Side by side with the bitcoin price bubble have been a series of scams designed to pump up the price to encourage unsuspecting victims to buy more crypto from unscrupulous miners. These scams include trading the same crypto back and forth at progressively higher prices to create the false impression of a price rally (known as “painting the tape”), bidding up prices to create a rally before dumping miner inventory (known as “pump and dump”), stealing cryptos through hacking, propping up crypto prices by selling other coins and using the proceeds to buy cryptos (most famously the Tether “stablecoin”) and many more scams. I’ve chronicled as many of these scams as I can as part of an effort to steer investors away from the crypto mania. Every time I think I’ve seen it all, a new scam emerges. As described in this article, a crypto miner can pay a celebrity to endorse a cryptocurrency or give it a good review in a tech publication, even if the endorser knows nothing about cryptos. A good example is John McAfee, a well-known pioneer in online security. McAfee revealed that he received $105,000 per tweet to endorse various cryptos on twitter. It’s a simple case of trading your reputation to lure the naïve into the greatest financial bubble in history. You get to keep the money, but you won’t get your good reputation back. Institutional investors can schedule a proof of concept with the world’s first predictive data analytics firm combining human and artificial intelligence with complexity science. Check out Jim Rickard’s company at Meraglim Holdings to learn more.