S3 E5 | How to Avoid Crypto Scams w/Taylor Monahan

Taylor Monahan is Product Lead at MetaMask, a crypto wallet and gateway to blockchain apps.

As an early crypto adopter, Taylor has watched almost every cycle of crypto come and go. About a year after the Ethereum presale, she learned there were real blockchain apps popping up on the Ethereum blockchain. And even in these early days, she recognized the industry’s need for something critical — better wallets. 

Taylor pivoted into working on creating her own wallet with a more user-friendly interface and….actual buttons and stuff. This turned into MyCrypto, which was later bought by MetaMask. Taylor has been building web3 tooling and working on making wallets easier to use ever since.

During our discussion with Taylor, we dive into wallet security and cover basic wallet 101 info. She runs us through some best practices and ways in which your wallet can become compromised, as well as how a recovery phrase/seed phrase works and how to prevent attacks. 

Taylor also shares how she almost got scammed, Diana shared how her sister did get scammed, and we go over the importance of double checking, triple checking, and gut checking before you sign a transaction. Taylor also informs us of some steps you can take to cross-examine the validity of whatever site you are interacting with. 

Finally, Taylor shares how the web3 space (and wallets in particular) have evolved over the years of her long and successful career, and she leaves us with some spicy hot takes on the future of web3. 

🔗 FOLLOW US

Rehash: https://twitter.com/rehashweb3

Diana: https://twitter.com/ddwchen

Taylor: https://twitter.com/tayvano_

MetaMask: https://twitter.com/metamask

⌛ TIMESTAMPS

0:00 Intro

0:30 Sponsors!

4:10 Rehash: A Little Pod of Happiness

5:43 Taylor’s background

9:02 Using Ethereum in the early days

11:04 Wallet 101

14:48 Wallet security best practices

17:10 Wallet compromisation 

18:35 MetaMask accounts and recovery phrases 

21:24 How to prevent attacks

25:00 A scam Taylor almost fell for 

28:01 How to double, triple, and quadruple check before you sign a transaction

33:00 The evolution from My Ether Wallet to MetaMask

38:57 How Taylor’s perspective on web3 safety has changed over the years

42:03 Taylor’s hot takes

48:54 Follow Taylor!

51:47 Shoutouts!

🤝 SPONSORS

Lens Protocol: https://lens.xyz

Avenue: https://avenue.place

Govrn: https://govrn.app

DISCLAIMER: The information in this video is the opinion of the speaker(s) only and is for informational purposes only. You should not construe it as investment advice, tax advice, or legal advice, and it does not represent any entity's opinion but those of the speaker(s). For investment or legal advice, please seek a duly licensed professional.

DISCLAIMER: The information in this video is the opinion of the speaker(s) only and is for informational purposes only. You should not construe it as investment advice, tax advice, or legal advice, and it does not represent any entity's opinion but those of the speaker(s). For investment or legal advice, please seek a duly licensed professional.