How to spot and avoid crypto scams
Seven things to check before you trust a crypto platform with money: the contract, the supply, the team, the wallet model, and what the chain already says about all four.
What does a crypto scam usually look like?
Crypto scams repeat themselves. The same four signals turn up again and again: a guaranteed return, a contract nobody can read, a team nobody can name, and a balance nobody can verify outside the platform's own screen. Each one is checkable in a few minutes, before any money moves.
The checks below are ordered the way you would actually do them, from the claim on the landing page to the address in your own account. Everything they ask for is public. A platform that makes any of them hard to run has answered the question by making it hard.
Why is a guaranteed return the first thing to check?
A fixed profit is the one promise crypto cannot keep. Prices move, and emission schedules are set by contract parameters that an owner transaction can change. "Put in US$100, take out US$500 in 30 days" describes a payout funded by the next deposit, and that model ends the month the deposits slow down.
What an honest platform publishes instead is the mechanism. On Inkryptus, staking rewards come from a programmed on-chain emission of up to 10,000 INKY a day across the common pools, split in proportion to what each participant holds, with a separate ceiling of up to 10,000 INKY for the Arena Staking Pool. The APR shown in the app follows from that emission and from how many people are in the pool, so it moves. Saying so is the accurate description of the mechanism, and it is what a guarantee replaces.
How do I verify a project's smart contracts?
Open the contract on a block explorer. On BNB Smart Chain that is BscScan, and three things there answer most of the question:
"Contract source code verified". This label means the published code matches the deployed bytecode, so the rules you read are the rules that run: the supply cap, the emission, the fee, and who is allowed to change any of them.
A cap on supply. Check maxSupply against what the website claims. An uncapped supply with no emission control means new tokens can appear at any rate the owner chooses.
A real transaction history. An active contract shows continuous on-chain activity. A contract with a handful of transactions and a marketing site with thousands of users is describing two different projects.
Every Inkryptus contract is public on BNB Smart Chain, including the INKY Token, the staking pool and the emission controller. How to verify a crypto project walks through reading one function by function.
How do I check the team behind a project?
Look for names that carry a history: real people, verifiable industry background, public appearances, and profiles with years of activity rather than months. Anonymity on its own is common in crypto and is not proof of anything. Anonymity next to a guaranteed return and an unverified contract is a pattern.
Inkryptus was founded by Pierre Perreira and Lucas Marcelino, both with more than a decade in the crypto market, and the team is listed at Team. The platform has attended industry events including CryptoExpoDubai 2025 and opened a physical office in Africa in April 2025.
What should I check about a platform's wallet model?
Three questions, and the third is the one that matters:
- Does the platform give you your own address on the blockchain?
- Can you read your balance on a block explorer without opening the app?
- Who holds the keys, and can any single party move funds alone?
If every user's funds sit in one pooled wallet with no individual address, your balance exists only in the platform's database. You are trusting a number on a screen, and there is nothing to check it against.
On Inkryptus, every account gets its own address on BNB Smart Chain, generated when the account is created. Keys are held in a multisig structure, so no single party can move funds alone, and your balance and full history are readable on BscScan at any time, with the app closed. How Inkryptus manages your crypto wallet explains the model in full.
What is the full checklist before I send money?
| Question | Where to check it | What a bad answer looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Does it guarantee a return? | The stated APR policy | Any "guaranteed" or "fixed" figure |
| Are the contracts verified? | The contract address on BscScan | Unverified source, or no address published |
| Can you name the team? | Founder names, industry history, public events | Anonymous with nothing to check |
| Do you get your own address? | Your wallet screen, then the explorer | Pooled funds, no individual address |
| Are there independent reviews? | App stores, Trustpilot, forums | Testimonials only on the project's own site |
| Is there a working product? | Download the app and use it | A roadmap with nothing shipped |
| Does it pay for recruitment? | The referral or partner terms | Rewards tied to recruiting rather than to the product |
Run all seven. Any single answer can have an innocent explanation; four of them together rarely do.
What separates a legitimate platform from a scam?
Both carry risk. Prices fall, tokens lose value, staking rewards move with the emission and with the size of the pool, and code can have bugs. Those risks are real on every platform, this one included, and a page that told you otherwise would be failing the first check on this list.
What separates them is what you can check yourself. A real project publishes the code, states the risks plainly, and leaves every contract and balance verifiable on-chain, so nothing rests on trusting its internal records. Every claim on this page is one you can confirm on a block explorer without asking us.
Keep learning
How to verify a crypto project | How to evaluate a crypto platform | How to verify your transactions on BscScan | What is a smart contract
Crypto asset investments involve risks, including price volatility and risk of partial or total loss of the invested amount. Digital tokens are not legal tender. This content is informational and does not constitute investment advice.