Why Random Tokens Appear In Your Wallet — Airdrop Scam Tokens
If you have ever checked your crypto wallet on a chain explorer you would of probably discovered various tokens sitting in your wallet that you don’t remember buying. This is when the airdrop scam token funnel starts.
How The Airdrop Scam Works
Rogue developers will create a token contract that prohibits anyone except whitelisted wallet addresses from selling the token. They can then manipulate the supply and liquidity of the token to give the token false US dollar value.
Of course these tokens are not actually worth the US dollar amount claimed on the blockchain since they are unsellable on a DEX.
The rogue developer will then send these tokens of a variable amount in US dollar value, from a few hundred dollars to thousands of dollars of the token to random wallet addresses they have scraped from the blockchain.
The token name will be something specific or even have a URL in the name. Sometimes even hijacking the name of a legitimate cryptocurrency project. The goal being for potential victims to search “how to redeem x token” which points to a site which claims to be able to let users redeem their tokens.
This is the end point of the scam funnel. When a victim tries to redeem the tokens they have been airdropped, it will usually charge the victim a “gas fee” — which essentially takes actual Ethereum or BNB from the victim — which can be lower than the US dollar value of the tokens, so even some that are sceptical may still pay this “gas fee” in order to get what they believe to be a greater return.
Of course no tokens are redeemed and the victim gains nothing but loses some of their crypto.
Aidrdrop scam tokens can also have malicious contracts that when interacted with which can steal users data for attempts to rob them in the future.
What Should You With Airdrop Scam Tokens?
The short answer is nothing. In general, if you ever find tokens supposedly worth something in your wallet you can’t remember acquiring, it is almost certainly the start of a scam funnel.
It is advisable not to try and remove the airdrop scam tokens from your wallet either, since interacting with their contracts opens you up to attack risks.
The best thing to do is to do nothing, don’t try to sell them, remove them or trade them and you will be fine.
What Can Be Done About This?
The problem with these tokens is that anyone can make a token and send them out in a dusting attack to a huge amount of wallet addresses on the blockchain. These is no central authority to approve or deny tokens and it ultimately comes down to the user to exercise caution with their web3 wallet.
With Boss Track DeFi portfolio tracker we have set up an algorithm for users that connect their wallets to filter out airdrop scam tokens for appearing in their portfolio.
This filters out tokens that haven’t been listed on CoinGecko yet from automatically appearing on newly connected wallets and removes other terms and phrases in the name and ticker information.
This massively reduces the visibility of the first stage of the airdrop scam token funnel however it doesn’t remove it entirely. Users should question any token that is in their wallets.
