The crypto boom in the past few months came more than a decade after the virtual coins were first minted, only to blind the online space with its bling. The currency not regulated by any central authority and almost impossible to fake since it's registered on a blockchain, has quickly become a safe investment alternative for netizens.

Soon after cryptocurrencies gained ground, conversion of assets into digital tokens has also become a trend for content creators and artists, who seek to attract investors. But in the fast changing digital realm, scammers are also matching the pace of innovators, to trap vulnerable users by promising unrealistic returns.

In an environment where the sudden spike in value of virtual currencies has taken the connected world by storm, less experienced players are more likely to be fooled by promises of high gains. This is why authorities in the UAE are warning netizens to stay away from schemes which seem too good to be true, since they are probably fake.

People have even been instructed against entertaining anonymous calls or messages, by those claiming to be representatives of licensed trading firms. Apart from attempts to extract personal information to be misused, scammers also use crypto trading as a bait for money laundering ops, by asking users to receive funds from suspicious accounts.

Lack of monitoring in case of electronic transactions has been cited as one factor that exposes netizens to crypto scams, but more importantly the fluctuation in rates of virtual coins, is likely to make investors vulnerable.

Before this, Kuwait's central bank has also raised an alarm against cryptocurrencies, due to their volatile nature. At the same time UAE has been welcoming towards the digital cash, since the licensing authority in Dubai has also started accepting Bitcoins as payment.

The Emirates is even collaborating with its neighbouring kingdom of Saudi Arabia, to create a common digital currency under the Aber programme.