Forteswap Scam: What Happened and How to Avoid Fake Crypto Projects

When you hear about Forteswap, a DeFi platform that promised high yields but disappeared with users’ funds. Also known as Forteswap scam, it’s one of many fake crypto projects that lure people with flashy websites and fake testimonials. It wasn’t a real exchange or protocol—it was a front. Users deposited tokens, waited for rewards, and got nothing. The team vanished. The website went dark. And now, Forteswap lives on only as a warning label in crypto forums.

Scams like Forteswap don’t appear out of nowhere. They follow a pattern: fake airdrops, fake liquidity pools, fake partnerships with big names like CoinMarketCap or Binance. They copy real project designs, steal logos, and use bots to inflate trading volume. Then they disappear before anyone can pull their money out. You’ll see this same playbook in DEGA, a token with no trading volume and no team behind it, or EDRCoin, a dead coin still listed on outdated trackers. These aren’t bugs—they’re features of how scammers operate. They count on you being too rushed to check the basics: who’s behind it? Is there a real team? Are the smart contracts audited? Is the token even tradable on any real exchange?

The real danger isn’t just losing money. It’s losing trust. When people get burned by a fake airdrop or a phantom DEX, they start thinking all crypto is rigged. But the truth is, most scams are easy to spot if you know what to look for. No legitimate project will ask you to send ETH to claim free tokens. No real team hides behind a Telegram group with no verifiable members. And no airdrop comes from a site that doesn’t have a GitHub, a whitepaper, or even a real domain name. You’ll find examples of this in posts about HaloDAO (RNBW), a token falsely linked to CoinMarketCap, or VLXPAD, a project that claimed a grand airdrop but was just a trading promotion. They all look real until you dig deeper.

What’s left after a scam like Forteswap? Ghost tokens. Empty wallets. And a long list of people who learned the hard way. But you don’t have to be one of them. The posts below break down real cases—what went wrong, who got hurt, and how to spot the next one before it’s too late. You’ll see exactly how fake airdrops are built, how zombie tokens stay alive on tracking sites, and what to do when something looks too good to be true. This isn’t theory. It’s what happened. And it’s happening again right now.