It is not a secret that fraudsters are going to various lengths in a bid to gain access to other people’s cryptocurrencies and that includes staging fake cryptocurrency giveaways, which especially targets relatively new investors and novices in the crypto industry.
According to a report by the cryptocurrency transaction tracker, Whale Alert, another victim had been ripped off of 1 bitcoin worth $7,121 at the time of the report, courtesy of a known cryptocurrency giveaway scam.
? ? ? A payment of 1 BTC (7,121 USD) has been made to a known GiveAway Scam!
Details: https://t.co/4UnL2c7vv1
Tx: https://t.co/Libsu0TJTF— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) April 19, 2020
Additionally, data from Bitcoin Abuse shows that even though seven reports tagging the Bitcoin address as fraudulent already exist, the persons behind the scam have amassed as much as 3.131 BTC (appr. $21393 at the time of writing).
Beware of Crypto Giveaway Scams
For beginners, the cryptocurrency giveaway scam is just one of the various schemes that exist within the cryptocurrency space. It is staged to deceive unsuspecting victims that a popular exchange or crypto figure is giving out cryptocurrencies to the public.
Victims are convinced that to participate in the giveaway, they have to send a certain amount of cryptocurrency to the giveaway wallet address in order to verify their wallets, with a promise to receive a larger amount of cryptocurrency in return.
However, since crypto transactions are irreversible, once the victim sends the crypto to the designated address, it becomes impossible to get it back, thus, profiting the scammer.
These cryptocurrency giveaway scams are quite popular on social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook and their primary targets are new crypto users who have little knowledge of how the system works and how ridiculous it is for a person to randomly give out cryptocurrencies in exchange for a small “processing fee”.
Sometimes, though, seasoned crypto traders are caught in this web of deceit since most of the scammers impersonate popular exchanges, figures, and companies in the cryptocurrency industry. Binance, Vitalik Buterin, John McAfee and Elon Musk, and even Coinfomania have all at one time been impersonated by these giveaway scammers.
The catch is that the scammers gain public trust when they impersonate popular figures in the industry thus, increasing their chances of getting money from victims.
Earlier this month, it was reported that scammers had impersonated Chainlink, trying to convince ETH holders that they would be given 300 LINK tokens for every 10 ETH in their possession.
Always stay SAFU.
