With Halloween just around the corner, are you in the mood for ghost haunting? If yes, you will be delighted to know that ghosts exist everywhere, in places small or big, real or virtual, leisure or business, and even in the world of investments. Alongside traditional markets where people trade stocks, debts, real estates, futures, currencies, there is one newer and more “spooky” market, the crypto currency market, a fertile ground for ghosts due to its mysterious, intangible, and decentralized nature.

Since the first cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, was founded in 2009, these currencies have become the most obscure and mysterious investment alternatives. There are currently over a thousand kinds of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and Ripple, just to name a few. Crypto currency exists digitally or virtually and uses cryptography (the method of limiting access of certain information by coding) to secure transactions. There isn’t a central issuing or regulating authority. Instead, buyers rely on a decentralized system to record transactions and issue new units. Units are created through a process called mining, which involves using computer power to solve complicated mathematical problems that generate coins. People can also buy the currencies from brokers, then store and spend them using cryptographic wallets. When you own cryptocurrency, you don’t own anything tangible; instead, what you own is a key that allows you to move a record or a unit from one place to another without a trusted third party. These characteristics of virtual investment provide the “ghosts”, or scammers, ample opportunities to mislead people and lure them into traps.

This article doesn’t intend to educate you about how to invest, store, and trade cryptocurrencies, as you can easily use the internet to find how to search platforms, create an account, and place an order. However, we are here to point you to the directions where fraud and scams, i.e., the “ghosts”, are more likely to proliferate in the cryptic world to help your haunting. Number one on our list: fake websites. Bogus sites in particular feature fake testimonials and crypto jargon that promise massive returns to keep you investing, and as such, are true ghost playgrounds. Then there are Ponzi schemes — the “Ghost Darlings” in every financial market — which promote non-existent opportunities by paying off old investors with the new investors’ money, until the entire system collapses due to lack of new money coming in to pay off the huge amount promised. There are also “Celebrity” endorsements, in which scammers promote themselves as billionaires in order to convince strangers to invest in certain virtual currencies, only to run away with the money later – yes, you get ghosted! Finally, the most deceptive among young investors are Romance scams, where traders convince people they meet on dating apps to invest or trade in virtual currency.

It is worth noting that unfortunately (or fortunately, if you’re a scammer or on the hunt), cryptocurrency crimes are on the rise. So happy haunting in the cryptic world, my fellow Pelicans, you may trample on a “Ghost” coin (a new cryptocurrency). Last I heard, they have great investment potential, and may be a unicorn indeed.