Almost every day, I receive dozens of requests for help from victims of pyramid schemes, air coins, and other scams through my social media account. At first, I thought scammers used information asymmetry to push these people into scams, but later I slowly realized that it wasn't the scammers pushing them, but rather the fantasies of sudden wealth fermenting in their hearts day and night.

In the cryptocurrency world, things like pyramid scheme coins and air coins are just temporary stages built for many people's scripts of financial freedom; those who actually step onto the stage are all voluntarily walking up.

In fact, scammers understand human nature the best; they know that desire is the scythe that harvests the chives in the cryptocurrency world, and it's the fastest one. So these scammers never directly offer bait, but rather create a half-closed door, making you feel that with just a gentle push, you can achieve financial freedom.

Those pyramid scheme coins take this concept to the extreme, with white papers filled with terms like decentralization and constant total supply. Every day in the community, someone shares false screenshots of instant wealth, which are just old tricks packaged in new concepts. But as long as you start fantasizing that investing another 100,000 will get you a new car, how can you still see the traps?

A victim who works in engineering sought my help; he had fallen for a blockchain mining project. In fact, as I learned more, I found out that his assistant had long discovered that the so-called mine was an abandoned warehouse in the suburbs. He himself also knew that the coins he mined couldn't even enter the exchange, yet he still transferred 3 million.

He said that playing this game is like betting on steel prices at a construction site, always thinking that this time he can win.

In fact, he had calculated it long ago. 3 million for a 30 million script; he had almost played it out as a continuous drama in his mind: what to exchange for a river view apartment, buying a flat for his son abroad, even which people to invite for dinner when receiving the property had been thought out.

The result, of course, was a complete loss. He didn't even curse the scammer, just slapped his thigh and said: Damn it, I was too greedy.

One victim that left a deep impression on me was a recent university graduate.

She invested 50,000 in a metaverse project in a rich second-generation entrepreneurship group, but in fact, the group owner just opened an internet cafe in the county, and the so-called technical team was just a high school student who had just learned Photoshop, while the people around him kindly advised him.

She replied: You don't understand, this is a filtering of social circles; only those willing to believe can seize the opportunity.

Later, the group was disbanded, and she posted a status on her social media: I paid for tuition this time, but next time I will definitely choose correctly. The accompanying picture was a screenshot of the cross-border e-commerce investment group she had just joined.

People in the air coin groups in the crypto world are all like this. They see that the rewards for recruiting others are higher than the price increase of the coins, and even though they know it's a Ponzi scheme, they always feel they can be the lucky ones who walk away unscathed.

Just like people in multi-level marketing calculate their returns by looking at the hierarchy chart, and air coin traders stare at K-line charts to find patterns, these people aren't unable to see the truth; they truly can't bear to burst the bubble of their self-created dreams of wealth.

This is human nature. No matter how elaborate the scam is, it can't compare to the obsession in people's hearts that 'I can make money.' Just like fishermen know that fish are not fooled by bait, but are deceived by their own false sense of security regarding food.

The so-called carefully designed scams in this world? Mostly, they are just scammers handing over a fuse, and we ignite the explosives of desire ourselves.