How I Almost Lost Thousands in Crypto at 3:04 am

It was 3:04 am, my daughter came into my bedroom complaining that her throat was itching. “Did you take your allergy medicine yesterday?” my wife asked. “No. I forgot,” my miserable child responded. “Go take some Benadryl,” my wife told her. “I don’t know where it is,” my little angel responded. That’s when my super-daddy instincts kicked in.

I sprung out of bed to help search for allergy medicine and be the household hero restoring sleep to everybody. But, of course, the medicine wasn’t in the first place I looked. And it wasn’t in the second or the third, either. So finally, after cursing at the gods, I found the medicine in the fourth spot, gave it to my daughter, and walked her back to bed.

Now, I was awake. And, as a fan of inflicting mental pain and anguish on myself, I lit up my phone—bad idea. First, I checked my cryptos and wasn’t surprised everything was still down. Then, I headed over to Discord to see if I got a response to a message I had written the previous night.

Why I was seeking help on Discord

I had a newer project I am providing liquidity on. Last night, my LPs weren’t showing up on the platform, and I went into the Discord to ask for help. There weren’t any Devs on when I wrote the message, but I noticed a thread under the general chat thread titled “support.” There was a message there.

The message came from (who I believed was) the lead dev. I won’t include the screenshots here because I don’t want to dox the project or myself on Discord. I prefer using an anonymous name there. But I will share pieces of the conversation here.

(Supposed) Lead Dev: “Hey man. How may I help you?”

Me: “I had two LPs and they stopped showing up when I clicked the farms button on the platform. They were showing up fine until today.”

(Supposed) Lead Dev: “Sorry for the inconvenience that might have caused. Kindly provide your wallet address? I’ll look into it.”

A little background is necessary. I have spoken with this dev before about a separate issue. He was extremely helpful and patient and helped me get the issue resolved. The profile I saw this morning on Discord was identical to the profile I had chatted with in the past. And, since I was responding to a thread within the Discord page and not a random DM, I believed I was chatting with the lead Dev.

How Things Went South

At this point, I had no reason to think I wasn’t speaking with the lead dev. So I shared my public wallet address, and a few minutes later, I received the response.

(Supposed) Lead Dev: “Hold on. From my observation it appears that your LPs are stuck on the pool because your wallet has lost integration to (platform name) due to an API key error. You will need to manually restore integration to remove the error.”

This statement reads like calculus to me. API key error? Manually restore integration? This is out of my wheelhouse. So I replied:

Me: “Any suggestions on how to do this?”

(Supposed) Lead Dev: “I’ll provide you with a guide. Go to (I will not put the website here because it’s a scam site). Click on staking issue. Click on your wallet type. Fill in with your wallet details then click on import. You’d get a confirmation message at the end of this process. Get back to me once this process is complete.”

I read the message, clicked the link, and selected my wallet type. The page looked like this:

So this site wanted me to enter my seed phrase or private key. Remember in kindergarten when we learn to “stop, drop, and roll” if we catch on fire? Everyone in crypto needs similar training when we see a platform or person asking for a seed phrase or private key.

I knew something didn’t smell right. It was 3:30 am, and my brain wasn’t functioning correctly, but I was confused. This is the dev I spoke with a few days ago, in the official Discord, in a support thread.

I Decided to Continue Down the Rabbit Hole

At this point, my security antennas went up.

Me: “Why do I have to put in my seed phrase.”

(Supposed) Lead Dev: “This is a wallet connect server interface. It’s a end to end encrypted with no human interface and also run a background check on your transaction pathway to clear the error. As an admin of the group I won’t provide you with an unsafe option.”

Me: “I don’t understand why I have to do this when my LPs were showing up fine yesterday.”

(Supposed) Lead Dev: “The error occurred after your last interaction with (platform name).”

Me: “I never did anything but check to see the rewards. It’s odd that I’ve never run into this after tens of thousands of transactions. Is there any other way to access my assets? None of the social links (on the scam site) work. This is making me nervous.”

By this time, I was pretty confident this was a scammer. But remember, it’s 3:30 am, and I’m clicking into a thread on an official Discord and speaking with someone who appears to be a person I’ve interacted with before.

The Scammer brings in his alternate personality to try to steal my funds

At this point, the scammer needs backup, so he calls in his alternate digital personality to try and get my info. Now, the marketing team lead gets in the chat. Like the (supposed) lead dev, the (supposed) marketing team lead has an identical profile to the real marketing team lead.

(Supposed) Team Lead: “Hey Scott. I see that the (Lead Dev’s name) is helping you.”

Everything should be fine now I guess?”

(Supposed) Lead Dev: “The integration link is a backend website created by (platform name) devs for clearing API errors that’s why it’s separate from the front end UI and doesn’t support deep links yet. I wouldn’t provide an unsafe solution as mod of (platform).”

Me: “Have we chatted before?”

(Supposed) Team Lead: “Yes”

Me: “Do you have any of the conversation we discussed?”

(Supposed) Team Lead: “I think you sent me a dm.”

Me: “Do you have a screenshot of the DM?”

At this point, I 100% knew it was a scammer. I clicked on their profile and realized I had never had a conversation with either of these people before. The scammer wasn’t able to provide a screenshot. Finally, I asked them to put a message in the main chat. After that, the conversation and thread completely disappeared.

Why I’m Sharing This

This scenario plays out hundreds of times daily. And if the scammer can get one seed phrase or private key, they will continue doing this. It’s extremely easy money for them, and they probably have some false narrative in their mind they deserve your crypto assets.

Here are some takeaways I’d love you to gain from reading this story.

• Scammers are smart. They impersonate, use language ordinary people don’t understand, and come off as friendly and helpful to gain trust and credibility.

• Never share your seed phrase or private key! There is never a good reason to share your seed phrase or private key with anyone or any website. As brilliant of a reason someone gives, please don’t do it. Once it’s done, it can’t be undone, and your assets are gone.

• Scammers are everywhere. Scammers have successfully scammed me on Telegram and Medium. They are also on Discord and Twitter. As much as it sucks to write this, assume strangers in crypto are looking to rob you.

• When in doubt, exit the conversation. After the person sent me a link for my seed phrase, I should have left the conversation. Instead, I gave them room to build my trust, and there was a symbolic blaring warning horn going off when I saw the platform wanted my seed phrase. I could have saved myself time by just exiting the conversation.

The crypto market is tough right now. You have memecoin developers tempting you into get-rich-quick pumps and dumps. Liquidity is being drawn out by the “influencers” and dev teams pumping these projects. The US government is on a war against crypto which looks to be about as successful as their war on drugs. And governments around the world are trying to reign inflation in by pulling out the money they just printed a couple of years ago.

However, all these problems are multiplied if you don’t have any crypto assets left. And these scammers will take every last coin from you without remorse. So, please focus on the long-term, try not to get seduced into gambling too much on these volatile memecoins, and stay vigilant against scammers wherever you run into them.

Also, if you have anything to share, please do so in the comments or response section.

^{This information should not be taken as investment advice. Digital assets like crypto and NFTs involve risk, so you should always perform due diligence before investing. Furthermore, this article is my opinion; I am not a financial advisor.}