One day soon, those famous emails from Nigerian princes proposing to share their riches with anyone willing to give up their bank account number in an email will be seen as quaint artifacts from the early years of the internet.
More serious scams have taken their place, and one that’s been very successful involves cryptocurrency.
That relatively new word describes a digital currency that is a medium of exchange through a computer network. It is exclusively traded online and, perhaps most important, it is not backed by any central authority, such as the way the United States government supports the dollar.
Online currencies are protected by a strong cryptographic code — thus their name. Bitcoin is the oldest and best-known crypto.
Many advocates of this form of exchange believe traditional currencies, such as the dollar, are ultimately doomed to collapse because of decades of deficit spending. They may have a point, but when a lot of people are being ripped off in the crypto world, that makes the dollar look like a much safer haven — even with those Nigerian princes lurking.
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