Fake ‘Elon Musk’ Giveaway Wallet Receives $234K in Bitcoin

Despite all the rhetorics, many investors looking to get-rich-quick still fall for scams in the crypto space. According to a recent tweet by Whale Alert, someone transferred 5 BTC worth a staggering $234,000 in current market price to a verified scam address.

Did Investor Lose 5 BTC To Crypto Thieves?

The purported wallet address had run a scam bitcoin giveaway in the past. Scammy crypto giveaways are built on the false promise of doubling the victim’s bitcoin investment.  Although it is not known if the sender is a victim or the scammer himself, it helps to let everyone know such sites do exist and are out to extort people.

🚔 A payment of 5 #BTC (243,153 USD) was just made to a confirmed Elon Musk Giveaway scam!https://t.co/06RBSkkcGr

— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) March 1, 2021

Crypto Sector is Rife with Celebrity Scams

Celebrity accounts promoting crypto giveaway is no novel occurrence, and Twitter is a hotbed for these criminals. 

Public figures like Richard Branson, Bill Gates have seen their faces used to commit fraudulent activities. Even popular brands have also seen their accounts used to defraud the investing public.

In a June.9 report published by Bleeping Computer, several scammers hacked legitimate YouTube accounts and impersonated as rocket company Space X to defraud victims. The hacked accounts were recreated to look like Elon Musk’s Space X, and the fraudsters hosted Bitcoin giveaways for 80,000 who tuned in. Their effort was rewarded with $150,000 coming into their pockets. 

When Musk heard about the event, he told his viewers to be careful whom they send money to in hopes of getting rich. He also said that Twitter was a viable incubator for these scams to grow. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ar8V4jfyCGU

Musk has not been the only celebrity defaced by these questionable giveaways. Recent research discovered that scammers were using doctored mainstream news articles to advertise a nonexistent Bitcoin investment platform.

The “Bitcoin Profit” scam promised its victim a 4000% ROI if they invest in the platform. To further prove their veracity, the pictures of Richard Branson, Elon Musk, Bill Gates are heavily represented on the scam site. Actress Kate Winslet and Australian businessman Andrew Forrest have testimonials recommending the program to victims.

The scam site says if $10,394 worth of BTC is invested in the platform, the investors will get back $421,226- or 4,110% in one week.

Crypto projects are known to do giveaways on social media, which is one of the strong suits the criminals are exploiting. In September 2020, decentralized exchange running on the Ethereum network Uniswap airdropped 400 UNI tokens worth $1,200 at the time. Showtime, a non-fungible token (NFT) project still in the works, also hosted a giveaway on Twitter.

But the major difference between these instances and the scams is that none of them asked any user to send crypto-assets before getting any.