Analysis topic
Photo: Sasun Bughdaryan / UnsplashSecurity and scams
These pieces cover how crypto scams work, from fake support calls and wallet drainers to pig butchering and bitcoin ATM fraud, using FBI figures and the companies' own warnings.
They also cover hardware and self-custody wallet safety. What to do after a loss is on the scam recovery page.
Every figure in these pieces traces to a document named at the foot of the page it appears on. Nothing here is a recommendation to gamble.
17 pieces, newest first
· 6 minHow do bitcoin ATMs work? Fees, state caps and the scam numbers from the FBI and FTCA bitcoin ATM sells bitcoin for cash and sends it to a wallet address the customer supplies. CoinFlip's terms price purchases at a 21.90% transaction fee. The FBI's IC3 recorded 13,460 complaints and $389 million in losses tied to crypto ATMs in 2025, and California caps kiosk fees at the greater of $5 or 15%. · 6 minCoinbase scams: how the impersonation calls work, and what Coinbase says it will never askMost Coinbase scams are impersonation: a caller or text posing as Coinbase support pushes the customer to move coins to a "safe" wallet. Coinbase's help centre lists what its staff never ask for. In May 2025 Coinbase disclosed that bribed support contractors had taken customer data, including government ID images, for under 1% of monthly transacting users, which gave scammers real details to quote. · 6 minCoinbase vs Gemini: licences, fees, custody and the Earn collapse, from the documentsBoth hold New York charters, but most US Gemini users now contract with Gemini Moonbase, LLC, which is not on the NYDFS list. Gemini's ActiveTrader fees start at 0.600% maker and 1.200% taker. Coinbase's record includes a $50 million NYDFS penalty and a 2025 insider data theft; Gemini's includes the Earn freeze of 340,000 investors. · 6 minHow to send bitcoin to another wallet, and how to find a bitcoin wallet address, step by stepSending bitcoin means pasting the recipient's address, choosing the amount and fee, and signing. Coinbase's web flow has 6 steps and Trezor Suite's has 4. Addresses start with 1, 3, bc1q or bc1p. Mempool.space recommended 1 sat/vB on 14 October 2026, and bitcoin.org says a transaction "cannot be reversed". · 6 minHow to set up a bitcoin wallet, step by step from the Blockstream and Trezor guidesA self-custody bitcoin wallet is set up by installing the app, generating keys, writing down a 12 or 24 word recovery phrase and checking it. Blockstream's app guide lists 4 steps; Trezor says its hardware setup takes about 15 minutes and wipes the device after 16 wrong PINs. · 6 minIs bitcoin safe? The protocol, the custody risk and the scams, by the documentsBitcoin's protocol is secured by proof of work and has produced 971,395 blocks since January 2009. The money people lose goes through custody failures and scams: the FBI's IC3 recorded 181,565 crypto-related complaints and $11.366 billion in losses in 2025, about $7.2 billion of it investment fraud. · 6 minLedger Nano X review from Ledger's own pages, specs, price, Ledger Recover and two incidentsThe Ledger Nano X lists at US$99 on Ledger's US shop, read 14 October 2026, with an ST33J2M0 chip rated CC EAL5+, Bluetooth 5.2 and a 5 hour battery. Ledger Recover is a paid, optional key backup. Ledger's 2020 customer-data breach and 2023 Connect Kit attack did not break the device; both fed theft through phishing and malicious signing. · 6 minLedger Recover explained: how the 3 encrypted fragments, the ID checks and the subscription work, per Ledger's own documentsLedger Recover is an opt-in subscription, provided by Coincover, that encrypts a copy of the seed inside the device, splits it into three fragments held by Coincover, Ledger and EscrowTech, and releases two of them after two independent identity checks. Unpaid subscriptions are suspended after 3 months and fragments deleted after 9 more. · 6 minLedger vs Trezor, compared on chips, open source, Ledger Recover, prices and coin supportLedger and Trezor both sell hardware wallets with certified secure elements. Ledger's chip code is closed under its agreement with STMicroelectronics and it sells Ledger Recover, an optional ID-based phrase backup; Trezor publishes its code and sells no comparable service on the pages read. US prices on 14 October 2026 run US$69 to US$399 for Ledger and US$59 to US$249 for Trezor. · 6 minMetaMask vs Trust Wallet: what their terms say on custody, chains, swap fees and incidentsBoth are self-custody wallets whose terms say the company cannot recover a lost phrase. MetaMask publishes a 0.875% swap fee and names 19 networks; Trust Wallet says 100+ blockchains, publishes no standard swap fee, and reimbursed users after a December 2025 extension breach. · 6 minPig butchering scam: how it works, what the FBI and FinCEN report, and the recovery trapPig butchering is a crypto investment scam in which a stranger builds trust over weeks, steers the victim to a fake trading platform, shows invented gains and then takes everything. FinCEN described it in alert FIN-2023-Alert005. The FBI's 2025 report records about $7.2 billion lost to crypto investment fraud. Paid "recovery" offers that follow are a second scam. · 6 minSolana wallets compared: Phantom, Solflare, Backpack, Ledger and Trezor on custody, fees, code and incidentsFive wallets that hold SOL were compared on what their own documents say. Only one, Backpack, puts a swap fee percentage in writing, and its blog contradicts it. Phantom's help centre said in September that its Google or Apple wallets split a key with Phantom; Solflare's terms say it never holds enough to move funds. · 6 minTrust Wallet scams: fake support, approval drainers, and the December 2025 browser extension incident, per Trust Wallet's own pagesTrust Wallet's own security pages describe fake apps, fake support agents, fraudulent airdrops, copycat tokens and approval drainers as the main scams against its users. Separately, a malicious v2.68 browser extension published on 24 December 2025 drained 2,520 addresses, with about $8.5 million in assets impacted, and the reimbursement process drew over 5,000 claims, many of them, Trust Wallet says, false. · 6 minWhat is a hardware wallet? What the chips do, what 8 devices cost, and where they failA hardware wallet is a dedicated device that holds the private keys and signs transactions away from the computer. Eight current Ledger and Trezor models list at US$59 to US$399 on their makers' shops, read 14 October 2026; the failures on record came from firmware, suppliers and phishing. · 6 minWhat does it mean to stake crypto? Proof of stake, lockups, slashing, exchange terms and taxStaking crypto means locking coins in a proof-of-stake network so they back a validator, in return for rewards and at the risk of slashing. Solo Ethereum staking needs 32 ETH. Coinbase takes a 35% commission and Kraken 30% on flexible staking. The IRS taxes rewards as income when you gain control of them. · 8 minWhat is a seed phrase? The BIP-39 standard, and how 30 wallets handle recoveryA seed phrase is a list of 12 to 24 words, defined by the BIP-39 standard, from which a wallet derives every key it holds. Anyone with the words controls the funds. Of 30 wallets on the register, 11 offer a cloud backup and 3 split recovery with the provider. · 6 minSelf-custody wallet safety: a checklist before you send anythingSeven checks drawn from MetaMask's and Phantom's own help centres, read on 28 September 2026. Both say their support will never ask for a recovery phrase, neither can undo a confirmed transfer, and Phantom supports neither Tron nor BNB Chain, two common USDT networks.