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Pig butchering
Pig butchering is a long-running crypto investment scam. A stranger met online, often through a dating app or social media, builds a friendship or romance over weeks, then steers the victim to a fake investment platform that shows invented profits until the money is taken.
What it means for you. The fake platform can show growing profits, then demand "taxes" or "fees" before any withdrawal, and the money never arrives. Anyone you have not met in person who brings up crypto investing is the core warning sign. Crypto sent to these platforms is usually gone, and follow-up offers to recover it are often a second scam.
Sources: FinCEN: Alert on the virtual currency investment scam known as pig butchering, FTC: What to know about cryptocurrency and scams, FinCEN Alert FIN-2023-Alert005: Prevalent virtual currency investment scam (pig butchering) · checked 4 October 2026
Ponzi scheme
A Ponzi scheme is an investment fraud that pays earlier investors their "returns" out of money put in by newer investors, rather than from real earnings. It needs a constant flow of new money and collapses when recruitment slows or many people ask for their money back.
What it means for you. Steady high payouts with little or no risk, and returns that depend on bringing in others, are the warning signs the SEC lists. Early withdrawals may work, which makes the scheme look real until it stops paying. When it collapses, most participants lose their principal.
Sources: SEC: Enforcement actions against Ponzi schemes, CFTC: Digital asset frauds · checked 4 October 2026