We often make lists of the best cryptocurrencies out there, but which is the worst cryptocurrency? What are the ones you should avoid? Well, out of the many cryptocurrencies in existence, there are a few that stand out to be among the worst.
They are known for being scams or just a bad idea to invest in. These cryptos aren’t necessarily bad because they don’t have a lot of potential. They are just the worst in terms of their reputation and possible future on the market.
Some of them act like Ponzi schemes, while others are a pure scam. Have you heard about pump and dump schemes? Well, basically some cryptocurrencies make users pump their money into it and then disappear without leaving a trace. You should try to avoid these as much as possible.
Either way, they are not good for the crypto space in general and should be avoided at all costs. Therefore, if you want to invest in cryptocurrency, here are some of the cryptos you should avoid:
4. SPACEBIT
SPACEBIT is one of the cryptocurrencies that you should avoid investing in. It’s based on the Ethereum blockchain and it’s one of the most ambitious cryptos out there.
The company behind it is called Spacebit and their goal was to build space travel projects with cryptocurrencies; thus, bringing decentralization of orbital data, spacecraft telemetry information, and control mechanisms of mission operations using Blockchain technology
The company wanted to launch “nano-satellites” into space that would provide cryptocurrency transactions.
It also promised to launch a “SpaceBit” app that would enable users to make transactions while on the go and claimed it had raised half of the necessary funds for this. However, there are no records on how much they actually got or if their project was successful.
SPACEBIT’s ICO finished in May 2018 after just one day because they didn’t reach their hard cap. They raised $25,000 USD and had more than 100 million tokens left unsold. The project was abandoned soon after the ICO finished because they didn’t have enough money to keep it running.
SPACEBIT is one that you should stay away from. It will most probably be delisted from exchanges if it hasn’t been already.
3. GEMS
GEMS, also known as GetGems is another worst crypto you should avoid at all costs and Medium has already covered it in this article.
It is a decentralized Mechanical Turk that’s based on the blockchain technology. They claim to offer fair payment for anyone who completes tasks in their network, which includes people watching ads and completing surveys among other things.
The company held an ICO at the end of 2017 where they raised more than $11 million USD from investors during the pre-sale. However, no one knows how much they raised in the public sale because their website was hacked and tokens were stolen after someone accessed an email address of a Gems team member.
Something worth noting is that this crypto is still running, and has seen most success in Uzbekistan where it is ranked 63rd among the best apps. Nonetheless, this shouldn’t fool anyone into thinking it is a good investment.
2. PAYCOIN
When it was launched in 2014, PAYCOIN grew to become one of the largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization. Its white paper stated that the company was based in Dubai and had partnered with MasterCard. However, when further research showed nothing about this partnership, people started to get suspicious of PAYCOIN’s validity.
Nowadays, if you research for PAYCOIN one of the websites listed is an FBI article, which clearly is not a good sign!
Furthermore, its founder converted it into a generic altcoin clone, which made it even more suspicious. This made most investors very wary about investing their money into PAYCOIN. This explains why they went out of business almost immediately after launching due to a lack of interest from users.
PAYCOIN’s website is non-existent and its Twitter page was deleted as well. This coin was shut down in 2015, and its founder got into trouble with federal investigators. He was forced to flee the United States after he was accused of scamming investors.
1. DAO
Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) are Ethereum-based coins. They were launched in 2016 with the purpose of allowing investors to make decisions on how the company should spend money. DAO also offered a decentralized business model where anyone could contribute by investing their tokens into it, and then making proposals for funds allocation.
However, this was not all that useful because only people who invested at least 100 DAO coins were allowed to vote or allow proposals, unlike Bitcoin which allows everyone to do so regardless of their investment size. This means that rich users had more influence over important matters compared to regular token holders.
Things started going downhill when hackers exploited an Ethereum smart contract bug taking advantage of its poorly written code in order to drain $50 million USD worth of Ether from DAO’s wallet. Although they later moved some of the money into a separate account, this incident triggered an Ethereum hard fork which split the community into two opposing groups.
After information about this incident went viral, its loyal community started to leave the project. This led to a massive crash in its price and daily trading volume, as well as increased uncertainty about whether it was safe or not for investors.
So, are DAO coins a scam? Technically not, they just present some security vulnerability issues that need to be solved. They are not an investment worth of the risk, because they can put their user’s privacy data in jeopardy.
Key Takeaways
- The cryptocurrencies we mentioned are avoidable for many reasons: some of them are straight-up scams, others just present a very risky investment.
- Reading crypto news sites and researching a lot before investing in a cryptocurrency is essential.
- Pump and dump schemes are often endorsed by celebrities and therefore you shouldn’t trust random people online supporting a specific coin or token.
- When choosing a cryptocurrency to invest think check how volatile it is and if there are security concerns for the investors.
Final Thoughts
These are some of the worst cryptocurrencies in 2022, and you should avoid them whenever possible. If you are still interested in investing money into cryptocurrencies, look for those that offer good returns on investment and have a great community behind them.
Do thorough research before investing, and only choose cryptos that offer something unique and different from the rest. Some of the best cryptos to invest in include Bitcoin, Litecoin, and Ethereum.
Remember if you have an app that respects your privacy and where you can trade and buy reputable cryptocurrencies safely, that is a huge step in the right direction. Click here to download Tezro app!