The Truth About Cryptofutures: Legit or Scam? Our Review

Recently, Cryptofutures.live service surfaced, promoting itself as a place where you can securely keep cryptocurrency and other assets. I managed to gather credible supporting information that clearly confirms it is, in truth, a deceptive site.

Despite the promises of the most convenient, reliable, and customer-centric service, Cryptofutures.live does not offer any of them. In fact, all this is just a shiny wrap around a blatant scam, which takes your money and data and never gives them back. Any tales about gifts, endorsement from celebrities etc are nowhere to be found as well.

Cryptofutures Scam Overview

Originally, Cryptofutures poses as a cryptocurrency trading & cryptowallet service with exceptionally low commission fees. Another bright marketing point for this site is backing from celebrities that are known as crypto activists. Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Vitalii Buterin, Warren Buffet – the site says about being supported by them. To make these claims look more realistic, rascals employ deepfake videos with those celebs promote the fake crypto service as the best thing in the world. For known reasons, Elon Musk is the most common among them. But, as I mentioned above, all this is just a glaring wrap around a transparent scam.

Cryptofutures Scam

To begin with, Cryptofutures repeats the layout of multiple similar online platforms. There are quite a few examples, like Lunaxop, Zylobit or Boomswap. They are entirely undistinguishable in terms of visual elements, with small discrepancies in the site header. Other particulars, and at times even crypto wallet addresses, are matching. Most likely, all these scam sites are led by a single gang of frauds.

Cryptocurrency Scam Summary

How the Cryptofutures Scam Works?

Cryptofutures is a part of a significant cryptocurrency scam scheme that started circulating actively in 2023. Swindlers who stand behind it use several website designs, which still share the similar overall layout. Another mutual element are the ways the scams like NAME are promoted, and the manner all this ends up to the victim of the scam. To reach peak efficiency, frauds apply complex psychological tricks that make the user believe in the validity of the website. But let’s review them one by one.

Step 1: Promotion

To initiate the fraud, criminals establish and fill accounts on popular social media platforms. They mainly focus on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. Subsequently, the advertising campaign commences. Utilizing bots and sponsored promotions (when achievable), fraud actors increase the exposure of their fraudulent activities to potential victims. And as I said, scammers do not disdain using generative AI for creating clips with the aforementioned celebs that advertise their scam to the public. To boost the folks even more, swindlers claim the bonus for every user who enrolls the service immediately.

Promotions of cryptoscams like Cryptofutures in TikTok. Most of these videos are AI-generated deepfakes

Step 2: Gaining Traffic

Upon clicking the promos, users end up on a page filled with enticing offers. “Crypto starts with Cryptofutures”, “Your crypto savings are secured with Cryptofutures, “Start earning with Cryptofutures – they look rather credible. To heat up users and make them proceed to step 3, scammers say that claiming the pledged bonus requires registration. And as nothing suspicious happens at this point, uninformed users happily proceed – especially since the gift appears to be right behind the corner.

At this point, it is possible to steer away from the scam without any losses. Before you sign up using your personal information, frauds will not be able to earn even a penny from your presence on the website.

Step 3: Data Gathering

This is where the main fraud action begins. As I just said, deceivers bait folks for registration with bonuses. And all the personal information needed for it – username, email, cryptocurrency wallet address – is valuable for user identification. Solely by gathering this information and selling it further into the Darknet, swindlers can earn quite a penny. Still, their plans go much further.

As it turns out, you cannot use the promised bonus right away. To make at least crypto purchases on the platform with it, the user should top up the account with the sum of a bonus. And this is what initiates the final step of the scam.

Step 4: Requesting funds

It is obvious that any cryptocurrency operations require having capital on your account. With Cryptofutures, users are also forced to top up to use the bonuses. And this is what creates most of the money flow to this fraudulent site. By topping up the account, users hope to get the pledged gift (usually $500-1000 in USDT), and may start trading on this site hoping to use all the deposited money and withdraw them.

This, however, is where the issues start to surface. When keeping an eye on the actual crypto wallet vs what the site says, you can notice that no transactions are done whatsoever. And then, when you’d try to pull out the funds from your account, the scam is finally uncovered to the user.

Step 5: Escaping from Funds Withdrawal

Needless to say that swindlers have zero intentions to send you money. But to make it look more realistic, they’ve made up a whole pack of reasons to decline the withdrawal request. Most of them repeat what Know Your Client guidelines say, but for the Cryptofutures.live they are here exclusively to make the wireout impossible.

