Crypto Courses: scam or legit?

If you’re on as many marketing lists as I am, you might also be constantly exposed to new crypto investing schemes.

But how do you know which courses or services are worth spending your hard-earned money on?

Just for fun, I thought I’d take you on a tour of the offers I received this week and why I was tempted by each and/or rejected them.

(Please note: we are not affiliates for the following three offers. Please do your own research if you decide to investigate further and/or purchase. And let us know how it goes!)

Disclosure: You should assume any links in this blog post are 1. affiliate links, 2. links to our own products, or 3. links for your convenience. We only recommend products that we whole-heartedly endorse and any commissions earned from your purchases do not increase your costs.

Offer Number One

First up, I received an email about a “5-Coin Momentum Theory”.

This led to a Crypto Millionaire podcast interview with a guy from Australia (Scott Phillips) who discovered a new way to focus his crypto investing and developed some software to help others profit too.

Pros of this sales presentation: the concept seems very doable, the strategy is advertised to only take ten minutes a week (checking the software on Mondays to see what the five recommended coins for the week are), and they promise to warn you with their proprietary algorithm before the next big crypto market crash. Honestly, I’m very tempted by this one. It could be a great strategy for someone who doesn’t want to spend a lot of time researching crypto.

Cons of this sales presentation: the story went on too long with no way to tell how much longer it would go on. I also have enough crypto strategies at the moment to choose from.

Price: seemed decent: $500 to start and then a monthly fee later (after you know it’s working)

Verdict? Tempted, but a no for me for now.

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Offer Number Two

Next up: a client contacted me about a webinar explaining yield farming called Mr. X’s Million Dollar Yield Farm.

What is yield farming?

I’m still pretty new in the crypto-space, but I think yield farming, or liquidity mining, is where you stake coins on certain platforms to earn interest, perhaps like the crypto “savings” platforms I’ve talked about here on SaferCryptoInvesting.com such as Nexo and Celsius.

(Read more about Nexo and Celsius in our blog post: Popular Savings Platforms )

You basically hand over your coins for others to use for loans or other purposes and are paid some form of interest or reward for doing so.

Places like Nexo and Celsius can offer a decent sized reward (I’ve seen as high as 17% special rates occasionally) while you still retain your rights to move your money out of the platform at any time. But apparently there are other platforms in the DeFi space where you can earn much higher yields.

Much higher yields.

Of course, they carry a lot more risk.

Why is this a concern?

Well, let’s see: say you staked your money earning a 100% return. You’re very happy because the value of your crypto is growing much more rapidly than at Nexo.

But then a market crash happens. The coin you were staking falls in value by over 75%.

At Nexo, you could’ve signed into your account and redeemed your coin when you saw things start “heading south” and saved some of the value of your coin.

But at this yield farming protocol, your coin is locked up for the duration (or there are severe penalties for taking it out). So, instead, you watch the value of your investment evaporate.

Even worse, many of the coins being offered at yield farms are low liquidity (there aren’t a lot of buyers so it may be hard to sell your coin when you decide you’re done). 

And you still have to worry about the costs of setting up the yield farm (gas fees on the Ethereum network are especially burdensome), the risk of theft or loss, the risk of scams, etc.

(Read more about gas fees on Ethereum or watch our Youtube video here )

Not fun.

It seems that this course would teach you how to be “safe” while exploring the yield farming protocols: where to do it, how to spread your risk out, etc.

Pros of this sales presentation: My client who was asking me my thoughts about this class liked the fact that you could start with as little as $100 and “try it out” and that the class is offering 100% no-questions-asked money-back guarantee for 30 days. Certainly I would want an “expert” to guide me if I were interested in starting yield farming.

Cons of this sales presentation: I noticed that the class is 6 weeks long and it looks like it doesn’t even teach you how to begin to set up yield farms until week 4 or 5. So much for the 30-day guarantee. Also, did I mention there are a lot of risks to yield farming? Not to mention the time you would need to spend learning how to do it….

(Read more about Yield Farming here if you’re interested:

https://www.coindesk.com/learn/what-is-yield-farming-the-rocket-fuel-of-defi-explained/ )

Price: While researching this article, I couldn’t remember how much the class was being sold for (although I think he said it was $997) so I went back to the link I had to the sales video to see how much the system costs. The sales video has been replaced by a super-long WarriorPlus salespage where you can buy access (to the first level?) for $11.99.

Verdict? Well, part of me thinks: $11.99?!!! That’s crazy cheap! Surely it could teach me SOMETHING for $11.99?!!! 

And part of me thinks: it’s $11.99 on WarriorPlus. I’ve been scammed enough times by super-cheap products on WarriorPlus. Besides, what is the upsell and how much value will I REALLY get for that $11.99?

Ultimately, I think I’ll pass. I have plenty of other things to learn at the moment.

Photo by Jeremy Bezanger on Unsplash

Offer Number Three

Finally, another friend of mine asked about a video she saw for The DeFi Guys advertising a DeFi Mastermind.

This sales page featured a 12 minute video about a protocol on bomb money or possibly a bomb farm (which looks like another yield farming platform to the untrained eye), a brief description of the offering, and a big green button that says “Click here to speak with me on Telegram”.

In my opinion, the video doesn’t make sense, the sales page doesn’t explain anything, and I don’t trust the spammy telegram links on Youtube videos and Facebook posts: why would I trust THIS Telegram link?

Price: No idea

Verdict: No thanks.

And there you have it: three offers for crypto training that you may or may not be interested in. 

What about you? Have you seen any good crypto training offers lately? What was tempting about them or what turned you off about their sales pitch? I’d love to hear your thoughts or review other products you’re curious about so feel free to write us at [email protected]