Bitcoin Investor Loses to Giveaway Scam, Here’s Surprising Amount Lost

Crypto data tracker Whale Alert has detected that a Bitcoin investor has fallen prey to a scam after making a payment of 1.03 BTC worth $20,153 to a «confirmed giveaway scam.»

? ? ? A payment of 1.03 #BTC (20,153 USD) was just made to a confirmed Giveaway scam!https://t.co/x7mlJN8ttm

— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) October 13, 2022

In recent events, unsuspecting crypto investors are now being duped by con artists posing as well-known figures in the cryptocurrency industry on social media. There are also instances of verified Twitter accounts being hijacked and used to advertise fake giveaways intended to defraud token holders of their money.

As reported by U.Today, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse observed that numerous Twitter accounts were replying to tweets using his image.

Garlinghouse also mentioned that other well-known cryptocurrency figures have suffered from bots, with Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin and Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao being two of the main targets of impersonators. An apparent giveaway scam that claimed it would double payments donated to Bitcoin.org, an open-source organization that seeks to support Bitcoin development, resulting in its going offline in September of last year.

«October is biggest month» for hacking activity in 2022

Chainalysis reports that «October is now the biggest month» for hacking activity in 2022. According to the blockchain data analytics firm, at least $718 million has been stolen so far in October alone, pushing the total for the year beyond $3 billion and putting 2022 on track to be a record year for the total value of hacks.

The crypto industry has just been shaken up by two significant exploits. One involved a hacking incident in which a hacker stole about $100 million from the DeFi service Mango by manipulating the token’s price and then the most recent Binance exploit.

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