Staying safe
Easy does not mean risk-free. Here is what can go wrong, in plain words, and what to do about it. None of this is complicated, and knowing it prevents nearly everything.
The five rules
- 1
Never share your recovery words
Not with support, not with a friend, not with us. There is no situation where a real person needs them. Anyone who asks is stealing from you.
- 2
Nobody messages you first
Nobody from launchd or Telegram will message you first asking for money or keys. If someone does, it is not them.
- 3
Check the username, not the name
Names and profile pictures can be copied exactly. The @username cannot. That is the only part worth trusting.
- 4
Guaranteed returns means scam
Every time. Nobody can guarantee a return, so anyone saying they can is lying about that or about something else.
- 5
Slow down
Urgency is the tool. “Only today”, “last spots”, “act now”. A real opportunity survives you thinking about it overnight.
Before you support anything
Five questions. If you cannot answer them, that is your answer.
- Can you find out who is behind it, and does that hold up?
- Does the project say plainly what it does, without jargon?
- Has it been talking to its people for more than a few weeks?
- Does it tell you what could go wrong, or only what could go right?
- Could you afford to lose what you are about to put in?
Checking a bot is the real one
- 1.Open the bot’s profile and read the @username character by character.
- 2.Compare it to the username published on the project’s own channel.
- 3.Check it has the same username everywhere the project links to it.
- 4.If anything differs, even one character, stop.
Your phone number, and who can see it
This is the question people ask us most quietly, usually about a group for their street, their school or their club. It is a good question and there is a real answer.
Joining or running a Telegram group does not hand your phone number to everyone in it. What strangers can see is controlled by one setting, and you should check it before you invite anybody.
- 1.Open Telegram Settings, then Privacy and Security, then Phone Number.
- 2.Set “Who can see my phone number” to My Contacts, or to Nobody.
- 3.Set a username (@something) while you are there. It lets people reach you without your number.
- 4.Now invite people. They will see your name and your username, not your number.
People already in your phone’s contacts are a separate matter — they have your number anyway. The setting is about everyone else.
[CONFIRM against Telegram’s current settings and wording at publishing time, and date it. These menus move.]
If you’re launching
If your project gets any attention, somebody will copy it. Not maybe — they will. The job is to tell your people what the real thing looks like before that happens, not after.
How to protect your supportersIf something went wrong
Move fast on what can still be saved: move anything left to a new wallet, tell your community so nobody else is caught, and report the account. Be honest with yourself about what cannot be undone.
What to do nextHow launchd handles bad actors
[PLACEHOLDER: real policy required before launch.]
Read next
How to spot a scam token
A scam token almost always promises a guaranteed return, and a real one never does.
How to keep your wallet keys safe
Your recovery words are the wallet, so anyone who reads them owns everything in it.
What to check before you put money into any project
Five minutes of checking prevents most of the bad outcomes people write about afterwards.
Launch your project. Team included.
You bring the idea. Your first teammate is already waiting.
launchd is the Telegram-native launch platform where every project gets its own AI teammate.