TLDR Breakdown
- Scammers put out another fake 50,000 ETH Ethereum giveaway on Youtube.
- Unsuspecting participants were asked to first contribute their coins to receive back double.
Crypto scammers haven’t backed out from running fake giveaways, especially on Youtube. There has been an increase in the number of fake Youtube digital currency giveaways in recent months, all of which got clamp-down when reported. Again, another fake Ethereum giveaway was spotted on the video platform on Monday, asking the public first to contribute their cryptocurrency, particularly Ether (ETH), in order to receive double the amount they deposited.
Scammers plot 50,000 ETH in fake Ethereum giveaway
The fraudsters were able to manipulate a video conference featuring Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum, the second-largest blockchain network. They opened a Livestream on Youtube using the edited video in order to convince people to believe that the planned Ethereum giveaway was legitimate. They linked to a website (https://buterin-eth.news/) where unsuspecting victims can participate in the giveaway, which used a similar strategy as other double-your-coin scams.
About 50,000 ETH was planned in the Ethereum giveaway, which would be worth about $23 million following the current price of Ether at $462. At first, they claimed that the giveaways were planned to accelerate the process of cryptocurrency mass adoption. Participation will have to first a certain amount of their Ethereum coin to an address provided on the page in order to receive double the coins. The page precisely reads:
“To participate, you just need to send from 5 ETH to 500 ETH to the contribution address, and we will immediately send you back 10 ETH to 1000 ETH (x2 back) to the address you sent it from.”
Do not be deceived
Note that any cryptocurrency sent to such double-your-coin programs were never returned to the participants. Besides, the Ethereum Foundation would never adopt such a strategy of asking for cryptos first from users, which is a red flag for these giveaways. Also, this Ethereum giveaway wasn’t informed by the Foundation. Neither was it promoted by Buterin or popular Ethereum devs.
