What NOT to do — the five scams that take everyone's Bitcoin

Almost everyone who loses Bitcoin loses it for one of the same five reasons. We're going to cover all five — and after this lesson, none of them will work on you.

One: the fake support agent.

You'll be in some online forum, asking a question about your wallet or your exchange. Sometimes you don't even ask — sometimes they just DM you. Someone will offer to help. They'll be friendly. They'll seem to know what they're doing. They'll ask you to share your seed phrase, or click a link, or run a "wallet recovery tool."

There is no legitimate version of this. Real customer support — from Coinbase, from BlueWallet, from anyone — will never ask for your seed phrase. Never. Ever. If anyone asks for your seed phrase for any reason, they are trying to steal from you. Block them and move on.

Two: the giveaway scam.

You'll see a tweet, or a YouTube video, that says "send 0.1 Bitcoin to this address and we'll send you 0.2 back." Sometimes it's promoted by an account that looks famous — Elon Musk, Michael Saylor, a fake exchange handle. It's always fake. Nobody — and I mean nobody — gives away Bitcoin to strangers. Bitcoin is one-way. Once you send it, it's gone. Anyone telling you to "send to receive more" is taking your Bitcoin and never sending anything back. Just close the tab.

Three: the cloned website.

Search results for "coinbase login" sometimes show an ad at the top that looks exactly like the real Coinbase site but is actually a phishing clone. You type your password. They take your password. Then they take your Bitcoin.

The fix is simple. Never use a search result to log into anything financial. Type the URL directly. Or bookmark the real site after you've verified it once, and use only the bookmark from then on.

Four: the airdrop / signing scam.

You'll see a notification — "you have a free airdrop waiting" or "claim your reward." You'll be asked to connect your wallet and "sign a transaction" to claim it. The signature you give them isn't claiming anything; it's authorizing your wallet to send Bitcoin to them. Don't sign transactions from random sources. Ever. The course wallet I recommend doesn't even support most of these "smart contracts," which is a feature, not a bug. Stick with the recommended setup.

Five: the photo of the seed phrase.

I'm going to say this one more time because it's the most common single mistake. Beginners write down their seed phrase, panic about losing the paper, and take a photo of it as a backup. The photo syncs to iCloud or Google Photos. The cloud account gets hacked. Or shared with a partner who later turns hostile. Or recovered after the person dies. The seed phrase leaks. The Bitcoin gets stolen.

Never. Photograph. Your. Seed. Phrase. Not even a "temporary" photo. Not "just for a second." Paper, only paper, only ever paper.

Two general rules that cover everything I just listed.

Rule one: if it sounds too good to be true in Bitcoin, it's a scam. There are no shortcuts, no free Bitcoin, no doubling schemes, no insider tips. The "boring" path — buy from a reputable exchange, move to your wallet, secure it with the 25th word — is the only one that works.

Rule two: slow down. Almost every Bitcoin theft happens when the victim is in a rush. They're trying to do something fast and they cut a corner. Take a breath. Read the address. Check the URL. Sleep on it if it feels off. Bitcoin transactions are irreversible — there is no "I'll fix it tomorrow." Whatever you do is permanent.

If you internalize this one lesson, the rest of the course pays for itself ten times over. You've now seen the playbook. None of these will work on you.

In the last lesson, we look at where to go from here.