memes

Still surprised it's worth $200. I thought it'd be worth a few cents or maybe a few dollars at most

When I first heard of NFTs I thought the media was encoded within the blockchain - in that case sure, I wouldn't necessarily buy one but I understand how that'd be interesting.

Ten minutes later when I was told they are just proof of purchase that points to a URL hosting your monkey image somewhere, I knew they were a total scam

I feel bad for people who are duped by the scam artists. But on the other hand, scam is such an integral part of the US life, recognising it is an essential skill by now. So if you have enough money to be scammed, but didn't learn how not to get scammed, it's at least a little bit on you at this point.
That being said, nobody is safe, unfortunately, you can be as smart and as informed as possible, they still can invent a scam that will work on you specifically.

can you hold the tiger’s tail just long enough

The answer to this is also usually "no" because the people who set up the scamcoin usually don't like to leave things to chance and have a plan for when to time their rug-pull.

Trying to get in on these grifts is like spotting a bank-robbery in-progress and trying to join the crew and get paid. Sure it can happen, but you're not exactly playing with the best odds of success.

That’s the big question: do you recognize the scam in time to take advantage of it, and have the awareness to get out in time when there are still suckers?

I know a few people who made money on crypto in the early stages this way: recognize the scam but take advantage.

It was probably possible to take similar advantage of the Trump bribe laundering crypto scam, even without the benefit of the insider trading and market manipulation

I very briefly considered it but don’t trust my awareness to get out in time, plus participating in the scam would eat me up.

I get the impression that most of the people who are swindled by crypto nowadays are aware of the scam and jump into it thinking they're going to make money by finding a greater fool to dump their participation the scheme on for a profit.

Such people are really trying to be scammers in the scam.

That explains them invariably rushing to defend whatever scam token they're holding whenever it gets criticized in social media: if outsider are generally made to suspect the true nature of the scam and hence become unwilling to jump in, these wannabe scammers aren't going to find a greater fool to take those tokens out of their hands and give them a nice profit.

Of course as @ameancow@lemmy.world pointed out, these scams are done from the very start for maximum profitability of those starting the scam, not for the profit of the first ones to buy into it, so often those wannabe scammers end up being the greater fools of that scam themselves.

Unfortunately for them that ship has sailed. It's not hard to get in on a scam like this of you do it early enough, i probably would have done it if i had enough money when this started (don't judge, much, money is important when you don't have it) and i probably would have gotten out like a bandit. Now though, it's mostly targeting them.

Amazing.