With amazingly simple methods, Bitcoin fraudsters play naive crypto fans on Twitter and Youtube. They can then track the flow of money, but they cannot force the culprit to return the virtual money – that is the disadvantage of the Bitcoin philosophy.
The hourly wage of a Bitcoin scammer is substantial. Got a good $ 1,650 an hour this one here earned. how did he do that? He simply asked on Youtube to transfer Bitcoin to him. A surprising number of people responded to his call. Less than 24 hours later, he had $ 40,000 in his virtual wallet.
“This fraud sounds totally banal,” says Leon Berghoff von Sixtant, a high-frequency trading company for cryptocurrencies. “But when you can reach the whole world with something like that, there are always some people who fall for it.”
The vast majority of Bitcoin scams always work on the same, amazingly simple principle: In the vast majority of cases, you create an account on Twitter that looks exactly like that of a famous user. “For example Bill Gates,” says crypto expert Berghoff. “In the first name, however, an L is replaced by a capital i. With a matching picture, it looks like the real Bill Gates account.”
Make two out of one …
Everyone knows Microsoft founder Bill Gates. Cathie Wood, currently probably the hippest investor on Wall Street, in the stock market and crypto scene too. The Youtube fraudster “borrowed” her name in mid-March for his rip-off. A square bracket in front of their name, one behind. Then play a few old videos of her in a loop, and at first glance it actually looks as if the Bitcoin advocate is broadcasting live on YouTube and talking about her latest investment tips.
And then there is this little text box in the video that invites the viewer to a competition: Everyone who transfers Bitcoins receives double the amount back. For half one you get a whole one. If you transfer a whole one, two are returned and so on and so forth. It’s the modern version of the grandchildren’s trick. Virtual, but just as cheap and clumsy. Aimed at users who are as inexperienced as they are greedy – and who dream of quick money.
“It’s the same everywhere,” says Leon Berghoff. “When Elon Musk tweets, you can see in the comments below people who copy his picture and offer other people to double their cryptocurrency. That way, people have probably been robbed of millions of dollars or euros. You have to simply understand that people like Elon Musk or Bill Gates don’t just give money to strangers. You have to explain how cryptocurrencies and the blockchain work so that inexperienced users don’t make mistakes. ”
Who is responsible? Nobody
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In the YouTube scam with Cathie Wood in March, a Bitcoin was worth $ 61,000. So if you transferred half a fee, a few seconds later you were poorer by a good 30,000 dollars. Nobody knows where the money ended up, although the fraudsters openly state where the bitcoins should be sent. On websites like blockchain.com it can even be tracked which address received how many bitcoins and when.
“That is one of the peculiarities of crypto currencies,” says Berghoff. “You can track every transaction. But if you can’t connect the address on the blockchain to a person, you actually have no chance of finding them.”
And if you’ve sent someone – intentionally or unintentionally – too many or at all bitcoin, there is no customer service to turn to. If the new owner refuses to refund the amount, you are in a fix. The state is not responsible, there is no blockchain or Bitcoin supervision, and also no private supervisor.
Inglorious day for Twitter
It’s a philosophical question: How much control should the state have over its own wealth? In the case of Bitcoin, none at all. “That is the core,” says crypto expert Berghoff. “It’s about eliminating or bypassing intermediaries such as banks. That is the difference to normal currency systems, in which a state or regulated company is the central authority in between.”
Last summer, a then 17-year-old from the US state of Florida tricked a Twitter employee and took control of several world-famous accounts. Suddenly, the future US President Joe Biden, his predecessor Barack Obama, Tesla boss Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Apple’s corporate account and also Kim Kardashian were promoting the well-known model: Send me one Bitcoin, I’m sending two back. In a matter of hours, the teenager was $ 117,000 richer.
It was an inglorious day for Twitter and the Bitcoin community. But the teenager made a mistake, his name could be linked to his digital wallet address. In mid-March he confessed in court and accepted three years in prison. The next bitcoin scammer is definitely not that stupid. Neither be it.
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