By requesting your personal info, frauds just stall hoping for you to understand that you’ve been scammed and stop contacting them. If you don’t – well, there are a dozen other checks you should go through before getting your funds back. And each of these checks will uncover more and more information, which – you guessed it right – will be then sold on the Darknet. Never reveal your real info to strangers!

Signs of Scam

I gathered several facts that point at the scammy nature of the Cryptofutures.live. Actually, there are a lot of scams that fall under the same points, so they are pretty much universal.

• Absent company details. Cryptofutures does not provide any documentation about its ownership, location or registration. No legitimate contact details are given either. Moreover, it appears that the domain and all social network pages were registered quite recently.
• Fake sponsorship from a celebrity. Scams like Cryptofutures like to pick a celebrity as a sponsor of this entire campaign. For obvious reasons, fraudsters generally choose Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mr. Beast, Mark Zuckerberg, and similar celebrities. They do not disdain claiming partnership with a company as well. Even though Coinbase, Binance or MetaMask never heard of Cryptofutures, they do not care – this creates a halo of credibility.
• Potential Ponzi Scheme. The scam relies on a Ponzi-like referral system to spread reach through social media. In fact, only the first members will receive the payoff, at the cost of the money brought by other members.
• Hype without facts. Frauds can cheer up their victims from time to time, using claims about non-existent events. “We got contracts with Coinbase”, “Elon Musk mentioned us as the most prolific crypto project” – you could likely hear something like that. This is made to make people believe in their money return. This can be the sauce to make people top-up their accounts once again.
• Crypto-only incoming payments. Whether the user tries to top-up the account, hackers will only accept payments in crypto – no bank transfers or other payment methods. Such an approach completely hides the identity of the company and deprives you of the ability to ask for a refund.
• Claims are too good to be true. Let’s be sane and sober: even in crypto space, there are not many places where you can earn 50-100-200%. Being able to participate in all of them is nearly impossible, as well as it is impossible to insure or hedge all the risks. Even by that reason alone I can tell that the Cryptofutures is a definite scam.

What Should I do as a Victim?

If you had to deal with Cryptofutures site and fell victim to that scam, there are still some steps to take. They will make further scam attempts harder, and also boost the knowledge about that scam among folks.

• Immediate Reporting. Your initial step should involve promptly notifying local authorities specializing in financial fraud. Extend your reach by reaching out to wallet providers and engaging with social networks’ technical support teams. These actions serve to raise the bar for the scammers’ operations.
• Share among Friends. Amplify your efforts by informing your close friends about the scam. Similar to informing authorities, this dissemination of information restricts the scammers’ potential victim pool.
• Preserve Crucial Information. Compile a comprehensive evidence archive by capturing screenshots and archiving all relevant website-related data. Collect the website URL, screenshots of the main page, login interface, end-user license agreement (EULA), account top-up menu, and wallet addresses. These records could provide vital clues for authorities in their pursuit of the scammers.
• Exploring Refund Options. While most banks’ refund policies may exclude cryptocurrency payments, it’s advisable to explore potential refund avenues under specific circumstances. Maintain hope until you obtain confirmation of the loss.
• Transform Loss into Knowledge. Turn your financial setback into an opportunity for growth. View your loss as an investment in understanding the strategies employed by crypto scam sites. Familiarize yourself with their telltale characteristics, the methods they employ to entice individuals, and the extravagant promises they make. Equipped with this insight, you’ll be well-prepared to spot and evade future traps without suffering additional financial setbacks.

Scan your system for possible malware infections

Beware of cross scams! Scam actors can use your trust to make you download some stuff or interact with certain documents. It may be a trap that installs malware to your system. There are no moral barriers or limits for these scoundrels.

Throughout the course of the fraud, its masters may get in touch with you with specific files. Alternatively, they may propose you to deploy “cryptocurrency wallet applications” or “browser extensions” to facilitate access to your crypto savings. As we already figured out, these deceivers have no plan of returning your money. So, what do these emails and browser extensions represent? You guessed it right – this is another component of the deceptive plan designed to entice you into deliberately running harmful programs onto your system.

Both extensions and files added to emails can act as a shell for diverse malicious code. In this scenario, I foresee the presence of spyware and stealers among other forms of malicious programs. While it is not obligatory for scammers to distribute malware, the chance is always above zero. As noted, their ethics is of negligible importance, and their reputation is already neck deep in mud. They have no scruples to give up and aim to maximize profits.

Frequently asked questions