Cloud mining, “phone mining” and Telegram bots: how to spot a scam

The golden rule: where the money comes from

Real mining is hardware doing work. A GPU or CPU performs calculations for a network, the network pays for them in coins, and so income always depends on three things: the power of your hardware, network difficulty and the coin price. It cannot be fixed, and it cannot grow for no reason.

If a service cannot explain what hardware and what work it is paying you for, yet the income is stable and “guaranteed”, the money most likely comes from new participants’ deposits. That is a Ponzi scheme.

Scheme 1. Cloud mining with guaranteed returns

A website offers to sell you “hashpower” or a “contract” and promises a fixed daily percentage: 2%, 5%, “double your money in a month”. The first payouts really do arrive — funded by the next investors. When the inflow of new people slows, withdrawals are “temporarily suspended” and the site disappears.

Red flags:

• a fixed percentage return that does not depend on coin prices;
• generous referral bonuses and partner “levels”;
• no evidence the hardware exists — just glossy data-centre photos;
• an anonymous team and a recently registered website.

Honest cloud mining contracts do exist, but their returns always fluctuate and, after fees, often lose to simply buying the coin.

Scheme 2. “Phone mining”

An app promises your phone will mine while it sits in your pocket. In reality a smartphone has negligible mining power, and constant load only heats the phone and wears out the battery. That is why the big app stores do not allow it: Google Play and App Store rules ban apps that mine cryptocurrency on the device itself.

What gets called “phone mining” usually turns out to be one of three things:

• points or tokens that cannot be sold anywhere;
• watching ads that earn money for the developer, not you;
• data collection plus a paid subscription to “boost mining”.

Scheme 3. Telegram bots and “tap-to-earn” games

Bots invite you to “mine” by tapping the screen, invite friends and collect tokens until a “listing”. Most of these projects end with nothing: the token never reaches exchanges or is worth pennies. Worse, a bot may send you to a site to “claim a reward” that asks you to connect a crypto wallet or enter your seed phrase — and the wallet is drained in a minute.

Scheme 4. “Pay to withdraw”

You are shown a big balance, but to withdraw it you are asked to pay a “fee”, “tax”, “insurance” or “account activation”. After you pay, a new charge appears, then another. An honest service deducts its fee from the payout itself and never asks you to pay extra on top.

Scheme 5. Fake miners and “enhanced” software

“Miner with double hashrate”, “cracked version”, “unlocked GPU” — names like these are used to spread malware that mines for an attacker or steals passwords. How to find such a program on your computer is covered in “Hidden miner: find and remove”.

Checklist: how to vet any service

1. Is it clear what you are paid for? It should be obvious what hardware is working and which coin it mines.
2. Does income fluctuate? Honest income changes with coin prices and network difficulty. A fixed percentage is a red flag.
3. No deposit needed? If you must deposit money or buy a “package” to start, be extra careful.
4. Withdrawals with no extra payments? The minimum withdrawal is small, and the fee is deducted from the payout.
5. Can transfers be verified? Every payout should have a transaction hash visible on the blockchain.
6. Can you see the work? You should see what your hardware is doing and be able to stop it at any time.
7. Are the rules published? Terms of use and payout rules should be openly available.

How FlowHash works

We do not promise fixed income and do not charge anything to get started. FlowHash is a free app that mines on your own computer: NVIDIA RTX graphics cards mine Pearl, CPUs mine Monero. Income depends on your hardware, coin prices and network difficulty, and the app shows it honestly in real time. Mining stops with one button, withdrawals are available in Bitcoin (from $50), Litecoin and Steam (from $5), and every payout in your dashboard comes with a transaction hash.

The mining calculator shows what your own computer could earn — no promises, electricity included. And “How to make money with your PC” explains where to start.

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