As a spam and scam research I watch new domains being created for malicious purposes. The following domains are look-alike domains of blockchain.info and blockchain.com, two legitimate Bitcoin-related domains:
xn--blckchain-66a.info (blóckchain.info)
xn--blckchain-66a.net (blóckchain.net)
xn--blckchain-m8a.info (bløckchain.info)
xn--blckchain-wxb.info (blōckchain.info)
xn--blckchai-w3a03f.info (blóckchaiń.info)
xn--blckchaln-66a.com (blóckchaln.com)
xn--blckchan-81a8d.com (blóckchaìn.com)
xn--blckchan-i2a8c.info (blóckchaín.info)
xn--blckchin-eza9o.info (blóckcháin.info)
xn--blckchin-m7a96e.info (blōckchāin.info)
xn--bliockchai-s1b.com (bliockchaiņ.com)
xn--bliockci-o8a35ayl.com (bliockcħąiņ.com)
xn--bliokchai-3eb86d.com (blioċkchaiņ.com)
xn--bliokci-u4a5c4s9l.com (blioċkcħąiņ.com)
xn--bliokhai-49ab66d.com (blioċkċhaiņ.com)
xn--blioki-00a0cb4z9l.com (blioċkċħąiņ.com)
xn--blocchai-gmb8m.info (blocķchaiņ.info)
xn--blocchain-orb.com (blocķchain.com)
xn--blocchain-orb.info (blocķchain.info)
xn--blocchin-m7a15c.info (blocķchāin.info)
xn--blockchan-dob.info (blockchaīn.info)
xn--blockchan-ipb.info (blockchaįn.info)
xn--blockchan-n5a.info (blockchaín.info)
xn--blockchin-12a.info (blockchäin.info)
xn--blockchin-61a.info (blockcháin.info)
xn--blockchi-n7a50e.info (blockchāiņ.info)
xn--blockchin-c3a.info (blockchåin.info)
xn--blockchin-ccb.info (blockchāin.info)
xn--blockchin-hdb.info (blockchąin.info)
xn--blockchi-o8a54d.info (blockchąiń.info)
xn--blockchn-fza4j.info (blockcháín.info)
xn--blockchn-n7a43b.info (blockchāīn.info)
xn--blockhai-obb78c.info (blockčhaiņ.info)
xn--blokchain-xdb.info (bloćkchain.info)
These so-called IDN domains substitute characters for easily confused look-alikes. There will be sighted in links inside spam emails as part of Phishing scams.
Phishing is just one of the pitfalls around Bitcoin and other crypto-currencies. Scammers have revamped the old so called “High Yield Interest Programs” (HYIP), which are really just a Ponzi scheme, to hitch a ride on the publicity around Bitcoin’s stratospheric rise in 2017. If you deposit Bitcoins into an online investment scheme, the scammers can just walk away with your deposit and cash it out into dollars, euros or rubles without being traced.
The latest exchange rate push beyond US$10,000 came on the heels of the cancellation of the SegWit2x fork, a proposed upgrade to the underlying technology that not the entire Bitcoin community was prepared to follow. The driving force behind the upgrade was the urgent need to handle more transactions, if Bitcoin was truly going to be used as a payment vehicle competing against credit cards, wire transfers and PayPal. If new Bitcoins are constantly being mined and the value of Bitcoin goes up but the average purchase the crypto-currency is to be used for doesn’t change much then the system needs to be able to handle more individual transactions.
By cancelling the upgrade, a split of the community has been avoided, but at what cost? It’s really a vote for Bitcoin as speculation object and against it as a viable payment method.
A friend of mine expressed it best when he mentioned that it reminded him of “Pump and Dump” stock scams, only that in the case of Bitcoin it is legal. With all this publicity, existing Bitcoin holders
will be able to offload their existing tokens at huge profits. Then, when people realize that Bitcoin is no longer able to work as an efficient payment system (except for scammers, drug dealers and money launderers who value anonymity), the bottom will fall out and all the recent investors will lose billions. It’s Tulip mania all over.
See also: