Since the dawn of the internet, people throughout the world have been dealing with computer malware. With time, viruses have become more advanced, and the emergence of digital currencies brought along a new trend – crypto malware.

According to a research study carried out by McAfee, in the year of 2018, instances of mining malware have increased by approximately 4,000%. To put things better into perspective, in the third quarter of 2018, a total of four million mining malware threats have been discovered, which is a significantly higher number when compared to 2017 and 2016, when no more than 500,000 threats were discovered.

Every new trend that appears on the internet is bound to give scammers numerous opportunities to come up with various ideas meant to take people’s money away. Bitcoin is no exception to this case, as there are thousands of bitcoin-based scams that unknowing users can get involved in.

With this in mind, in this article, we will discuss the main types of scams and factors that you should keep in mind to avoid a bitcoin scam, whenever you see one. Considering the fact that few people truly understand the way bitcoin and the blockchain works, educating yourself should be the first step.