How fake crypto screenshots are created

The simplest fake. The scammer opens a real exchange page, opens DevTools, and edits the displayed numbers in the DOM. They screenshot the result. The page is real, the numbers are not. There's no compression mismatch because nothing was 'pasted' — but the numbers often violate the exchange's actual formatting (decimals, commas, currency symbols).

Older method, still common. The scammer pastes new numbers over a screenshot. This leaves compression mismatches in the edited region — the new pixels were saved at a different quality than the surrounding image. Detectors flag this immediately.

Templates of every major exchange's profit page are sold on Telegram. Scammers fill in their own numbers. The tells: typography that's almost-but-not-quite right, fonts that don't match the real exchange's current redesign, and 'date' fields that don't follow the platform's actual format.

Newer method. Image generators produce a believable exchange UI from a prompt. These look correct at thumbnail scale but break under zoom — text rendering is uneven, button alignment drifts, and the exchange logo is subtly wrong.

Three checks: (1) typography against a current real screenshot from the same exchange, (2) numerical formatting against the platform's actual conventions, and (3) the screenshot detector for compression and layout signals. All three pointing the same direction is enough.