A group of citizen astronauts forming the SpaceX Inspiration4 mission made a safe landing back to earth after completing a 3-day flight of the first all-civilian crew reaching the earth’s orbit.
The successful launch and return of the SpaceX Inspiration4 mission, which adds to the latest series of space expeditions funded by billionaire passengers, turned out to be an opportunity for scammers to hit unsuspecting users.
According to a Dread Forum post warning about an alleged online crypto scam using Elon Musk’s reputation as a de facto crypto thought leader, scammers are claiming to double user ETH/BTC while showing random websites doing Elon Musk’s crypto giveaways.
Dread user /u/jasonblockchain/ warned everyone against falling into the trap of the scammers that are using social sites and apps like YouTube Live, Instagram and Twitter (See Screenshot).
Figure 1: Dread Forum post warning about an alleged online crypto scam using Elon Musk as a bait.
Before ignoring /u/jasonblockchain/’s warning, you may want to read the recent Bleeping Computer report about crypto scams being propagated as either “Elon Musk Mutual Aid Fund” or the “Elon Musk Club”.
In fact, journalists from the cyber security news website discovered two bitcoin addresses that are associated with the crypto scams. One address has transacted 74 times on the BTC blockchain – it has received a total of $2,489.66 worth of bitcoin and sent a total $0. The other address has transacted 56 times and is currently valued at $2,080.98.
Not the First Time
According to the Federal Trade Commission, Elon Musk impersonators have made away with at least $2 million from unsuspecting victims of crypto scams over the past six months.
The SpaceX founder’s May appearance on Saturday Night Live was preceded by a series of crypto scams involving Bitcoin, Ethereum and Doge tokens – the crypto thieves stole more than $10 million via YouTube.
Further, additional crypto scams have been seen to use the names of other global celebrities like Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Virgin Group’s Richard Branson and Microsoft’s Bill Gates. One of the most famous events in recent memory involved a 5000 BTC giveaway scam leveraging the reputation of Virgin Galactic Chairman Chamath Palihapitiya.
Overall, while you may expect most people to be aware and wary of these fraudulent campaigns, it appears that a number of users are still falling prey to get-rich-quick crypto scammers.
