Nigerian crypto wallet vanishes with over $1 million from users

Another exit scam just hit us. This time it's a Nigerian crypto wallet that supposedly made off with around $1 million. Withdrawals started getting weird back in April, and of course, the CEO claimed it was all due to server issues. This really backs up what Ciphertrace was saying in their AML report about 2019 being the "Year of the Exit Scam." They’re estimating that $3.1 billion was lost to exit scams this year alone.

With so many trusted and established wallets like electrum, Jaxx, Tustwallet(for those who want to store multiple cryptos), mycelium etc Why would someone go ahead and start using a lesser known shady wallet like Satowallet? This really shows how very careless people are with their funds and such news makes cryptocurrencies look like something bad and it affects adoption so much. People start to think that crypto world is full of only scammers.

Kind of mindset that cant really be removed on ones mind specially to those who haven't known crypto yet.When reading up these kind of news then it will surely be put up in mind the negative reputation of crypto and it isn't really that good.People who are usually get dragged down to these unknown or non popular wallets are to those people who do only get or searching up on google or simply clicking up some banners or links without any further verification or research if the wallet is trustable or not. They do only cry and learn later on when they already lost up some funds.If theres money rotating into this market there would be always exit scam like this as long people never ever learn these wont reduce and repeat the same process all over again.

There are many trusted wallets in the market which are transparent to know the team behind them and people should be aware of the risk of using these shady wallets, it is a really unfortunate thing as scammers will always attract users even if there are trusted services elsewhere. Expect these kind of exit scams in full swing before the regulations are forced into this market.

I never heard of Satowallet, but what makes it worst is the CEO is deflecting everything and pointing to Telegram scammers as the real culprit behind the members account losing their money on that exchange. It's weird though, but this is just another expensive lessons to learn again, leaving your money in an exchanges is a no-no, I don't know what much are we going to stress on that. In any case, this is another black eye for crypto enthusiast and could put crypto in another bad light. But I do hope that the CEO will have the audacity to explain what really happens instead of pointing fingers here and owe everything. I also read that they blame the hosting service, and those guys hold the keys on the coin? Isn't it strange?

I never heard or know about satowallet. Maybe it's not too popular among crypto user. There are many popular wallets we can use like for example, bitcoin-qt, electrum, mycelium, Jaxx, and the best hardware that I know, ledger nano and trezor. I don't get it why people still using the wallet which they don't know how good the reputations of the company, but never mind, that will be our best lesson to stay away from the unknown wallet, so we don't have to be the next target of the scam. I hope that after this, people will learn and will not use the other wallet which doesn't recommend so they can be safe from anything bad that might happen in the future.

https://www.financemagnates.com/cryptocurrency/news/nigerian-crypto-wallet-satowallet-pulls-off-alleged-exit-scam/ thats why never trust an unknown wallet provider with any sums over 100$ I'm in shock they managed to gather so much , I never even heard about them first place -1$ million , really you got to be a very risk loving person to send coins to them  no offense but "nigerian wallet " words combination would have discouraged me from sending any money I remember the que of princes and princesses from Nigeria attacking my poor email that I made a mistake of publicly posting on some forums since then I don't think I'm going to be doing any business with the nigerians

I swear people don't ever change or listen. There is a reason why bitcoin is decentralised, and is trustless. Yet people still choose to place faith in random entities over the internet that they have no legal recourse to if they do get scammed. Hosted wallets in particular, are one of the favourites for scammers. Ciphertrace's statistics don't even incorporate the full image since it doesn't show the times where funds are held by the third party without the consent of the owner of the funds (potentially citing KYC/AML as the issue).

When it comes to scamming things the only nationalities on my mind are nigerians and russians.This isnt a sort of racism but we all know on what nationalities are being involved on big numbers.Yeah, we know that globally anyone can hack or scam no matter what nationality you do had. Its surprising that there were blind people who do easily trust this satowallet.Even the reputable web wallets as of this moment arent really that 100% safe. So we should always take precaution and its always ideal to store our coins on cold ones.

