Kevin O’Leary’s Twitter Account Hacked to Promote Bitcoin, Ethereum Giveaway Scam – Featured Bitcoin News

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Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary’s Twitter account was hacked on Thursday and used to promote a Bitcoin and Ethereum giveaway scam. The scammers claimed that Mr. Wonderful was giving away 5,000 bitcoins and 15,000 ether, and anyone could participate.

Kevin O’Leary’s “fake” Bitcoin and Ether giveaways

The official Twitter account of Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary aka Mr. Wonderful began promoting Bitcoin and Ethereum giveaways on Thursday morning. The account tweeted claiming that O’Leary had made a lot of money from crypto over the past few years and decided to donate 5,000 bitcoins and 15,000 ether. The tweet also provides a link for anyone to join the cryptocurrency scam event.

O’Leary’s Twitter account further claimed that it was not hacked and that the giveaways were not a scam. He also falsely claimed that Mr. Wonderful said on CNBC last night that he would eliminate some cryptocurrencies for real.

The link provided in the first tweet directs investors to a website claiming to be the official website for O’Leary’s Bitcoin and Ether giveaway. “Anyone can participate, including those in the United States,” the website details. Two other links are provided: one to participate in the BTC giveaway while the other to participate in the ETH giveaway.

The fake advertising posts were removed by Twitter hours after they were posted.

Crypto Giveaway Scams Widespread on Social Media

Cryptocurrency giveaway scams are prevalent on various social media platforms, including Twitter, Youtube, Facebook, and Instagram.

Scammers often hack the accounts of famous people, politicians, celebrities, and businesses and use them to promote their fake giveaways. Elon Musk and his companies Tesla and Spacex are often featured in these scams.

In the O’Leary giveaway, the scammer has obviously reused the same website he created for the fake Tesla and Elon Musk giveaways. Besides comments on O’Leary’s giveaway site thanking Musk for sending them BTC, the Shark Tank star’s Bitcoin and Ether giveaway pages have the Tesla logo at the top and were hosted on a site Web with Tesla name in URL.

In July 2020, a large number of Twitter accounts were hacked promoting a bitcoin giveaway, including those belonging to Apple, Google, Barack Obama, Bill Gates, Floyd Mayweather, Jeff Bezos, Joe Biden, Kanye West, Mike Bloomberg, Mr. Beast, Uber and Warren Buffett. More recently, Pakistani politician Imran Khan’s Instagram account was used to promote a giveaway scam featuring Musk, and the official British Army Youtube and Twitter accounts were compromised in July to promote a bitcoin giveaway.

O’Leary recently came under fire from the crypto community for defending former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried. He was paid around $15 million to become the spokesperson for the crypto exchange. After FTX’s collapse, O’Leary said Bankman-Fried was a brilliant crypto trader and would back him again if he had another business.

What do you think of cryptocurrency giveaway scams? Let us know in the comments section below.

Kevin Helms

An economics student from Austria, Kevin discovered Bitcoin in 2011 and has been an evangelist ever since. His interests include Bitcoin security, open source systems, network effects, and the intersection between economics and cryptography.

Image credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons

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