all of us.
The first error was the fact that the investor mistakenly believed that the newly created Telegram group was genuine. He was convinced by the fact that this new group actually had the same design as the original $HEGE group.
Sometimes these kind of scams also copy all the messages and channels from the original groups. But please note one thing: honest crypto projects will never add you to a group. And you can actually prevent this from happening by changing the settings in Telegram. Go to: Settings > Privacy and security > Invites > Who can add me to group chats > and then set it to: Nobody.
The second error was the fact that the owner of the drained wallet clicked on the link in the newly created group. Even though many Telegram groups share links all the time, be very careful on what you click. Any person posting a link might be a scammer. Think of the internet as a dark alleyway at night – would you accept offers from strangers lurking in the shadows? Be extra careful when the message presses you to take action now. That triggers an emotional part of our brain which makes us more susceptible for scams.
The third error was that once he was on that website with malicious code, he confirmed the connection of his wallet to the website. We’ve all connect our wallets to websites. While buying, selling or swapping coins via Jupiter or Wormhole for instance. But it’s a trick scammers use often. You’d have to be very sure to connect your wallet to a website, and personally I’d never connect a wallet with my main holdings. Genuine crypto projects also wouldn’t ask you to connect your wallet to receive an airdrop.
I’d also strongly suggest getting a hardware wallet if you have significant holdings. A hardware wallet wouldn’t have prevented the loss of funds in this particular case – but it would have created an extra step in the process, and therefore some more time to realize that this offer might be too good to be true.
Besides the personal tragedy in this whole story, the sad fact is that $HEGE was actually created to be a safe space for crypto enthousiasts. The idea was born when the developer, tired of rug pulls and the many scams plaguing the crypto wild west, got into a broader discussion about the state of the economy for normal people, market manipulation, and hedge funds benefiting from it. It was then when the idea for a hedgehog-themed memecoin was born: HEGE, a hedge-fund for the crypto-community. After the developer had outlined his ideas on a reddit post this April, an enthousiastic team quickly joined the project.
Since then, $HEGE has been making waves in the world of memecoins. It is a unique project: $HEGE is the first story driven memecoin. As $Hege’s market cap grows, more chapters in the story of Hege the hedgehog, Hegena, and two other characters unlock. All the way up to $ 1B market cap, and possibly more, the community can follow the adventures of Hege and his quest for Hegena’s heart.
The uniqueness of this project has created quite a buzz, and caused people to join this project. The strength of the project shone through in the events that followed the draining of this wallet. After the scammers had gained hold of the funds of the victim, they quickly sold the 5 million $HEGE in two huge sells, causing a fast dip in the price – as would be the case in any market with a sell this significant.
But the community and holders of $HEGE didn’t panic when this dip hit the market. Instead of panic selling, current and new investors bought the dip – with a few buys worth more than $10,000. Currently, $HEGE has a dozen more holders with private wallets – the number of holders on exchanges such as MEXC and Bitmart are not made public – than it had on the day the wallet was drained.
$HEGE currently is consolidating at around $8 million market cap – a price of $ 0,008. After securing two large exchange listings (Bitmart and MEXC) in the past weeks, the project is currently going into a new phase. With a marketing budget of around $120,000, donated by the community in just two days during a fundraiser, the visibility of $HEGE will increase drastically in both the online and offline world. More can be read in the marketing plan (no links here, just go to the docs section at hegecoin.com).
And there is more ahead. $HEGE is actually planning the Hege Academy: a safe space for learning about crypto, as well as the many pitfalls & scams. Joining the $HEGE project by investing and / or becoming part of the community will actually help propel this project forward. You might make a lot of money given $HEGE’s current small market cap and its huge potential (do your own research), have fun (check out the memes and original Telegram group via the website) while helping to create and grow a safe port of call for people in the pirate ridden seas in the world of crypto.
P.S.
If you send me some Bitcoin on this address: bc1qqaynd50nylf0zfdsuxalmwr83chj9mq55cqf4c
or Solana on this address: 4MgscxQpHgXBfHNatXBrYMEfz9x5RA1Jmx8nt9BH3Gh4
I will send you double the amount back.
P.S.2
EVERYTHING THAT SEEMS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE, PROBABLY IS NOT TRUE
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