Fake Uniswap, Wintermute Reps Con Californian Crypto Curious

Californian regulators have issued consumer warnings against 16 crypto broker scams, with one victim losing $14,000 to a fake Uniswap venture

article-image

solarseven/Shutterstock modified by Blockworks

share

The California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation (DFPI) has issued fraud alerts about phony entities posing as decentralized exchange Uniswap and crypto market maker Wintermute.

The alerts came alongside posts for 14 other registered entities apparently peddling crypto-themed Advance Fee scams.

In one instance, the victim claimed a “UniSwap LLC” lured them into investing $14,000 in what was presented as a Uniswap liquidity mining venture.

Per DFPI: “The victim met a person calling themselves ‘Heitor Ryan’ on the internet who claimed to work at a bank. They chatted as friends for several months, then Heitor lured the victim into investing on a crypto website that turned out to be a fraud.”

Another victim in a separate scam was convinced to send more than $167,000 to who they believe was crypto trading outfit Wintermute.

“The victim met someone calling herself ‘Rosalie’ on WhatsApp, who introduced him to eth-Wintermute dot net, telling the victim this would generate dividends on liquidity pools every six hours based on the amount of money put into the MetaMask app wallet,” DFPI wrote (Blockworks advises caution when interacting with the quoted domain).

Phishers and other bad actors commonly spoof popular crypto platforms to target digital asset investors. Users are advised to always triple check the domains they interact with. 

But 2022 will perhaps go down as the biggest year of crypto-related frauds in history so far, thanks in no small part to the Sam Bankman-Fried case.

Between January to November, investors lost more than $4 billion worth of crypto — a 37% jump from last year, according to a study by Privacy Affairs.


Don’t miss the next big story – join our free daily newsletter.

Tags

Upcoming Events

HYATT REGENCY SALT LAKE CITY

TUES, OCT. 8, 2024

Guided by the expertise of Blockworks Research Analysts team, this one day event will feature senior leaders, entrepreneurs, and developers from across the crypto industry. Attendees will have the opportunity to participate in an immersive experience to explore the latest trends, […]

Salt Lake City, UT

WED - FRI, OCTOBER 9 - 11, 2024

Pack your bags, anon — we’re heading west! Join us in the beautiful Salt Lake City for the third installment of Permissionless. Come for the alpha, stay for the fresh air. Permissionless III promises unforgettable panels, killer networking opportunities, and mountains […]

recent research

hivemapper.jpeg

Research

We believe crypto market participants overlook Hivemapper’s fundamental potential due to a poor understanding of both the niche map data market and Hivemapper’s positioning relative to incumbents. Hivemapper’s token model catalyzes both a cost and product advantage via unmatched map freshness and near real-time accuracy, which is its wedge into a market characterized by stale data and high data collection costs. Its current and potential future product suite may represent one of the strongest possibilities for PMF in crypto today.

article-image

Exploit shows centralization can sometimes be an asset

article-image

The Fidelity Ethereum Fund, like other proposed ETH ETFs, seeks to stake a portion of its assets, according to the firm’s Wednesday registration statement

article-image

The DAO first voted on enabling SAFE transfers over a year ago

article-image

The final Bitcoin halving, where the mining reward becomes smaller than one satoshi, is expected to occur in 2140

article-image

The Department of Justice and Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced back-to-back lawsuits against KuCoin Tuesday