Scam Michael Saylor Giveaway Causes Bitcoin User to Lose a Record $1.1M

On Saturday, a bitcoin user lost $1.14 million to cyber criminals posing as MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor. The user submitted the equivalent of 26.4 bitcoins (BTC) to an address identified as a bitcoin scam by crypto tracking service Whale Alert.

According to Whale Alert, “this scam received the single largest payment ever to a fake giveaway.”. The payment was made through a Coinbase address.

According to the report, the robbery took place on the website and on YouTube, both of which are “confirmed” fraud venues used by con artists to imitate Michael Saylor.

The YouTube channel has now been removed, and a visit to the website results in an error message.

According to a payment record, the 26.4 BTC was transferred to the principal fraud address in five transactions. At current market rates, the treasure is worth $1.14 million.

The giveaway scam impersonates celebrities such as Michael Saylor to deceive others into donating them bitcoin. They offer to double the cryptocurrency that investors donate — the giveaway – but instead steal the money.

Michael Saylor, the CEO of MicroStrategy, has long been a proponent of bitcoin. His firm has purchased 124,391 BTC since August 2020, making it the greatest ownership of any publicly listed organization. The current market value of the holdings is $5.39 billion.

Saylor responded to the Whale Alert statement by saying:

“[At least] 489 of these scams were launched on YouTube last week. We report them every 15 minutes and they are taken down after a few hours, but the scammers just launch more.”

This is the newest ruse involving Michael Saylor. Someone contributed approximately 3 BTC ($179,000) to a different giveaway portraying the MicroStrategy CEO in November.

Scammers don’t only claim to be Saylor. They also imitate Tesla CEO Elon Musk, as well as government institutions and well-known corporations.

According to a 2020 study from Whale Alert, fraudsters are finding it incredibly simple to dupe individuals out of their bitcoin since their scams have grown unbelievably skilled and aggressive.

It found after examining hundreds of thousands of data points that “crypto crime pays.” Quite a lot.” This is mostly due to the fact that the bitcoin scam industry is practically risk-free, with culprits having a very minimal probability of being detected.

According to Whale Alert, it monitors 9,214 scam websites and 92,955 fake crypto addresses. It has monitored nearly $803 million in stolen digital assets worldwide to far.

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Patrick

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