A British news agency teamed with Chainalysis to uncover just how rampant cryptocurrency Twitter scams are and the methods employed. Using well-regarded tech personalities such as Elon Musk, tens of thousands dollars have been swiped from unsuspecting admirers.
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No, Elon Musk Is Not Giving Away Crypto
Senior developer at Chainalysis, Alvaro Sevilla, explained: “The differences in the way these funds are being handled, such as different withdrawal patterns and the use of different exchanges, is indicative of different copycats attempting to do the same scam. The simplicity of the attack, which requires little technical knowledge and preparation, also leads us to believe it’s a trend more than an organised attack,” he told Sky News.
The two outfits teamed up to uncover how rampant crypto Twitter scams are, using popular profiles such as Elon Musk, a well regarded tech savant and founder of companies such as Tesla and Space X, and Vitalik Buterin of Ethereum, who is generally respected in the crypto world proper. After having shared their report findings with Twitter, the team received this response from the social media platform: “We are aware of coordinated spam activity around cryptocurrencies and related software products. The malicious use of automation, impersonation, and other deliberate attempts to deceive are prohibited under the Twitter Rules.”
And yet many offending profiles remain, proving it a difficult task to police the problem from on-high. It’s probably more worthwhile to remind average and newer enthusiasts there is no such thing as a free lunch. If it appears to be too good to be true, it probably is. Though these well worn cliches seem downright obvious, it does appear some of the scammers attempted to feign legitimacy.
A higher-profile account establishes a pattern of syntax and image, and then an offending account merely copies its attributes down to the finest detail. A quick read inside a thread is usually the easiest way to catch unsuspecting eyeballs. The fraud profile at some point within the discussion offers to give free cryptocurrency.
Maniacally Simplistic
Words like “community” are tossed around, and the posing profile urges readers to zap a few small fractions to a wallet address with the promise of larger returns later. It has evidently worked so well, legitimate personalities have retaken to Twitter in order to warn followers. In the case of Mr. Buterin, he’s even changed his official Twitter name for emphasis.
“Our teams are overseeing a technological process of batch suspending these networks of offending accounts at scale and at speed,” Twitter explained. “If anyone sees suspicious account behaviour relating to these issues, they should block the user immediately and report them directly to our dedicated support teams.”
A graph by Chainalysis shows “funds belonging to victims’ accounts were independently sourced, displaying separate clusters of transactions rather than anything which the scammer had seeded.”
of noted, “The fake accounts have struck hundreds of times over the last two months, with the most successful taking away as much as £50,000 a day before using a range of exchanges to convert the proceeds into cash. In the largest scams, Sky News has observed hundreds of fake and automated accounts retweeting and liking the scam post, some responding with claims that they received money back; all providing the scammer with legitimacy and encouraging other users to take part.”
Within the Twitter thread, automated responses to the request by the scam profile issue encouraging testimonials. And if an initial skeptic were slick enough, the ethereum blockchain confirmed token amounts were indeed sent, perhaps lending an air, at first glance, of legitimacy. The team was unable to determine how much of the amounts were sent credulously by victims, versus what’sknown as “seed” amounts used to trick future victims sent by the fake profile itself to create a fear of missing out.
Stay Skeptical
“Our investigation found that some of these scams did indeed feature seed transfers,” Mr. Martin observed, “but these curiously were only utilised by the least successful of the scams. For the most successful – which received thousands of pounds from their victims – not a single transaction could be confidently flagged as a seed transfer.”
It wasn’t really any more than that. Create a fake profile and wallet. Invade a thread with carefully worded urgency. The user sees the amount as a pittance and sends it along for the gamble, and probably won’t even report having been duped. And, look, everyone else seems to be doing it and it worked for them!
For its part, Chainalysis “detected significantly different methodologies in terms of how the scammers attempted to launder their cryptocurrency, and to which exchanges their funds were sent in exchange for cash – suggesting that the campaigns were being run by copycats rather than a single conspiracy with an established method of operating.”
What do you think about such scams? Should Twitter become more restrictive or should users take greater care? Let us know in the comments!
Images via Pixabay, Chainalysis, Twitter.
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Once upon a time, life’s basic necessities consisted of food, clothing and shelter. In today’s digital age, it could be extended to include power and data. Without those two, surviving would be near impossible.
Already, meeting these global needs is taking a toll on the planet. A more efficient, secure, power that saves costs is required. Robotina intends to be this approach by offering a 3-in-1 package where blockchain meets the Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI).
What is Robotina?
is an IoT platform that focuses on energy and power use. Adopting high-standard technology with a blend of AI, Robotina is able to reduce energy consumption, lower electricity costs, and optimize the entire electricity grid in an area. This is achieved by real-time monitoring of consumption data.
As mentioned earlier, power and data are among the basic necessities in the digital age. In addition to working to reduce power consumption, Robotina manages the IoT devices consumers use. This way, they can efficiently collect and process anonymous data of users.
