YouTube crypto scams on the rise as victims lose millions

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Crypto scams have increased with the rally of the bulls, but scammers have found another way to perpetuate their scams. YouTube has always been an effective marketing and influencing tool in the space, which is why it is sometimes a prime target for scammers. This time around, the crooks have found another way to separate the victims from their money, through compromised YouTube videos.

Crooks turn to YouTube

Tenable reported that the rate of gift scams is on the rise. The giveaways are posted via videos posted to legitimate YouTube channels that have been compromised.

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Various YouTube channels have fallen victim to scammers hijacking their accounts to promote bogus giveaways. In these giveaways, the crooks promise massive returns using the image of prominent people in the industry. It follows the same pattern; the price of cryptocurrencies begins to rise, a newsworthy event and the images of influential people.

Scammers usually post a video of an interview with prominent figures like Elon Musk, Michael Saylor, Vitalik Buterin, etc. Coupled with a surge in the price of an asset, these videos become a trap for investors who place a great deal of importance on these influential voices.

Total crypto market cap drops to $ 2.4 trillion | Source: Total crypto market capitalization on TradingView.com

An example of this was when Tesla CEO Elon Musk appeared on Saturday Night Live. Speculation in the market was that Musk would promote the coin itself, taking it to a new all-time high.

The crooks had taken advantage of all the hype around the appearance and hijacked accounts with millions of subscribers to carry out their schemes. It is reported that the crooks made over $ 10 million in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Dogecoin giveaways that focused on Musk’s SNL appearance.

Millions lost to crypto scams

These scams have proven to be effective for scammers given the amount of money that has been extracted from them. In the report, Tenable describes a Bitcoin wallet that had been used in one of the crypto scams. This particular scam had hijacked Michael Saylor’s identity to promote a giveaway. The crooks have promised to double the BTC sent to a particular wallet.

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The bitcoin wallet contained 41 BTC when Tenable researcher Satnam Narang first discovered it. However, by November 19, that number had risen to 132 BTC which had been stolen in the crypto scam, totaling around $ 7.7 million at the time.

In October, a subset of these scams recovered nearly $ 9 million which was stolen from users. Bitcoin accounted for the bulk of that figure with over $ 8.2 million stolen from scams. Ethereum was robbed of $ 413,983, while scammers took advantage of the Shiba Inu hype, with $ 239,346 stolen in October.

Featured image by Mashable, chart from TradingView.com

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