Old-time strategies used by fast-talking confidence-men still swindle people out of big money – though these days, they’re not selling snake oil, but rather cryptocurrencies. Scammers pepper their patter with technical-sounding mumbo-jumbo and use automated bots to keep their marks hyped up and on the hook. Investors lost more than $1 billion in these scams last year alone.

Cryptocurrency and blockchain scholar Nir Kshetri has explained other aspects of these hard-to-understand technologies, so I asked him to lay out what happens in a cryptocurrency scam – from the scammers’ perspective, and from the side of the victims. He explains that these scams aren’t as much using technology as they are exploiting it in tech-enhanced Ponzi schemes.

Also today we have stories on the debate over yoga and meditation in schools, how Walmart’s greeter policy reveals flaws in the American with Disabilities Act and the problem with charging fees to asylum-seekers.

Top stories

Don’t end up like this person. fizkes/Shutterstock.com

How cryptocurrency scams work

Nir Kshetri, University of North Carolina – Greensboro

Cryptocurrency fraudsters have swindled their victims out of hundreds of millions – even billions – of dollars. What do they do to earn people's trust and then take their money?

Economy + Business

Education

  • Are yoga and mindfulness in schools religious?

    Candy Gunther Brown, Indiana University

    Yoga and mindfulness are becoming more prevalent in America's public schools. But are they subtly promoting religion? A scholar who has served as an expert witness in several yoga cases weighs in.

Politics + Society

Health + Medicine

  • The unique harm of sexual abuse in the black community

    Jennifer M. Gómez, Wayne State University

    Sexual abuse has unique effects on people who are members of the same minority group, research suggests. An expert who has studied the issue in detail explains the added issue of cultural betrayal.

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