Vitalik Buterin Cautions Community Against Crypto Scams

On May 30, Vitalik Buterin, the founder of Ethereum, emphasized the importance of cultural sensitivity and the frequent occurrence of fraud in the crypto market. He warned users to avoid falling prey to scammers who use regular words to convince them to give them their money, coins, or tokens. These words can mean something completely different in the context of cryptocurrency than they would otherwise be.

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In a recent article posted on Farcaster, Buterin discussed the importance of paying attention to languages in the crypto sphere. He used an example of common translations: “actual” in most European languages is “current,” and “Concurrency” is “Competition.” In the crypto world, things like “DAO” mean “project,” and “official” may mean “scam.” Thus, using such examples, he shows that words indeed have different meanings depending on culture and the context in which they are being used.

Buterin Addresses Fraud Incidents Involving Fake Accounts

Buterin’s statement was made after recent fraud incidents, where fake official accounts of prominent crypto promoters and celebrities were created. On May 26, attackers impersonated the X account of GCR, a well-known crypto influencer, to advertise ORDI and Luna 2. 0 memecoins, which resulted in temporary price surges of 6% to 274%, respectively.

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Similarly, the official X accounts of rapper Rich the Kid and media personality Caitlyn Jenner were compromised. In Rich the Kid’s case, a new token called $RICH was created on the Solana memecoin launchpad pump.fun and promoted on X. The token generated a $90K market cap within the first two minutes of its launch before rapidly declining.

Caitlyn Jenner’s account was used to promote a meme coin named $JENNER, which, based on data from Raydium and GeckoTerminal, its market capitalization rose to $22 million. 

$Jenner no deep fakes. All real crypto. $113.5M volume in just over 4 hours.
Trade here: https://t.co/SiYwteBGkv pic.twitter.com/gyobXOddzI

— Caitlyn Jenner (@Caitlyn_Jenner) May 27, 2024

These promotions quickly turned controversial as the teams behind them were accused of scamming, exploiting their followers for liquidity, and engaging in unethical behavior.

SEC Warns About Crypto

Buterin’s observations apply to an SEC warning released on May 29. Specifically, the SEC warned that investors should refrain from making decisions to invest in cryptocurrencies simply based on information from social media and the internet. The notice encouraged people to conduct extensive research before participating in the deployment of capital in the cryptosphere.

On May 28, Canada warned about the rise of pig butchering and crypto investment scams targeting Canadian citizens. These scams often involve fraudsters building fake relationships with their victims to trick them into making significant investments in fraudulent schemes.

Cryptopolitan reporting by Damilola Lawrence