Beware of fake pumps (Buildon and Terra) as we count down to altcoin season

Bitcoin has been moving higher for about two months since the (likely crypto winter) ‘low’ of $60,000 in February and seems to be slowly starting a new bull run. As this is luring more and more new investors into the world of digital currencies, it unfortunately also means quite a few ‘fake’ pumps. These are characterized by very small memecoins we have never heard of that suddenly jump hundreds of percent in one or a few days in order to attract your money. Watch out for this.

Rave

In mid-April, we already had such an illustrious pump when Rave, a small altcoin that no one had ever heard of, made the front pages of all crypto sites with a 4,000% gain in just one week. It was quite clear back then that Rave, in which 3 investors held 90% of the total supply, would lure quite a few crypto newbies with such phenomenal gains. More experienced crypto investors know that those coins always crash after reaching a predetermined peak

Hawk Tuah

Pump and dump setups are unfortunately almost as old as Bitcoin itself (so, about 17 years old by now). During the ICO bull run of 2017-2018, there were hundreds of small altcoins that all disappeared after the Bitcoin crash of 2018. During the bull run of 2020-2022, we had ‘finance coins’, ‘politicoins’, and ‘foodcoins’. All have disappeared since then. NFTs were also on the rise at that time.

Celebrity coins, such as those of the Hawk Tuah girl, also attracted tens of millions of dollars in investments. Pump and dump, also known as a ‘rug pull’, still works very well during a rising market.

This will be no different during this Bitcoin cycle. That is why you suddenly saw ‘Buildon’ appear on CoinMarketCap yesterday, an altcoin you otherwise never see in the top 100, with a gain of 300% in one week. And Terra Classic, the coin of a bankrupt company, also suddenly rose by 60%. Don’t fall for these pump and dump setups.