In yet another impersonating scam, a Bitcoin holder has just lost over $1 million worth of cryptocurrency to online thieves. According to reports, online scammers posed as Michael Saylor, the co-founder cum CEO of MicroStrategy to inherit 26.4 BTC from a user in a fake giveaway on the internet on Saturday. The news has been circulating on social media after WhaleAlert, an account that tracks large transactions reported the latest crypto scam on its official Twitter handle.
The platform described it as the single largest fraudulent payment scam to a fake giveaway. Reportedly, the online scammers looted the user perpetrating through a website and YouTube videos, which is no longer available on the internet. "We suspect this payment was made through a #Coinbase address," WhaleAlert wrote on the thread of their post informing and alerting investors about the latest transaction scam.
Moreover, the scam report of scam-alert.io/ shared by WhaleAlert's official handle said, "One of the most popular and effective type of scams in which the scammer promises to return multiple times the amount of cryptocurrency the victims send to them. Giveaways scammers will pretend to be a famous person or to represent a trusted company in order to gain the victim's trust and are mostly active on Youtube, Telegram and Twitter."
Over 450 Crypto Scams Launched on YouTube Last Week
Soon after the news of the scam appeared online, the real Michael Saylor tweeted, "489 of these scams were launched on YouTube last week. We report them every 15 minutes and they are taken down after a few hours, but the scammers just launch more..."
Other users on social media also reacted to the scam. "9 out of 10 a Michael Saylor associated scam, from a YouTube page? You'd have thought Microstrategy would have these scams forcibly closed but no? Maybe rotten apple doesn't fall far from this tree? So often? No wonder Microstrategy acquires so many BTC! Coinbase enabled ring?" a user wrote.
Twitter User Calls "Scam a personal casualty"
Another said, "Under the current tax law, this situation is a personal casualty loss, which is no longer tax-deductible." Well, this is a big problem for traders, who invests their hard-earned money in the crypto market.
Fake contract address and website used by scammers to steal Bitcoin:
- 1Dv4yeEEoWSsmRFzFsNu3J7eiTTiLU3LQF
- ms22.gift
At the time of publishing, Bitcoin was trading at $42,829.28, down by 0.25% in the past 24 hours with a market cap of $810,763,706,507.
Hence, the International Business Times advises crypto enthusiasts and especially new investors to keep an eye on the crypto market and not fall for any rumors.
