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Comment by Yhippa | Hacker News Reader

I'm kind of surprised by these scams. If you're savvy enough to know how to buy cryptocurrency in the first place, how can you get duped by these kinds of scams?

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> If you're savvy enough to know how to buy cryptocurrency

Savvy enough to know how to buy cryptocurrency, but not savvy enough to not buy cryptocurrency.

I think the days of cryptocurrency being for the "savvy" are long past.

It's been featured in everything from The Today Show to supermarket tabloids. There is no counting the number of crypto buying tutorials on the web. There are crypto ATMs. I've heard retires with no computer talking about it.

It's not mainstream the way a savings account is, but it's not the exclusive club the promoters want people to think it is.

There was another post on HN just 2-3 days ago, about how an HN-poster was taking a cab in Sydney and the cabbie was talking to him about BTC.

Cue the inevitable Joe Kennedy comparison: Kennedy Sr. supposedly got a shoe-shine one day, and had a conversation with the shoe-shine boy about said boy's hot stock tips. Kennedy realized everything was overheated and overhyped, and pulled his cash out of the market; the crash of '29 happened not long after.

Saw this exact comparison 2-3 years ago.

Even before it showed up in the mainstream Bitcoin was famous for its scams.

Do you really have to be savvy to buy cryptocurrency? A lot of people just sign up for an online wallet and buy cryptocurrencies as if they were trading shares online.

Normal sense is thrown out the window when people see a chance to get free money. And it's not that hard to buy bitcoin is it?

If you can figure out how to buy stocks on Robinhood, you can figure out how to use the Gemini or Coinbase apps to buy and send Bitcoin. There is no barrier to entry. It's not 2013 anymore.

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