How to Avoid Bitcoin Scams in 2015

2014 has been a monumental year for bitcoin in many respects.
Consumer adoption rose significantly and a host of retailers, including huge global corporations, decided to take the plunge into digital currency. What’s more, regulators have started to reveal increased understanding of the technology and bitcoin’s blockchain is widely being recognised as a truly innovative technology.
But it has not all been good news.
The February collapse of Mt Gox, then the largest bitcoin exchange, shone light on the importance of wallet security and led to the increased adoption of multi-signature technology over the course of 2014.
Furthermore, even though the bitcoin ecosystem has evolved in the right direction, scams still crop up on a regular basis.
Fraudulent exchanges and cloud mining services, phishing schemes, pump-and-dump and IPO scams, and more, are ongoing security risks that cryptocurrency users face everyday. This week alone, three cloud mining services appear to have gone bankrupt.
So how can you avoid scams in the bitcoin space? While there is no sure-fire way to protect your holdings against technical attacks like these, here are some cautionary measures that will be helpful, offered by security experts in the industry.

This post was published at Coin Desk on January 2, 2015.