Fake alert! New projects pose as prominent brands to lure crypto investors

Published at: Feb. 17, 2022

Creating a new crypto project is dangerously easy: One needs to generate a token, pick a ticker, market it to the crypto community through coin information websites like CoinMarketCap or CoinGecko, and then get it listed on decentralized exchanges or the thousands of new centralized crypto exchanges that will do almost anything for money.

Malicious entities can simply think of a catchy brand name or, better yet, grab a prominent brand, sauce it with additional keywords that could make crypto beginners think it’s related to its legitimate counterpart. Because of this, the crypto market is full of tokens that have nothing to do with the name or brand they bring to mind.

We created a quick list of crypto projects that are not affiliated with the prominent brands they resemble:

Mini Tesla

This project starts off its website with a Tesla car bouncing up and down carrying the Mini Tesla logo. Urging visitors who may be “tired of rug pulls and scam projects,” the Mini Tesla brand encourages people to buy their BSC-based token on PancakeSwap. However, community members are frustrated with it and are calling it a scam.

%100scam because mgass=minitesla telegram page

— niyazi kabakçı (@KabakciNiyazi) January 24, 2022

Several Twitter users, including JaferiMo and KabakciNiyazi, accused the project of being a scam.

Moreover, while it aims to look similar to the legit electric vehicle manufacturer, there are no official announcements from Tesla’s official channels about being affiliated with this project.

Jurassic Token

Many people grew up and loved the Jurassic Park series and the more recent Jurassic World movies. However, dinosaurs are not as fantastic when used by unaffiliated teams pretending to be a part of the franchise to score quick bucks.

With a website filled with dinosaurs and the same font as the films, Jurassic Token tries to lure users into buying its native digital asset. However, like with other projects within this list, there's no indication that the project has ties with the original Jurassic Park and Jurassic World movie franchises.

MetaNFT Marketplace

The newly-launched MetaNFT Marketplace project caught the crypto community’s attention by being featured on CoinMarketCap’s biggest 24-hour gainers. Using an infinity-sign logo and a website that captures tech conglomerate Meta’s branding, the project markets itself as a cross-chain NFT marketplace. However, apart from not having an announcement from Meta’s official platforms, it seems that some users are not convinced with the project.

In a Reddit thread created by MetaNFT that argues how its platform is “all about security,” user Pronoobing thinks otherwise.

Animoca Brands Metaverse token

One of the most significant recent cases of using prominent brands to offer unaffiliated scam tokens was when an ERC-20 token called Animoca Brands Metaverse was registered, pretending to be affiliated with the Hong Kong-based venture capital.

However, the official Animoca Brands firm responded swiftly and announced that they are not associated with the Ethereum token using their brand name.

SCAM ALERT! ‼️‼️‼️It came to our attention that there is ongoing scam using our name. We are not associated with this new ERC-20 token “Animoca Brands Metaverse”. More information at: https://t.co/mblbAMhSpm

— Animoca Brands (@animocabrands) February 17, 2022