It's really strange, why do I prove my KYC to an unknown wallet[*]? I mean that scam is not limited to users' money but their data. Once the platform requests your data, it means they are authorized by the government and have a place & bank statements. Why anyone didn't take any legal action against them? If this is the application[1], many didn’t download it so I doubt the validity of the numbers. [*] I do not consider such programs as wallet but merely centralized platforms. Not your Keys, Not your coins. [1] Satowallet Android app

I'm surprised too, perhaps this was the plan from the very beginning, to get 'trusted' and build their 'reputation' early and then pull off a exit scam. Maybe it was just popular amongst Nigerians and close neighbor countries. Yeah mate, I understand you, we still remember the 'Nigerian prince/princess' story and emails we got in the early 2000's and up to today. LOL. And this news will reinforce that scammers + Nigerian thingy. @magneto - People never really learn here, unless they got scammed themselves. And that's why scammers are still here and won't go away because there are still a lot of individuals who are gullible and can easily trick by these cyber criminals.

It looks like people don't learn because of how many newbies we have enter this space on a daily basis, newbies who have no clue about anything related to security and other risks associated with crypto. It translates into what seems to be an infinite number of sheeps walking themselves to the butcher.... there isn't a different way to describe it. Scammers know that and patiently wait to reap the fruits of their "work". Similar ponzi scams have existed for decades in the regular financial world too. It's not going to stop or decrease unless we run out of newbies who chase after profits because they can't succeed in life otherwise.

I have personally heard of this project, but for those who do not visit Alternate cryptocurrencies, it remained under the radar. The question is whether this project was started with the intention of scam others, or things went downhill for some reason (hack, a corrupt employee). I check their thread SatoWallet Exchange App| Atomic Swap| Trade| Multi-Wallet, and the last reply from their representative was on 27, March 2019. It takes 6 months for someone to conclude that this is about exit scam, which is quite enough time for the owner to disappear with the money.

Though I have not heard about this wallet but it does not remove the fact that alot of people have lost their resources in this scam which has further dim the fortune of crypto as it concerns the trust that we expect people to have in the market. Because its not popular showed that its still in its development stage and further dim the chances of the number of projects that are trying to leave the shadow that have plagued the projects that have launched in crypto especially the alt coin and ICO or IEO market. The most annoying part of it, is the fact that we can only post and make noise about it and in the next few days it subside while the perpetrators of this exit scam becomes young millionaires and no one to be held accountable. This is a set back and needs to be addressed.

This is the types of scams that sends the wrong message for the government, I wouldn't be surprised at all if they completely block off any kind of cryptocurrencies in their country permanently. From what I know the Nigerian government are just starting to change their views with cryptocurrencies and they barely have started to create their own legal framework from the industry and now this scam hits them? Chances are the government will already create a "solution" without even identifying the problem first and this solution would most likely be shifting their views again and completely ban the crypto industry in its entirety.

There are a lot of valuable points that have been brought up especially in regards to how do you educate new crypto users about which wallet is more reputable than the lesser known ones. Do wallets work with companies like Ciphertrace? I know exchanges do but it would be good to see wallets have compliance as well.

i think i have heard of this wallet before if im not mistaken  . it might be really  a popular wallet especially on thier own country nigeria , thats why people use it but who would ever thought that they have shut down and end up scam  . the scamming can also happen on any other wallet or exchanges  no matter how reputable or popular they are but that is unpredictable  and the chance for it to happen is verry low i guess   .  lets just hope that it does not happen on the wallet or on the exchange that we use and let us always use the funds that we can afford to loose easily  .

Nigeria is unstable so it wouldn't really surprise me if they ended up doing that, but I hope they have a few brain cells with some sense in them and combat the offenders instead of the tools they use. If they ban crypto entirely that still isn't a 'solution' at all because people with bad intentions can still easily set up similar schemes and scam people. It's already illegal and severely punishable, so what will effectively change when they ban crypto? I'm inclined to say that it will make things even worse because these scams will be the only options available to people chasing profits.

And this is not surprising. In addition to the official Bitcoin Core wallet and, in extreme cases, blockchain.info, Electrum with keys open for copying, do not use others. There are too many fraudsters in this area right now and they will attract new coots in their products.

Good thing is that this is not a common wallet for many crypto users but still it feel sad to know that another scam has successfully stole money from the people making the reputation of the crypto currency investment to become bad once again. Hopefully that there is a crypto regulation that can fully protect the investors from these thieves as scam projects are making more people to stay away from Crypto.