On the user’s part, they are in full control of their data and have power over the choice of either selling their data for a profit or keeping it 100% private.
How is Robotina different from the multitude?
At the moment, it appears everyone and their grandma are starting a blockchain project and launching an ICO. Some brazenly ask for funds even without a Minimum Viable Product (MVP), thereby causing many to lose faith.
Robotina is neither of the above.
The platform is backed by an established company with over two decades of existence and experience in the AI and IoT market. Established in Slovenia, Europe, the company has a proven track record of success. Robotina is home to 50 experts in automation, smart grids, IoT & AI.
With seven registered patents, five international certificates, two R&D teams, one approved institute, and execution of successful projects in more than 28 countries, you can expect an excellent MVP from Robotina.
How can I benefit from Robotina?
A convergence of today’s three biggest areas of technology will produce a masterpiece that helps you optimize your power, while also reducing costs. Here’s how the Robotina (blockchain + AI + IoT) platform benefits you:
Automatically turning off your devices when appropriate.
Automatically switching on your devices when it’s cheap to do so.
You become a member of a supportive community comprising other smart and green technology users.
Opportunity to pool and contribute funds with others, in a group, in order to purchase power units.
You become the buyer (and seller) of your energy.
You can buy at the best prices with the help of accessible real-time data.
You can sell off unused power.
Allows you to track real-time data to see measurable benefits.
As mentioned earlier, you can choose to sell your collated data or keep it to yourself.
Users can crowd finance for projects other than power-related.
You gain full access to other services available on the Robotina platform.
Remember, Robotina isn’t just all about saving or making you some bucks, they are particular about making the planet greener by saving on energy consumption.
How can I get Robotina?
Robotina is issuing an ERC-20 token (ROX) built on the Ethereum blockchain. ROX is an application-specific token, to be used by members worldwide as the fuel for Robotina’s IoT platform. This will enable Robotina to give the value of the cooperative network back to the community.
You can participate in the ongoing token pre-sale by completing KYC.
Crowdsale begins 21st March to end 30th April. Robotina’s ICO soft cap is $10 million, while the hard cap is $28.5 million.
There will be a total token supply of 815 million ROX. 570.5 million of that will be distributed during crowdsale.
To purchase ROX, a minimum contribution of 0.5 ETH must be made.
Heading the robust team of experienced professionals is Robotina’s CEO, Devid Palčič.
Uses of ROX
For purchases with the Energy Service Company (ESCO).
For identification of members of the community.
As community incentive and reward.
As currency for paying subscriptions on the platform.
To purchase hardware and software.
To facilitate virtual power plant (VPP) crowdfunding.
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Telegram’s cryptocurrency called Gram is predicted to reach a $200 billion market cap in five years. Nevertheless, some experts believe that Telegram’s is still overvalued. There is different information on how much the company hopes to raise, some reports say Telegram team has a goal to attract $2.6 billion during its ICO while some others believe that their aim is $4–5 billion.
That was Aaron Brown, a former managing director at quantitative investment firm AQR Capital Management, who that the native token of the Telegram Open Network could achieve a $200 billion market cap in quite a short period of time, which will bring ICO investors good profits. Being an experienced player on the crypto arena, Brown doesn’t gamble on the Telegram deal for himself personally. And one of the reasons is that it’s overvalued.
According to Brown’s forecasts, in 5 years there will be 300 million users of cryptocurrencies and their aggregate market cap will increase to $5 trillion. In such conditions, Telegram has a potential to attract 4 percent of these people to its platform.
Brown said that Telegram has chances to become one-third the size of giant internet companies while crypto will get a share of one-third of the value of internet businesses. Nevertheless, such a situation is just a best-case scenario and there is a wide range of obstacles for making it a reality.
In accordance with Brown’s most positive estimates, Gram can reach a $1 billion valuation at launch or even more. The expert said that Gram’s value will be derived from the users’ transactions balances, it means from the sum that they have in their accounts.
Telegram provides an encrypted-messaging service that has gained popularity with people interested in crypto trading and investing in ICOs. As it has reported in the beginning of the year, the platform has 180 million active users and can boast 500,000 new sign-ups and over 70 billion messages sent per day. And now the team plans to create the ‘third generation’ offering support to thousands of decentralized applications, the raised funds will be allocated namely to the development of this initiative.
It’s worth mentioning that in the pre-sale round Telegram has already managed to $850 million which significantly exceeds their initial target. There were also talks about a second aimed to raise exactly the same amount as the first round.
But the opinions of experts on this issue really differ. Some of them do not consider it right to offer an opportunity to buy Gram only for accredited investors with at least a half a million dollars and not to approach the public directly in a crowdsale method. Others do not understand why Telegram need to attract such a huge sum of investments for its project and think that Telegram is just cashing its image.
Nevertheless, the hype around Telegram may contribute to attracting more money into another startups’ ICOs which are predicted to reach combined $18 billion in 2018.
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